While the brawler genre is most often remembered for scenes of street fighters beating up gang members or superheroes unleashing their powers, another long-standing legacy includes a decidedly more fantastical backdrop in which wizards and warriors tear through a scrolling screen, ride fire-breathing dragons, and cast spells. If this flavor has always appealed to you, I have good news: Your long search is finally over – Absolum is the platonic form of this straightforward but endearing structure. There are many hours of great hacking and slashing ahead of you.
Absolum casts players as adventurers casting spells in a fantasy world overrun by a tyrant, struggling to restore balance and dispel an overarching and incomprehensible evil. Within a familiar narrative framework, the developers managed to present varied and compelling world-building with a sense of engaging storytelling. In addition to the gorgeous hand-drawn, cartoon-style aesthetic, I constantly wanted to see more fiction. The game also deserves a special mention for having one of the most hummed adventure music tracks of the year – sometimes I chose the horizontal track just to listen to my favorite music again.
Drawing inspiration from some of the most successful roguelites of recent years, Absolum builds death and rebirth into the narrative conceit; heroes constantly throw themselves into danger and premature failure, only to level up and try again. I like the way up-to-date quests, characters, and conflicts are gradually layered on top of each other, easing the feeling of repetition with constantly up-to-date twists.
Each run is also refreshed with the unique power combinations you can create and the paths you create on the map. In the former, your choice of four characters, each with unique strengths, is further strengthened as you perform various rituals throughout your run. Maybe this time it will be an elven warrior empowered with chain lightning, and next it will be a mechanical assassin powered by tidal waves and necromancy. The delicate building options are intriguing, even if you purchase additional global upgrades between runs to further enhance your skills. It’s a shame that more precise explanations and numerical values weren’t included for each character’s playstyle, but playing time with each character helps answer these questions.
Throughout the course of a full game, players can split into multiple different paths, each with different levels, enemy encounters, and bosses. Even these layouts start to change things up by offering additional tasks and energetic events to keep you guessing. The result is that even with over 30 completed runs, I never felt bored or trapped in repetition. Absolum rewards experimenting with different characters, builds, and paths throughout the trial, and I found fresh experiences even after dozens of hours.
The fighting mechanics themselves are effortless to learn, but mastering them gives incredible satisfaction. Crazy battles require aggressive attacks, juggling enemies and creating long combos. Over time, mastering dodges, deflections and finishing moves will allow you to fight intense and gigantic battles, from undead dwarven kings to cosmic horrors from another dimension.
Absolum is great solo fun, but also allows you to bring a friend along for some amiable co-op fun, locally or online. Both options work great, and the game is even more fun when you have another fantasy hero by your side. While further expansion to three or four players could have led to some overwhelming on-screen action, it feels like a missed opportunity to not allow for larger parties. But even as a partnership, this is one of my favorite shared experiences in recent years. Online multiplayer is handled in a clever way, where story progression is confined to the player further behind (to avoid spoilers), even as both players maintain their overall power level, with global abilities unlocking throughout the game.
I also applaud the casual approach to Assist mode, which allows players to adjust both the damage they deal and the damage they take to fine-tune the difficulty to their liking. The default challenge is significant but not insurmountable; however, more story-focused players should appreciate the easier path to completing the game. Unfortunately, this facilitate mode is disabled in online multiplayer.
Absolum is a game I’ve wanted to play since I was a child. What you get is a straightforward, accessible fighting game, high production values in terms of graphics and music, and a richly imagined fantasy world, all wrapped around a narrative that makes it worth returning to replay and progress to grow again and again. It’s not a game that’s going to change anyone’s opinion of the genre, but it’s a brilliant implementation of a very elderly formula into something that feels current, deeply replayable, and undeniably fun.
