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1. PREVIEW
"Hey, Game Heads! Ever come across a game that's simply a flawless masterpiece? Managing to captivate you, thanks to its storytelling, stellar voice acting, mesmerizing music, and breathtaking graphics. In short, an epitome of excellence. Feeling so thrilled by the experience that you rush to the app store or play store to see if others share your enthusiasm, only to find it's severely underrated with just over 500 downloads. That's the story of my latest gaming obsession: After Image Mobile, and today, I'll share my personal take on the game, discussing whether it's worth your time and money. But as always, the final verdict is yours to decide. Let's dive into the review, shall we?"
2. INTRODUCTION
"Afterimage is an action Metroidvania developed by Aurogon Shanghai and published by Modus Games. It was first released for console and Windows in April 2023, making its way to mobile devices later that year in December. There, it didn't get the best of receptions; one can even confidently say it struggled, garnering only 500+ downloads over the course of four months after its release. I think the blame lies on the marketing. Personally, I don't know much about selling a game, but I can say it was very much hush-hush on its release. In fact, I was only able to find it because of a deep search for platformer games."
3. MECHANICS
"Like I said, the game is a heavy RPG Metroidvania, bearing all of its characteristics, with heavy exploration across diverse biomes and scattered pieces of lore to help you understand the world. And believe me, you will need to understand it. The story follows a young mage apprentice, Rennee, and her small floating iFree, who, by the way, reminds me of Paimon, so I think that's what I will refer to her as henceforth. Paimon and Renne are on a quest to save their master Aros, semi-killed by a mysterious girl. At least, that's where the storyline is at at the moment of the script. The story is interesting but not digestible early on, especially because of the convoluted, confusing world system that isn't explained to you at the onset. This isn't a bad thing though; Hollow Knight, a very good Metroidvania, also threw me in the mix for the first couple of hours."
4. COMBAT
"The combat and exploration are where the game shines most, more so in combat than in exploration. With flashy animations and sparkly clashes being the norm. What I found interesting is the diversity of weapons, with each having animations and even key prompts unlocked by upgrading the talent tree. Yeah, trees are very important in the game. These new move prompts are different depending on the type of weapon you are wielding, and they are allocated upgrades which you can turn off as well."
5. CONTROLS
"The controls consist of a joystick, two attack slots for several weapons, jump, dash button, and magic maker button. You also unlock new controls as you develop your perk tree. The controls are very responsive and fluid, a must-have for any Metroidvania and a strong complement to the intense combat design. There may be a lot of buttons filling up your screen, but the game also offers customization that's actually pretty generous and allows you to go nuts."
6. MY THOUGHTS
"The game urges you to explore a very big and downright intimidating map rendered in incredible graphics, offering surprises and chests for the curious mind. It also offers a variety of biomes, each with their accompanied enemy types, bringing something new to the combat and leaving you on your toes, from spider monkeys of the jungle to floating mushrooms, undead knights, archers, and more. There is a certain vibe to each area. The music quality is lacking though and doesn't really carry the game. Sometimes it bugs out, and boss fights are left stale without any intensity to them. The reason I am so picky about this feature is because of Hollow Knight and the immersiveness that each zone brought. And I think if it was done well, the uniqueness of each zone would have been intensified. But it necessarily isn't an immersion breaker or anything like that. That, for me, would be the quick travel system, probably the major issue in the game, which uses consumables except you are traveling through the major save points which are these massive trees that are found pretty scarcely and far apart from each other. But if you want to travel between the smaller checkpoints, you will have to use consumables. Though the consumables are pretty cheap and can be purchased at your local town merchant, it's still a frustrating mechanic as you can't really travel without them. So, backtracking, a major mechanic in the game, is kind of cut off. This leads to an inventory management practice where you have to travel to get more warp potions, and that's kinda tedious and downright unnecessary."
7. "Speaking of inventory, the game tilts toward a more RPG sense with craftables, weapons, armor, spells, etc., which you can upgrade using materials found from enemy drops."
8. CONCLUSION
"In conclusion, I had a wonderful time playing it. At the time of recording, I'm already like 3 hours plus into the game. I haven't really had many crashes, and I am using a mid-range phone and playing on ultra, and the graphics options are pretty generous. I've had a blast playing it and would give it a solid 10/10 astronauts.
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