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 have 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 form 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 a whole lot 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 might be just a bit off from their meant use. That is constant throughout your entire demo. I truthfully could not inform if this was the sport aiming for deliberately obscure worldbuilding or if this was a case of subpar English localization.
This obfuscation ultimately pale as I received into Afterimage’s action-platformer gameplay. The artwork course continued to shine as I went from location to location, preventing enemies and navigating terrain. I moved seamlessly by a jungle to an open subject to an deserted fort to a collection of tunnels, and the whole lot had this heat and interesting mixture of colour and lighting. Impressively, the final 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 preventing a ferocious wolf monster and bats, by the tip I used to be preventing 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. Ultimately, 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. Principally, my fight choices remained principally the identical all through my two hours with Afterimage, and it received stale.
The RPG components did not do a lot to alleviate this. You’ll be able to unlock sure advantages by placing factors into a number of branching talent timber. 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 favored, the creature designs and assault animations have been all distinct and expressive. This helped give the boss battles an nearly Soulslike high quality, beginning with simple 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.
Trying again at my time with Afterimage, I used to be left with a variety of questions. The sport’s questionable localization result in me having hassle understanding fundamentals. Who was it I fought close to the tip and why? What’s the operate of protagonist Ifree’s floating companion? From a gameplay perspective, it felt like sure components have been launched after which by no means talked about. There is a mana bar, however no magic spells dropped. There is a fully separate development menu, referred to as Afterimage, that wasn’t used in any respect. These are mysteries that can almost certainly be answered within the full recreation, however within the context of a preview, they stick out as outliers.
Total, Afterimage has the muse of an pleasing metroidvania. The artwork course may 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.