Charming Aesthetic and design, but lackluster combat that feels as lifeless as Purgatory.
8doors: Arum’s Afterlife Adventure starts offCharming Aesthetic and design, but lackluster combat that feels as lifeless as Purgatory.
8doors: Arum’s Afterlife Adventure starts off with a quick and clean introduction. Through very good cutscenes players are thrown into a cohesively designed story about Arum attempting to locate her father's soul in purgatory. As the player adventures through, they will discover that more is happening than just a simple death of a loved one. Becoming a living guardian of death, players will embark on a journey to help restore the balance.
The story is presented well, and the characters are interesting. One particular thing I like, is that most characters have dialogue after every major story point, and the overall design choice of 3 colors gives the gave a look all its own. The story, design and presentation are the strongest things this game has going for it.
The game has some minor performance issues, mostly seen during the menu of the game. Selection inputs often required 1-2 presses and selecting things depending on the menus can be harder than others. This could be just a port problem though. Other performance issues fall under dropped inputs during combat.
The main problem with the game is the combat itself. Which is difficult, as most of the game is spent in this combat system. None of the weapons feel very good to use, both in the air and on the ground. Attacks feels sluggish, even after upgrades, and the inability to turn while in the middle of a weapon combo often feels like the game doesn't want you do be brave and aggressive, but the enemy patterns ask that of the player. All except for one of the melee weapons have tiny hitboxes, and force the player often into a situation where it is better to hit an enemy once, roll away, let them attack, and then come back in. None of the weapon specials feel particularly good to use, and mostly just feel like they exist for the specific skill that lets you see Boss HP.
Players can not switch weapons quickly while also performing other movements/inputs in combat. For instance, if a player is dodge rolling to avoid an attack, there is a cooldown period after the dodge roll that makes switching weapons not possible. This can leave a player believing they've rolled, then switched, only to turn around and still be using the previous weapon.
This combat system also shows its weakness in some of the boss fights. While many boss fights are set up to have to phases, the first phase is often used to show the player the slower version of the attack patterns while the player mashes away with the sword/ baseball bat or scythe to get the boss to start the 2nd phase without much issue. However, most boss patterns have low readability in the second phase, as seen with some bosses being able to swivel on a dime after they've started their wind up. This wouldn't be so bad, if not for the fact that many bosses have some patterns that seem more based on a percentage chance rather than true readability.
Take for instance the Boss in the underground passage or the Four Mask boss. Both of these bosses have an attack where they appear RANDOMLY on the screen and attack the player from above/diagonally/or the sides. In the first phase of these fights, these attacks are instantly readable due to the speed, but the 2nd phase versions leave minimal time for the player to spot, read the direction of the attack/projectile and certain angles can make it so the hitboxes linger from the start of the roll till many frames after the roll/invincibility has completed.
And there is a boss fight where you are essentially required to use one particular weapon due to the attack that creates a full screen attack that can only be avoided by using this weapon's special skill. This goes back to the issue above, where switching weapons on the fly is sluggish, isn't always inputted correctly or is missed because the player is also attempting to input movement or a dodge roll. So, switching between weapons to deal more damage/use the preferred weapon of choice doesn't feel intuitive nor fair when the full screen attack is faster than the ability to switch out of other actions. You CAN use the R3 button to bring up a weapon wheel, but the menu-ing isn't fantastic, and often in the heat of battle you can select the weapon next to the one you want, in addition to breaking up the flow of combat.
Which is ultimately why the combat doesn't feel good. The flow of combat doesn't feel like the other members of the genre that this game is very clearly inspired by. (I honestly hate to say it but it feels like the boss fights were designed with the controls for Hollow Knight in mind, but then the combat system never got fully implemented)… Expand
