Absolum

I am happy that the 2D Beat’em Up genre gets so many nice new entries. As a genre that felt kinda dead for over a decade nowadays there is a lot of interesting stuff to choose from. Besides tons of great remasters of classics like the Turtles Collection or Capcom's Fighting Collection, one of the highlights of the last few years was Streets of Rage 4. The same developer now put out his own new IP: Absolum. And I have to say that I like the premise, setting and gameplay just as much or even a bit more than Streets of Rage 4. The colorful fantasy world looks great, the game plays great, the four playable characters feel different from each other and also come with several skills to choose from. There is a lot of variety in both levels and enemies. The boss fights are challenging and fun. And there are lots of routes through the game so that successive playthroughs don’t become boring too quickly. Still, there is a hook - at least for my enjoyment. Absolum is a rogue-lite. If you die, you have to start from the beginning. Collected crystals during a run can be invested in permanent stat increases while collected seeds can be spent to unlock new moves for the characters. There are a few problems with this system though. A run through the game can take almost an entire hour. The final stage and boss is by far the hardest and dying at that barrier over and over and having to replay the whole game can get very frustrating. But the game is pretty hard in general and often confusing with all the stuff happening at once on the screen. It can feel unfair at times. Another problem is that the character stats are maxed out rather quickly. After five hours there is nothing more to unlock to become permanently stronger. So you either get good enough to finish the game in that stat or have to rely on the assist system. Which feels quite like cheating - why not implement proper difficulty settings instead? Also, this system can only be used in offline games. If you play the online coop-mode, there is no way to rely on that system. I also didn’t like the randomness at which you find skills during runs. You always start the game with one set special attack. But advanced moves like a three-hit-sword-combo for the elf need to be found during each run from random boss drops. If you are unlucky you will be forced to use skills that you don’t like or that just aren’t that good. The same goes for passive skills and stat improvements that only count for one run. I seriously don’t like this obsession with the rogue-lite genre many developers follow these days. There are better ways to make a game replayable. Dragon’s Crown is still my gold standard beat’em up game - that game offered tons of replay value through a great loot system and scalable difficulty settings. You never felt like wasting time when a run wasn’t successful and it took a long time to max out characters. It’s a system Absolum should have aimed for instead of being another rogue-lite. See, I don’t enjoy the rogue-lite formula in most games and get quickly frustrated when another run is for nothing. At its core Absolum is a gorgeous, well-playing beat’em up game and in this case it made up for the frustrating parts or me. If you have a tolerance for higher difficulty, long individual runs and rogue-lite mechanics, it's a super easy recommendation. If not, you might be more happy with an alternative.

手绘漫画风最爱永不过时，比哈迪斯爽的动作系统，N网还有国人制作的拓展Mod等全人物成就完成试试

Классная игрушка.

First of all, what a gorgeous game- fantastic visuals and a great soundtrack, alongside some really solid voice acting. The gameplay is really good, with a learning curve that's just steep enough to keep you on your toes, but not steep enough that would make it *too* difficult. The characters are all really interesting, and I think you'd get plenty of story and a unique gameplay experience regardless of who you played. Overall a superbly made title that I'm hyped to see if more content is made for

I enjoy playing this game

GOTY 2025, absolute peak

really fun