Afterimage

终于也是结束了。比想象中要更好玩。优点：量大管饱，很多种武器以及技能，boss数量多，战斗爽。而且整体游戏非常简单。质量还是可以的。缺点：非常多的收集要素还有隐藏，获取麻烦。感觉部分地图如果去除一些收集和隐藏会好很多。做最后的收集成就起码耗费不少时间。不过总体来说还是不错的。

在b站上看到了游戏制作人的视频，我本身也是特别喜欢横版游戏，独立游戏制作人都太不容易，致敬！游戏目前玩下来还是很不错的，支持国产类银！

This game is terribly generic and mediocre; it feels like a game with no identity or soul. At first glance it may look appealing. But as soon as the player begins exploring, the question “Why do I even want to explore this world?” quickly surfaces. The level design is superficial at best, yet the world itself is unnecessarily huge. What's worse, there’s no direction, no meaningful points of interest to guide the exploration, so traversing the map becomes nothing more than a slog. The same issue extends to items, equipment, and enemy design. It feels that there's no distinction between them; they all feel very repetitive, as if the same ideas are being thrown at the player over and over. As for the narrative, it seems like the game does not even try to tell a proper story—a story that is never interesting to begin with. A metroidvania should have good pacing, at least a carefully designed pacing. Strong pacing keeps players hooked by consistently introducing fresh experiences; which this game does not have. When the same things are repeated constantly, it really can destroy the flow, and instead only highlights how boring the game is (maybe also how untalented the dev is). Big does not always equal beautiful—if anything that’s a lesson this game teaches. When a dev can’t execute everything well, it’s better to scale back and let go of some. As the Chinese saying says: when you bite off too much, you end up unable to chew.

Pros: Absolutely massive world, fun level and weapon progression, gorgeous aesthetic, phenomenal soundtrack, loads of unique enemies, smooth combat, smooth and fun movement with good sequence-breaking tech, good fast travel options, intense boss fights, a handful of puzzles, and loads of cool obstacle courses. Cons: Bad quest tracking, no explanation for some game mechanics (see: equippable afterimages), and confusing story progression. I think this game is one of the best examples of a metroidvania, and even has a few not-so-subtle nods to SotN that I appreciated. Each of the areas feel large, but as you play you come across more and more, and the entire world just opens up. Each zone has a single fast-travel point to move between them, but you can also get consumable items to teleport instantly to any checkpoint, so backtracking is not at all frustrating. Most of the exploration is gated by enemy levels more than locked doors or new tech that nudges you in the right direction. There is so much verticality, and great movement, with beautifully hand-drawn backgrounds that rival Ori's, and a number of different weapon types with lots of combat ability progression, and a number of unique weapon abilities. I am thoroughly impressed by this title. It is easily worth the full price.

Great Metroidvania. A pretty handdrawn world to play in. Bosses have great designs with alot of variations. Gameplay feels pretty smooth and direct. Game never feels unfair. A billion weapons to choose from and alot of them have unique effects. At some point the world open ups alot more with multiple knew areas at once and then its difficult to not get lost.

jogo muito bom, 10/10

Afterimage is a nice metroidvania that stays true to the genre. Metroidvanias are a dime a dozen and I'm not particularly keen on the genre as a gamer, but I do dip into them every now and then for work reasons. This is another game I bought for research to help my team at work to ramp up their 2D art chops. The anime-styled main character was the main draw for me. Her in-game animation is not as fluid and juicy as it could have been but it is still quite appealing. While the craftmanship of the other characters and the environment art is quite high, they are also a farily generic fantasy themed. It's pretty but not memorable. All in all, Afterimage is fun, pretty and feels good to play. I might come back to at some point but I doubt I will ever bother to finish it.