“Thank you for playing the demo,” Afterimage eventually proclaims, after a couple of uninterrupted hours exploring its Metroidvania-inspired world. As you so often do for any demo or brief hands-on, an indicator that one has reached the cut-off point. “Actually y’know what…” I think to myself. Before adding: “…think I’m going to keep playing.” Indeed nine times out of ten – whereupon one is greeted by that sudden and admittedly abrupt notification from the developer that one has reached the end of this vertical slice of sorts – the feeling is usually that one has experienced enough to draw a conclusion. If nothing else, that it’s time to depart, quit out and get to work drawing up one’s impressions, be they good or bad. But not with Afterimage strangely enough and maybe there’s a good reason as to why that is. Stranger still when you consider that this is the latest release to surface (and the second in recent times to be covered) within this genre.
Because for all its absentee design choices, occasional technical bugs and a growing sense of deja vu – that we’ve seen this brand of Metroidvania before and executed much better – Afterimage still has something to it. This moreish quality, this added coaxing you to fill the map screen with every viable room or region you can currently access. To hunt down any remaining collectible. Perhaps even dedicate some time to simply farming for XP so that a new level and an accompanying Talent Point unlocks – giving you access to more of the wealth of viable stat boosts and new abilities offered by way of the skill tree. But then on the flip side, there are aspects you simply can’t ignore, despite your best efforts to do so. For starters: the game has one or two cases of a style mismatch for starters – why does the profile of main protagonist Renee seem to imply she belongs to an entirely different game to that of the game’s other denizens? Second, why is Afterimage so privy to an easy-to-understand UI when all one wants to do is work out if a newly-acquired bit of gear will give me better stats.
Afterimage is a strange temptation. Stranger than the prospect of a game that takes the challenge and the peril of something like Hollow Knight, but combines it with the whimsical, mythical if still treacherous scope of an Ori perhaps? As noted: a ruinous world with more life and color to it. But in the end, a couple of hours later, the game just about manages to lean more towards a more positive brand of strange than a negative. This, despite its cumbersome menus and combat mechanics that at present (and may well be victim to that early period prejudice) aren’t the most versatile or noteworthy of features. Yet for every moment of doubt or skepticism, Afterimage finds the will and the way to remedy those short-term irks. Be it curiosity in how the world is designed and how it all links up and loops back around – eventually leading to a genuine moment of “ah-ha” as a vital shortcut is opened up. Or in one case, a challenging boss fight whose similarly early period placement should suggest the challenge will only grow later down the line.
Afterimage may be leaning a touch more towards the combat and the challenge of simply staying alive, but while its efforts in these departments alone aren’t anything to flag up (via praise or criticism alike), it’s the more hybrid approach to its overall design where one’s intrigue is centered. Not to say the world of Afterimage isn’t filled with brief moments that could trip you up if you’re not paying close attention. If anything, Afterimage’s enemy placement and sparse platforming bears more a resemblance to Castlevania than anything Metroid-related. It’s that figurative middle-ground aesthetically and artistically that has me curious. A bit more of a pastoral and dare I say, colorful and fantastically take to the regular forte of ruinous worlds filled with insightful tidbits of lore and environmental storytelling. After all, is this not a formula we’ve all gotten used to and for a select few possibly gotten rather sick of? I feel compelled to bring to light there are enemies that look like walking, killer grapes here. As there are feline-like critters that fling projectiles and whimsically-drawn ghosts. Standing alongside the more to-be-expected towering dark knights and feral beasts alike when it comes to Souls-like, decrepit, dark fantasy standards.
you’re able to’t knock the game for being more diverse as a result, but this heavy contrast should, in theory, do the game no favors. And yet, Afterimage somehow (albeit, only just) makes it work. Could it be perhaps one is too distracted on leveling up to boost one’s stats or deterred more so by that intriguing interconnected world map and finding all its secret little stashes of a collectible or two. Maybe the art direction has found enough of a sway to keep me invested. At the risk of sounding like the game is merely pulling one’s focus away from the unfortunate shortcomings and glaring faults – technical and mechanical alike – it houses, perhaps it’s its own philosophy and admirable attempt to find some happy-medium between the genre’s more iconic stand-outs in recent years. On top of, gameplay-wise, a more back-to-basics approach on combat. That survival is as much about avoiding the tricks and traps the game has set up as it is in simply triumphing over an enemy or two.
But does this mean Afterimage is more in the camp of anticipated than necessarily that of concerned? Is this a game that after a couple of hours (voluntary extending of such time aside) invested, one would recommend genre enthusiasts be on the look out for? The answer to that question is tricky, so let’s re-frame it: does the idea of a game that lands slap-bang in the middle of your Hollow Knights and your Oris intrigue you? Less a case that this is a game attempting to be master of all, but more so that it’s poaching ideas from the genre, historical and recent alike, in some bold endeavor to see if any of it sticks? Maybe it will, maybe it won’t, but of any Metroidvania experienced up to this point, Afterimage’s more eccentric and all-encompassing approach to the genre may be enough for it to find an audience. Far from original, further still from feeling polished in all departments. But for every concern raised, to go back to that feeling of wanting to play more – to keep playing despite reaching that pivotal end point. To achieve that coveted middle-ground of hybrid styles and unusual synergies or fall like a house of cards trying one too many ideas. That’s where the morbid curiosity of a game like Afterimage stems from and in an odd kind of way, it just might be enough to help it stand out.
