Absolum Review Summary

Innovative Beat 'em Up Roguelite: The game is lauded for its successful and innovative blend of beat 'em up and roguelite genres. Many consider it a true evolution of the beat 'em up genre, often comparing it favorably to classics like Streets of Rage and modern roguelites like Hades. This combination provides a fresh, replayable, and deeply engaging experience.

Exceptional Gameplay & Fun Factor: Players consistently praise the game's core gameplay, describing it as incredibly fun, enjoyable, and addictive. The combat mechanics are highlighted as well-designed, satisfying, and offering a good balance of challenge without frustration. The overall game feel, foundation, and execution are considered top-tier, making it a highly engaging experience.

Stunning Art & Sound Design: The game receives widespread acclaim for its magnificent art direction, hand-drawn visuals, and fluid animations. Coupled with an amazing, epic, and fitting soundtrack featuring legendary composers, and top-notch sound effects, the game offers a visually and audibly immersive experience.

High Replayability & Content: The roguelike elements, including procedural generation, branching paths, diverse enemies, and character progression, contribute significantly to the game's high replayability. Players appreciate the constant sense of evolution, new content, and secrets that keep each run fresh and engaging, offering great value for money.

Dotemu's Quality & Passion: Players recognize Dotemu's expertise in revitalizing the beat 'em up genre and commend their passion and care evident in the game's development. The game is seen as a fantastic original IP that showcases the developers' years of experience and artistic vision.

Frustrating & Shallow Combat: Players find the combat system to be shallow, repetitive, and often unfair, with enemies juggling players and possessing super armor. The limited move sets, forced bare-handed attacks, and lack of depth contribute to a frustrating experience, especially with scarce healing.

Weak Roguelike Implementation: The roguelike elements are largely criticized as uninteresting, lacking depth, and feeling forced. Players feel it detracts from the experience, leading to repetitive runs and a lack of meaningful progression or variety compared to other games in the genre.

Scarce & Inconsistent Healing: A recurring complaint is the severe scarcity of healing items throughout runs and before boss encounters. This lack of consistent healing options significantly increases the difficulty and frustration, especially in continuous battles.

Subpar Online Multiplayer: The online co-op experience is hampered by high latency, frequent disconnections, and screen clutter that makes it difficult to track one's character. The lack of crossplay and limited player count (2 max) further detract from the multiplayer appeal.

Weak Story & Content: The story is described as generic, short, and largely non-existent, failing to provide an engaging narrative or interesting characters. Players also feel there is a general lack of content, contributing to the game's repetitive nature.

Diverse Character Roster: Players can choose from four distinct characters, each with unique movesets and playstyles. Two characters are available from the start, with the remaining two unlocking through game progression, encouraging replayability.

Robust Defensive Combat: The combat system emphasizes defensive maneuvers, featuring multiple options for parrying, dodging, reflecting, and counter-attacking. This adds a layer of skill and strategy beyond simple button-mashing.

Variable Difficulty & Progression: While some players find the initial difficulty easy, the game offers a balanced combat experience that is neither too simple nor overly punishing. Roguelite progression ensures that dying leads to buffs and unlocks, making each attempt contribute to overall advancement.

Weak Dodge Mechanic: Some players noted that the dodge mechanic feels weak, with a short attack distance after dodging. Additionally, dodge and parry are bound to a single function key, which can sometimes lead to unintended actions.

Excellent Performance & Optimization: Players consistently praise the game's smooth performance across various hardware, including handheld devices like the Steam Deck and Ally X, and even low-end PCs. The game maintains a stable 60 FPS, contributing to a polished experience.

Graphics Options & Preferences: The game offers different visual modes, including retro, bloom, and no bloom. Players specifically noted that the 'no bloom' mode is visually superior, suggesting a preference for cleaner aesthetics.

High Online Latency Issues: Public online matches are frequently plagued by high latency, with players reporting pings of 100ms to 300ms. This significantly impacts the online multiplayer experience.

60 FPS Lock: The game is capped at 60 frames per second. While stable, some players might prefer an uncapped framerate option for higher refresh rate displays.

High GPU Utilization: One player noted that GPU utilization is consistently above 98%. While this could indicate efficient use of hardware, it might also suggest the game is very demanding on the GPU, potentially leading to higher power consumption or heat.

Highly Recommended Game: Many players strongly recommend this game, citing its fun, uniqueness, and overall quality. It's considered a worthwhile purchase, especially for fans of its genres, and offers a solid experience.

Difficulty is a Core Feature: The game's difficulty is a significant aspect, appealing to players who enjoy a challenge. However, some find the 'forced difficulty' uncomfortable, suggesting a need for more flexible options.

Great for Genre Fans: The game is highly recommended for fans of beat 'em ups and roguelites, often compared favorably to titles like Streets of Rage 4 and Hades. It's seen as an excellent continuation of the roguelite and beat 'em up combination.

Suggestions for Alternatives: Some players suggest alternative games like Streets of Rage 4, Hades, Dragon's Crown, or DnD Shadows Over Mystara, implying these might offer a better or different experience in similar genres.

Gameplay Tips: Players offer advice such as playing with a joystick for an 'old-school' feel, recruiting allies early, and mastering parrying for a more enjoyable experience.

Desire for More Content: Players express a strong desire for additional content, including new game modes, levels, and characters through future DLC. An arcade mode is specifically mentioned as a welcome potential addition.

Experienced Development Team: The game benefits from being developed by genre veterans, specifically those who previously set a high standard with Streets of Rage 4. This background instills confidence in the game's quality and design.

Guest Music Contribution: The involvement of Mick Gordon, known for his work on other popular game soundtracks, for a boss composition is noted and appreciated by players.

Affordable Price Point: Players perceive the game's price as reasonable and even cheaper than expected, adding to its value proposition.

Generic Fantasy Setting: The game's fantasy world is described as somewhat generic, indicating that while the visuals are strong, the lore itself might not be particularly unique or engaging.