My time with Afterimage left me tilting my head. It wasn’t from something within the core gameplay, nor was it from any questionable aesthetic selections. No, my confusion principally got here from the in-game textual content and storytelling components that had been launched. It result in a not disagreeable expertise, however I had extra questions than solutions.
Because the demo for Afterimage began, the opening cutscene depicts a world falling aside. Some type of cataclysm has disrupted elementary forces of life and dying because of the passing of a god. It’s the place developer Aurogon Shanghai deftly showcased the painterly paintings for the sport.
Nevertheless it was additionally the place the sport misplaced me inside these essential minutes. My aforementioned synopsis was solely after lots of guesswork and reverse engineering of plot factors peppered all through the preview construct. The exposition is full of capitalized correct names and phrases which can be just a bit off from their meant use. That is constant throughout the complete demo. I actually could not inform if this was the sport aiming for deliberately imprecise worldbuilding or if this was a case of subpar English localization.
This obfuscation finally pale as I acquired into Afterimage’s action-platformer gameplay. The artwork path continued to shine as I went from location to location, combating enemies and navigating terrain. I moved seamlessly via a jungle to an open subject to an deserted fortress to a collection of tunnels, and the whole lot had this heat and interesting mixture of colour and lighting. Impressively, the overall aesthetic strikes effortlessly from darker, extra savage designs within the first half to a extra rounded and ethereal look within the second. Within the opening moments, I used to be combating a ferocious wolf monster and bats, by the top I used to be combating cute rock golems and bipedal grape lizards. If a mix of Genshin Impression and Symphony of the Evening sounds nice to you, you’ll take pleasure in Afterimage’s look.
As for the gameplay itself, it was acquainted however first rate. Platforming took a little bit of getting used to since there was no mantling or wall-jump mechanic. That is notable since a good quantity of the early platform had some pixel-perfect gaps. I did achieve an air sprint after an early boss battle, which did assist a bit. As for the fight, it was a bit underwhelming. You begin the sport with a typical sword and a single assault. Finally, enemies will drop different weapons, providing you with extra choices. Whereas the sport does reference different weapon sorts, solely swords and greatswords dropped for me. Mainly, my fight choices remained principally the identical all through my two hours with Afterimage, and it acquired stale.
The RPG components did not do a lot to alleviate this. You may unlock sure advantages by placing factors into a number of branching talent bushes. The issue is the rewards are principally incremental will increase in well being and assault energy. There are unlockable particular assaults, however by the point I unlocked one the demo had ended.
With these complaints in thoughts, I nonetheless loved the fight in Afterimage. Whereas the fight wasn’t as sturdy as I’d have appreciated, the creature designs and assault animations had been all distinct and expressive. This helped give the boss battles an virtually Soulslike high quality, beginning with straightforward and comprehensible patterns earlier than turning into a number of assault strings. The ultimate boss of the demo was particularly difficult because it chained collectively assaults with portals.
Wanting again at my time with Afterimage, I used to be left with various questions. The sport’s questionable localization result in me having bother understanding fundamentals. Who was it I fought close to the top and why? What’s the perform of protagonist Ifree’s floating companion? From a gameplay perspective, it felt like sure components had been launched after which by no means talked about. There is a mana bar, however no magic spells dropped. There is a utterly separate development menu, known as Afterimage, that wasn’t used in any respect. These are mysteries that may probably be answered within the full sport, however within the context of a preview, they stick out as outliers.
Total, Afterimage has the inspiration of an pleasant metroidvania. The artwork path could be very interesting. The fight, whereas restricted, works. The enemy and site selection is nice. I simply hope that the story and the world make a bit extra sense come the complete launch.
TechRaptor previewed Afterimage on PC utilizing a preview code offered by the writer.
