TL;DR a Metroidvania for only the most dedicated, but casual fans will probably want to stay away.
Afterimage is really an interesting game. I didn't hate it, in fact the combat was really great and I was pleased with the weapon combinations and abilities, but the rest of the game is just so hostile that by the end I just really didn't want to play any more.
Let's start with the good. The combat is fantastic, you immediately get a choice of four pretty standard weapons: the standard sword, the faster dual blades, the long range whip, and the slow but strong greatsword. Each has their place and those with a preferred build will fit right in, though what is interesting is that you can equip another to the secondary attack and use both at once. I stuck with the sword and greatsword and didn't change at all.
I also think the length in general is pretty good. It took me about 20 hours to get some of the endings, but tuned out after that for reasons I'll list below, I just wish it was a little more engaging.
The art and music are really good. Beautifully drawn detail-rich environments await, with the standard biomes that you would expect (town, sky, lava, ice, etc.) with matching music that never got annoying or wore their welcome.
Ok, that said the navigation and story are a complete mess. First, the map is WAY too big. I love a metroidvania with a large map but this is the limit, for sure. To add, there's a quest log, but there are no map or quest markers to tell you where to go. In a good metroidvania, the visual language is key, it should be fairly obvious where to go, as you'll have max 2 options. Not here. The maps are so large that backtracking is more of a pain than anything and you'll end up spending fast travel resources (which are consumable, what an insane decision) unless you backtrack enough to reach the free, limited fast travel point.
The story also doesn't help. It is so bad and I completely tuned out minute one. If you're starting the game with a jargon info dump, I'm not interested. In a story-driven RPG or action game, sure. But I'm playing a metroidvania for the gameplay first, and if you're not going to give a quest marker or a checklist, or really any direction then you're not ever going to pull me back in.
And then, this game does two cardinal sins of a metroidvania. So I got thorough this one pretty quickly. The bosses are pretty easy and can be taken down in one go, and I was making decent progress until I needed a few upgrades. The amount of time I spent looking and searching and backtracking (again, with no obvious direction or hint), and god forbid the quest log give you any help. I spent probably about 8 hours aimlessly running around. No good.
The second sin is just completing the map. You get the treasure tracker item way late, but the map is so huge, I wasn't going to spend another few hours scouring every singe inch of the map looking for extra currency or items that are worse than my current gear. Not to mention the quest items that I wasn't even sure I needed or were really told to get and stumbled on in passing.
Overall this game is just a mess. The developers just didn't know when to stop with the map and should have kept the story simple. If you are a die-hard metroidvania fan, check this out. Maybe you'll have a better time than I did with this, but it really did try to fight me at every turn.
Metroidvanias I played in 2024 Ranked:
1. Animal Well
2. Blasphemous 2
3. Afterimage
4. The Mummy Demastered
Afterimage is really an interesting game. I didn't hate it, in fact the combat was really great and I was pleased with the weapon combinations and abilities, but the rest of the game is just so hostile that by the end I just really didn't want to play any more.
Let's start with the good. The combat is fantastic, you immediately get a choice of four pretty standard weapons: the standard sword, the faster dual blades, the long range whip, and the slow but strong greatsword. Each has their place and those with a preferred build will fit right in, though what is interesting is that you can equip another to the secondary attack and use both at once. I stuck with the sword and greatsword and didn't change at all.
I also think the length in general is pretty good. It took me about 20 hours to get some of the endings, but tuned out after that for reasons I'll list below, I just wish it was a little more engaging.
The art and music are really good. Beautifully drawn detail-rich environments await, with the standard biomes that you would expect (town, sky, lava, ice, etc.) with matching music that never got annoying or wore their welcome.
Ok, that said the navigation and story are a complete mess. First, the map is WAY too big. I love a metroidvania with a large map but this is the limit, for sure. To add, there's a quest log, but there are no map or quest markers to tell you where to go. In a good metroidvania, the visual language is key, it should be fairly obvious where to go, as you'll have max 2 options. Not here. The maps are so large that backtracking is more of a pain than anything and you'll end up spending fast travel resources (which are consumable, what an insane decision) unless you backtrack enough to reach the free, limited fast travel point.
The story also doesn't help. It is so bad and I completely tuned out minute one. If you're starting the game with a jargon info dump, I'm not interested. In a story-driven RPG or action game, sure. But I'm playing a metroidvania for the gameplay first, and if you're not going to give a quest marker or a checklist, or really any direction then you're not ever going to pull me back in.
And then, this game does two cardinal sins of a metroidvania. So I got thorough this one pretty quickly. The bosses are pretty easy and can be taken down in one go, and I was making decent progress until I needed a few upgrades. The amount of time I spent looking and searching and backtracking (again, with no obvious direction or hint), and god forbid the quest log give you any help. I spent probably about 8 hours aimlessly running around. No good.
The second sin is just completing the map. You get the treasure tracker item way late, but the map is so huge, I wasn't going to spend another few hours scouring every singe inch of the map looking for extra currency or items that are worse than my current gear. Not to mention the quest items that I wasn't even sure I needed or were really told to get and stumbled on in passing.
Overall this game is just a mess. The developers just didn't know when to stop with the map and should have kept the story simple. If you are a die-hard metroidvania fan, check this out. Maybe you'll have a better time than I did with this, but it really did try to fight me at every turn.
Metroidvanias I played in 2024 Ranked:
1. Animal Well
2. Blasphemous 2
3. Afterimage
4. The Mummy Demastered