Absolver is in a really strange place for me. The concept is really intriguing, basically initially appearing to be Dark Souls style world exploration where an in-depth fighting game breaks out when combat rolls around. There is also a really cool mechanic where you can build your own style of martial arts, learning new moves by successfully defending against them in the world (sort ofAbsolver is in a really strange place for me. The concept is really intriguing, basically initially appearing to be Dark Souls style world exploration where an in-depth fighting game breaks out when combat rolls around. There is also a really cool mechanic where you can build your own style of martial arts, learning new moves by successfully defending against them in the world (sort of like Kung Fu Pokemon), which as a huge martial arts nerd, had me really excited.
Unfortunately, once the original excitement wore off, what revealed itself was a good concept that has huge flaws in execution that ultimately makes the game one that I would not recommend. The most glaring issues are rampant server issues and technical bugs. The bugs that I kept seeing with relatively high frequency are as follows: lots of texture pop-ins, severe lag spikes when another player enters an area (really irritating when you're in the clutch moments of a battle, random (ie - not player-joining) lag spikes turning NPCs into teleporting magicians (who also happen to be punching you in the face) making the fights nearly impossible, NPCs literally not responding at all do to some bug when loading the area (seriously, there are more than a few times where I was running around punching out NPCs who didn't fight back), and when using cooperative multiplayer, there was one occasion where the named "boss" NPC spawned a duplicate in the same area.
The technical issues alone really tanked any score I could give this game. Unfortunately, that's not the end of my complaints as there are elements of the gameplay that make the experience even more frustrating (which may prove to be bugs themselves, but it's less clear if it's intentional game design). Generally speaking, level scaling and difficulty seems to be all over the place once you step out of the tutorial. The developers borrowed the Dark Souls model, but failed at one crucial point: When enemies respawn in a Souls game, they're exactly the same: same power, same position in the environment. This allows the player, when they fail, to re-approach the area and learn from their past mistakes. In Absolver, NPC generation seems to be random. I've died to a two-NPC fight only to come back to that exact same spot only to have 3 NPCs there. I've respawned from death only for the NPC group that killed me come running at me at the spawn point. Bosses will sometimes spawn with minions; sometimes not. This randomness and inability to predict the difficulty curve is really frustrating, particularly when the game is already woefully stingy on any "here's what you should be doing" directions. Well, at least, until you realize you can literally run past everything to get to the objective (which isn't something that I consider a positive).
The other major issue I have with the core game-play is the combat seems very bad at rewarding skilled gameplay, particularly when looking at the games 3 core defense styles. Being a glutton for punishment, I chose the "Parry" method of fighting where getting the right timing and direction gives you a counter window. Now, the game ranks this method as the most difficult, but I did not feel like I was getting rewarded for using the higher skill defense. Mostly that the "stun" window for counter-attacks is extremely small and seemed non-existent when fighting other players in the world. I fought someone who I was able to parry very effectively because they just kept spamming their main attack. The problem is that they recovered and were able to swing again before I even got a counter-hit off (which, when I'm just trying to use a jab is a real problem). So even though I was hitting the timing rather than just spamming, I ended up losing out. Having skilled play get trumped by button spamming is poison for a game where PVP is ultimately the main issue. The system seems designed for a slow and methodical approach, but seems to turn into just a mash-fest once players face each other.
Ultimately, the concept was good, but it's not in the state to give a lot of enjoyment for most players, even for the lower than AAA asking price. I'm going to shelf it for now and plan to revisit it when/if I see some bug fixes and overall balance changes. It's definitely within the developers power to correct, but with these more indy-style titles, that's no guarantee. To anyone looking to buy it on PS4, I'd definitely recommend holding off for now.… Expand
AbsolverYour Score0 out of 10User Score
