“If you loved X, you have to play this.” is the clickbait title you’ll see, the lede buried past the few opening paragraphs to make sure you don’t click away until the ads have loaded. I’ll admit I’m not immune to it and Google has picked up on it, serving me many a page with similar construction tempting me to click through. This wasn’t how I came to Absolum, indeed it’d been on my list for some time, but many were suggesting that once you were done with Hades 2 then your next game simply must be it. In all honesty I don’t think you could do both yourself and the game more disservice by doing so. I mean, and I am projecting somewhat here, the comparisons between the two make Absolum come out much worse overall and the similarities are few enough that I don’t feel like they’re comparable experiences. With all that in mind though whilst I love the core of what Absolum is I couldn’t push myself to see it through to the end.
In the land of Talamh the use of magic has been banned and those who continue to practice it have been hunted to near extinction. Their last refuge is with Uchawi, a powerful sorceress who can bring those she calls her children back to life if they should fall. Her motley crew consists of four magic users, all of whom set out to defeat the tyrannical Sun King Azra every chance they get. The journey is not easy or straightforward though and her children will go through many cycles of fighting, death and rebirth before they’ll achieve their goal. You’ll soon learn though that not everything you’ve been told is as it seems and there’s much greater things at stake.
It’s well known that I’m a sucker for hand-drawn games and Absolum is no exception to this. The art style feels like a modern evolution of the Flash graphics of yesteryear with its stark outlining, squash and stretch animation styles and high levels of detail. That last point can work against you in some circumstances, especially when you’re trying to find the hidden items or paths that the game likes to scatter about the place. Still, once you know what to look for (or more importantly when you should try looking) that becomes a less tedious affair. To top this all off the sound track comes to us via none other than the venerable Gareth Croker, the composer behind other such amazing soundtracks as that in the Ori series of games and Immortals: Fenyx Rising.
Absolum is an evolution of those side-scrolling beat em ups that were a staple of my childhood. You get your choice of 4 characters (unlocked through normal progression) each of whom have a different set of abilities, skills and buffs but retain much of the same core movesets for regular combat. As you progress through the game you’ll unlock things like talent trees, permanent buffs to different elemental attacks and a range of other mechanics that will assist you in making it past some of the game’s more challenging elements. All the way through you’ll be treated to fragments of the story, the world building up around you as you make your way through each of the different sections. All in all it’s a well rounded game that doesn’t try to do much, keeping the core experience tight.
Combat is probably where things started to come unstuck for me although I’m not quite ready to lay the blame directly on Absolum. I didn’t note this in my review of The Rogue Prince of Persia but for some reason 2D combat doesn’t seem to gel with me as much as it used to. I seem to struggle with what feels like inconsistent hit detection on abilities (both mine and the NPCs), movement feeling wonky and just generally feeling like the whole experience is more difficult than it should be. This is coming from someone who lost 35+ hours to Hades II so I feel like the challenge or grind isn’t the issue here. I’m certainly in the minority in feeling this way too as many have praised Absolum for its combat experience.
I will have to say though that I did get the feeling that there was a depth to the game I wasn’t exactly getting. I had a few amazing runs where the build I’d managed to cobble together seemed utterly broken and the only thing that stopped me was unfamiliar boss fights or new mechanics that took great chunks of my health away before I knew what was happening. The progression systems too seem ripe for min/maxing, something which people on the Steam Community boards have talked about endlessly. So whilst the core game loop might not have resonated with me personally that probably says a lot more about me than it does the game.
I’m in two minds about the narrative. On the one hand I liked that it didn’t go out of its way to dump exposition on me, instead leaving those little glittering lights around the place as breadcrumbs for those who enjoy a little bit more worldbuilding. On the other though there wasn’t much for me to grab onto, nothing that really compelled me or drove me towards understanding more about the world. Again, I have to admit that I’m probably missing a large chunk of the narrative due to not making it the full way through even once so maybe that hook was just a few more hours of gameplay away.
Absolum then represents the disconnect between me as a player and a reviewer. The reviewer in me can appreciate the game’s construction, it’s nods to the games of the past that brought it here and it’s overall good construction that make it a solid game. However as I played it I just didn’t find myself wanting to play it more, everything seemingly rubbing me in just the wrong way that made putting it down far easier than it otherwise would’ve been. So whilst the following score might seem low to some please know that it’s only representative of my experience and I know I’m likely in the minority here.
Rating: 7.0/10
Absolum is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch right now for $36.50. Game was played on the PC with a total of 5.6 hours playtime and 27% of the achievements unlocked.
