Info about Afterimage:

Official game description:
Deluxe Edition
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The Deluxe Edition includes the full game, digital artbook, and digital soundtrack
DISCORD
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About the Game
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A great deity created the world named Engardin, leaving four goliaths before her departure. The Goliaths abided by their different divine callings and upheld the order and flow of this world. Hence, the lives in Engardin reincarnated and multiplied.  
Humans were the last creation, and their ever-expanding ambitions led to a protracted war against the Goliaths. Engardin was engulfed in flames, until a huge explosion known as "The Razing" devastated the Holy Grounds of mankind and brought a swift end to the conflict. But the divine order was broken, and lives withered away. The age of mankind came to an end.  
The survivors of the conflict scattered across Engardin. Severed from the Well of Mankind and unable to reincarnate, they banded together to form settlements. Years have passed since this great cataclysm, and the remaining human settlements have been suddenly assaulted by mystic forces. Renee, a young amnesiac girl and student of Aros, was the lone survivor of the attack on her village. Determined to recover her forgotten memories and locate her lost mentor, she bids farewell to her destroyed village to embark on a journey that will inexplicably set into motion a series of events that will determine the fate of this new world.  
**Experience a gorgeous hand-drawn world**
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Engardin is not only filled with sublime beauty but also plagued by crises. The ruins of Engardin are home to many treasures and secrets, but the Corrupted are waiting for their next prey and ancient deadly traps are ready to kill the careless.
**Fight Fierce Enemies**
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With humanity in retreat, nature and the creatures that inhabit it have reclaimed Engardin as their own. Battle through over 170 varieties of enemies and 30 tough boss encounters that stand between you and your goal. Bountiful rewards await those who can weather these brutal combat trials.
**Diversified Character Builds**
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Harness and channel the power of defeated enemies to unlock powerful skills and upgrade a diverse arsenal of weaponry. Become the master of your own fighting style with over 200 different equipment to collect and choose from including 6 classes of main weapon, sub weapon, armor, and accessories.  
*   **Explore a non-linear world** - unearth the secrets buried deep within the ruins of the vast interconnected world of Engardin. Interact with over 50 different NPCs, each with their own story and purpose. Learn more about their role in Engardin through side quests!  
*   Fight over 170 varieties of enemies, including 30 tough boss encounters.  
*   **Deep RPG mechanics allow for diverse character builds** – over 200 different equipment to collect and choose from including 6 classes of main weapon, sub weapon, armor and accessories. Invest talent points into a variety of stat upgrades and unique weapon skills for each class of weapon.  
*   **Determine the fate of the world** – discover multiple endings depending on Renee’s actions that will shape the future of Engardin.  
*   Stunning 2D art style with animations hand-drawn frame-by-frame.  
*   Discover new abilities and new Afterimages that grant unique benefits in your exploration and combat. Use these skills to access new areas, shortcuts, and master these in combat to defeat more difficult enemy encounters!  
*   Over 40 original orchestral tracks composed by the Aurogon Sound Team and fully recorded by International Master Philharmonic Orchestra and other various musicians.

Release date: 24 Apr, 2023

Categories: Metroidvania, Exploration, Real-time Combat, RPG, Character Progression, Multiple Endings, Single-player Story, Boss Rush


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Excellent Metroidvania Experience (weight 0.88): Players overwhelmingly praise the game as an excellent, enjoyable, and highly recommended Metroidvania. Many consider it a masterpiece within the genre, offering significant value for its price and providing a memorable experience.
- Vast & Rewarding Exploration (weight 0.56): A standout feature is the game's massive and interconnected map, which is frequently cited as one of the largest in the Metroidvania genre. Exploration is highly rewarding, with abundant secrets, hidden areas, and diverse biomes that encourage curiosity and extended playtime.
- Diverse Weapons & RPG Progression (weight 0.47): Players appreciate the extensive variety of enemies, weapons, and RPG elements. The diverse weapon types, each with unique movesets and skill trees, allow for varied playstyles and satisfying character progression, keeping combat fresh and engaging.
- Stunning Hand-Drawn Art Style (weight 0.33): The game's art style is consistently lauded as beautiful, exquisite, and visually stunning. Players highlight the hand-drawn backgrounds, vibrant colors, and detailed character designs as major strengths that enhance the overall aesthetic and immersion.
- Abundant Post-Game Content (weight 0.16): The game offers substantial content beyond the main story, including multiple endings and numerous side quests. The ability to achieve all endings and achievements in a single playthrough is a highly appreciated player-friendly feature.
- Excellent & Atmospheric Music (weight 0.08): The game's music and soundtrack are consistently praised as excellent, charming, and fitting for the game's atmosphere. The audio design contributes positively to immersion and overall player enjoyment.

Common complaints:
- Confusing Story & Poor Guidance (weight 0.99): The story is overwhelmingly described as confusing, convoluted, and difficult to follow, often due to fragmented presentation, excessive lore dumps, and poor translation. This lack of narrative clarity is compounded by non-existent in-game guidance for main and side quests, leaving players constantly lost and unsure of their objectives or progression.
- Vast, Empty & Confusing Map (weight 0.77): The map is criticized for being excessively large, empty, and repetitive, making traversal a chore. Poor map design, including a lack of a minimap, insufficient fast travel points, and numerous dead ends, leads to constant aimless wandering and tedious backtracking, significantly hindering exploration and progression.
- Clunky & Unengaging Combat (weight 0.74): The combat system is widely criticized for being clunky, repetitive, and lacking depth. Players report that most bosses can be brute-forced without strategy, and the absence of invincibility frames on dodge (especially early on) makes evasion frustrating and often impossible, leading to a 'trade hits' playstyle. This contributes to a generally unengaging and monotonous combat experience.
- Inconsistent Difficulty & Bosses (weight 0.71): The game's difficulty is inconsistent, with many players finding normal mode too easy and bosses lacking challenge, often due to over-leveling or exploitable mechanics. Conversely, some early or mid-game sections and specific bosses present frustrating difficulty spikes, often due to unfair mechanics or unavoidable attacks, leading to a lack of satisfaction.
- Frustrating & Tedious Platforming (weight 0.65): Platforming sections are a major source of frustration, described as numerous, tedious, and overly difficult. Players report low error tolerance, long re-attempts due to distant save points, and unfair designs that often lead to unavoidable damage or being sent back to the start, making these sections feel like torture rather than challenge.
- Limited & Costly Fast Travel (weight 0.43): The fast travel system is widely disliked due to its scarcity, requiring consumable items for most teleportation, and inconvenient placement of save points. This forces players into long, repetitive runs across the vast map, adding to the overall tedium and frustration of traversal.
- Tedious Completion & Hidden Items (weight 0.39): Achieving 100% completion, including finding hidden items and all endings, is described as extremely tedious and often impossible without external guides. Collectibles are poorly rewarded, hidden obscurely, and require excessive backtracking across the large map, leading to player burnout and a lack of motivation.
- No Invincibility Frames on Dodge (weight 0.36): The lack of invincibility frames (i-frames) on dodge, especially in the early game, is a critical flaw. This, combined with collision damage from enemies and wide, fast boss attacks, makes effective evasion nearly impossible and forces players to rely on brute-forcing encounters, undermining the action gameplay.
- Unexplained & Useless Skills (weight 0.29): The game's skill and weapon systems are poorly explained and often feel unimpactful. Many skills and weapon abilities are described as useless, difficult to use, or providing negligible stat boosts, leading to a lack of meaningful progression and variety in combat.

Gameplay feedback:
- Metroidvania Progression & Abilities (weight 0.18): The game incorporates Metroidvania-style progression, requiring players to acquire new traversal abilities like double jump, wall climb, and dash to access new areas and items. While some bosses are noted as easy, the game features platforming challenges and encourages exploration to overcome difficulties, with abilities evolving over time.
- Classic Metroidvania with Soulslike Elements (weight 0.13): The game is firmly rooted in the Metroidvania genre, drawing heavy inspiration from titles like Castlevania (especially GBA/DS entries) and Hollow Knight. It blends classic Metroidvania exploration and progression with Soulslike combat elements, offering a familiar yet distinct experience.
- Variable Difficulty Settings (weight 0.13): The game offers multiple difficulty settings, including 'Normal' and 'Advanced'. While 'Normal' is generally considered easy, allowing players to brute force challenges, 'Advanced' mode increases enemy and boss difficulty, providing a more challenging experience for genre veterans.
- Consumable-Based Fast Travel (weight 0.08): The game features a fast travel system, which is introduced later in the game. It utilizes 'Tree' locations for major teleportation and consumable 'Resting Potions' for travel to any visited save point from anywhere on the map, though some found the consumable requirement restrictive.
- Customizable Skill Tree (weight 0.06): The game features a skill or talent tree system that allows for character customization and different playstyles. Skill points, earned through leveling and exploration, unlock weapon-related skills and passive bonuses, though some players noted redundancy or limited usable skills.
- Melee-Centric Combat System (weight 0.05): Combat is primarily melee-focused, offering a hack-and-slash experience with various weapon types and a skill tree. While some players found combat decent and typical for the genre, others noted limited options, often relying on spacing and ranged attacks, with a lack of traditional blocking or parrying.
- Manual Map Marking System (weight 0.04): The game provides a comprehensive map system with manual marking capabilities, allowing players to place custom icons for treasures, difficult areas, or collectibles. This feature is crucial for backtracking and 100% completion, as the game does not automatically mark all locations.
- Achievement & Save System (weight 0.04): The game supports a single save file for all achievements, including a New Game+ mode that adds to the story. There are 46 achievements in total, with no difficulty-based requirements, making 100% completion feasible within one playthrough.

Performance notes:
- Significant performance issues (weight 0.05): Many players report significant performance issues, including severe frame drops, long loading times, and graphical glitches, even on powerful PCs. Some users also noted their hardware fans spinning excessively, indicating high resource usage. This suggests poor optimization for various system configurations.
- Frequent bugs and glitches (weight 0.03): Players frequently encounter bugs, particularly with controller input where button presses are not registered consistently. Other reported issues include minor map menu glitches, problems with enemy AI, and frustrating save/load animations. There's a clear desire for these control and minor gameplay bugs to be addressed.
- Good Steam Deck performance (weight 0.01): The game appears to run well on the Steam Deck, achieving 60 FPS at 1080p with high settings and offering good battery life. This indicates strong optimization for Valve's handheld device.

Recommendations:
- Mixed Recommendations & Value (weight 0.58): Player sentiment regarding the game's overall value and recommendation is highly mixed, ranging from strong recommendations to outright warnings against purchase. Many suggest buying only on sale, indicating a perceived mismatch between full price and value, while others praise it as a must-play.
- Strong for Metroidvania Fans (weight 0.33): The game is frequently recommended for fans of the Metroidvania genre, especially those who enjoy exploration and titles like Castlevania. However, some veteran players find it falls short compared to masterpieces like Hollow Knight, suggesting it's better suited for those seeking a new experience after exhausting other top-tier games.
- Rewarding for Explorers (weight 0.08): Players who enjoy extensive exploration, map completion, and finding hidden items will likely appreciate the game. It's recommended for those who don't mind getting lost in a large world and are willing to invest time in uncovering its secrets.
- Difficulty & Guide Use (weight 0.04): Many players recommend starting on 'Advanced' difficulty for a more engaging and challenging experience, as 'Normal' mode might be too easy. Some also suggest using guides, especially for 100% completion or early navigation, to mitigate potential frustration.
- Demand for Sequel/DLC (weight 0.04): A significant number of players express a desire for a sequel or future DLC, indicating a positive overall impression and a wish for more content from the developers. This suggests the game, despite its flaws, left a lasting positive impression on many.
- Player Fatigue & Abandonment (weight 0.02): Some players found the game too frustrating or tedious to complete, leading them to abandon it. This indicates potential issues with pacing, difficulty spikes, or repetitive elements that can lead to player fatigue.

Other player notes:
- Navigation & Future Content (weight 0.11): Many players found themselves needing guides or external maps to progress, indicating potential issues with in-game navigation or quest clarity. There's a strong desire for future content like DLC or sequels, and general hope for developer improvement.
- Long Playtime & Completion (weight 0.09): Players report varying completion times, from 20 to over 80 hours, with many achieving 100% completion and all achievements around the 40-50 hour mark. The game is generally perceived as long, especially for completionists.
- Overall Quality is Decent (weight 0.05): The game is generally considered decent or acceptable, but not outstanding. Players acknowledge its flaws and areas needing improvement, often giving it a neutral or slightly above-average rating.
- Mixed Story Reception (weight 0.04): Player opinions on the story are mixed; some find it uninteresting or confusing, especially early on, while others find it engaging or at least not detrimental to gameplay. The plot's clarity is a recurring point of discussion.
- Domestic Game Support (weight 0.03): The game is recognized as a domestic (Chinese) production, with players often expressing support for the developer and hoping for continued improvement in future domestic titles.
- Multiple & True Endings (weight 0.03): The game features multiple endings, including a 'true ending' that requires specific actions or DLC content. Players often mention completing various endings, indicating replayability or a desire to see all narrative conclusions.
- Good Value at Low Price (weight 0.02): A significant number of players purchased the game at a low price, often on sale or as part of a bundle. This low price point is frequently cited as a reason for trying the game and contributes to its perceived value.
- Anime-Style Art Direction (weight 0.01): The game's art style is described as hand-drawn and anime-inspired, contributing to its visual appeal.

Emotions:
- Satisfaction (weight 0.26): Players felt satisfied by the game's overall quality, including its engaging combat, extensive content, beautiful art style, and rewarding exploration. Achieving milestones like platinum trophies or true endings also contributed to a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
- Frustration (weight 0.24): Frustration primarily stemmed from poor map design, limited fast travel, and unclear quest guidance, leading to players getting lost and excessive backtracking. Clunky controls, collision damage, and unfair difficulty spikes in combat or platforming sections also significantly contributed to negative experiences.
- Disappointment (weight 0.18): Disappointment arose from the game's perceived mediocrity, particularly its unfulfilling story, repetitive combat, and unrewarding exploration despite a large volume of content. Players also expressed regret over the purchase due to design flaws and a general lack of polish that failed to meet expectations for a Metroidvania title.
- Excitement (weight 0.06): Excitement was generated by the game's high overall quality, vast map, and abundant content, which promised many hours of engaging gameplay. Players were particularly thrilled by the dynamic combat, diverse enemies, and the potential for future content from the developers.
- Enjoyment (weight 0.04): Players found enjoyment in the game's addictive gameplay loop, beautiful art style, and immersive atmosphere. The smooth combat, rewarding exploration, and continuous progression throughout the game also contributed to a consistently fun experience.
- Confusion (weight 0.03): Confusion was mainly caused by the game's unclear and fragmented story, often exacerbated by poor translation. Players also struggled with map navigation due to a lack of guidance and found certain game mechanics or item uses to be poorly explained.
- Anger (weight 0.03): Anger was a strong reaction to perceived poor design choices, particularly frustrating platforming sections and unfair combat mechanics like instant kills or collision damage. Bugs, save file corruption, and a sense of artificial playtime inflation also fueled player rage.
- Appreciation (weight 0.02): Players appreciated the game's beautiful visuals, atmospheric music, and deep combat system. The meticulous design, value for money, and thoughtful homages to classic games also garnered significant praise.
- Boredom (weight 0.02): Boredom set in due to the game's perceived low difficulty, repetitive combat, and tedious map traversal. The vast, often empty map and uninteresting boss fights contributed to a lack of sustained interest, leading some players to abandon the game.
- Annoyance (weight 0.01): Annoyance stemmed from various quality-of-life issues, such as unskippable dialogue, inconvenient fast travel costs, and repetitive animations. Frustrating enemy placements, spike traps, and late-game grind also contributed to a general sense of irritation.
- Joy (weight 0.01): Joy was experienced through the game's stunning visuals, beautiful music, and engaging characters. The fun gameplay, rewarding exploration, and the achievement of different endings also brought a sense of delight to players.
- Admiration (weight 0.01): Admiration was directed towards the game's exceptional art style, immersive atmosphere, and overall high quality as a Metroidvania. Players were particularly impressed by the well-executed plot and clever design ideas.
- Surprise (weight 0.01): Players were surprised by the game's unexpected quality, massive size, and abundant content, often exceeding their initial low expectations. The game's low rating on platforms despite its perceived quality also caused surprise.
- Discomfort (weight 0): Discomfort was reported due to issues like eye strain from colors, motion sickness from screen scrolling, and physical pain from prolonged play. Clunky controls and collision damage also contributed to an unpleasant playing experience.
- Hope (weight 0): Hope was expressed for future improvements, potential DLC, and sequels, indicating a desire for the developers to continue building upon the game's foundation. Players wished for simpler platforming and continued content.
- Neutrality (weight 0): Neutrality reflected a balanced assessment, acknowledging the game's flaws while still appreciating its core strengths. Some players found the game to be bland or ordinary, lacking memorable standout features.
- Disgust (weight 0): Disgust was a strong negative reaction to perceived poor design choices, particularly in map layout and platforming sections. Players found certain mechanics, like treasure detection or basic abilities, to be poorly implemented and frustrating.
- Love (weight 0): Love for the game was driven by its soulful stylistics, calming graphics, and overall high quality. Players deeply enjoyed the abundant content and found the game to be a truly cherished experience.
- Acceptance (weight 0): Acceptance indicated a willingness to overlook the game's shortcomings and minor technical issues. Players acknowledged the game's flaws but still found its core qualities, like controls and balancing, to be acceptable.
- Regret (weight 0): Regret was primarily associated with the purchase decision, feeling that money and time were wasted on a game that did not deliver. Players also regretted playing on normal difficulty, which made the game too easy, or skipping dialogue initially.}