The Metroidvania genre is hot. During Gamescom 2022 I saw a lot of upcoming Metroidvania games trying to put their own stamp on the genre. One of those was Afterimage, a promising game for Metroidvania fans. Want to learn more? Let’s jump in!
Explore mystic Engardin
One of the supreme deities created this vast world called Engardin, upon which natural wonders lie everywhere: gigantic volcanoes, steep canyons, deep seas, and a tower that soars into the clouds… Encounter fantastic creatures during your journey: giant beasts wandering in fire, and spirits lurking in the depth of complicated labyrinths… Learn about your new friends, and get to know their pasts and the agendas they hold. Engardin is alive with unknown secrets. Venture forth and feel free to explore wherever you like as a brave adventurer. Find out the stories that link each area, discover a concealed history, and the truth of the world.
A rather interesting premise that’s supported by a great visual style. The game combines hand-drawn characters with the well-known Unreal Engine to create something memorable and different. During my presentation, this was the first thing I noticed. Visually speaking, this is an impressive-looking game that could easily have been part of a popular cartoon. It’s not just style over content as the developers created a vast amount of monsters to defeat, all with their own abilities and weaknesses. During the presentation, we faced off with a couple of different types and every one of these enemies was drastically different from the other. From exploding rats to powerful bosses, the game will test your skills on multiple occasions. Like a lot of other Metroidvania games, it will offer a certain challenge without ever becoming impossible to beat. If you want to survive in the gorgeous world of Afterimage, you’ll have to become good and upgrade your weapons and skills along the way, this will enable you to continue the emotional story. In the presentation, we didn’t see a lot of that story but from the brief introduction, I can’t wait to see and discover the story myself. It’s said to offer a rather emotional journey so I’m very interested to learn more!
Fight fierce enemies
The world of Engardin isn’t only filled with sublime beauty and breathtaking nature, sadly it’s also plagued by crises. The corrupted are lurking around every corner, waiting for their prey with deadly traps and raw power. You better prepare for some thrilling combat in this one! To make it even more fun to play, each area features entirely new enemies and different gameplay mechanics so you’ll always need to adapt and overcome. In total, the game will feature over 150 enemies, so you better become good at combat mechanics. Included in those enemies are the bigger bosses who will test your skills to the very breaking point. To help you out, you can create your very own combat style thanks to a diverse selection of weapons and special attacks. By upgrading these on the talent tree, you’ll gain access to better and more powerful moves, rather traditional for the fast-paced ARPG genre but it goes rather deep. If you play how you should, you could even become the greatest warrior of the land!
The presentation only scratched the surface of what is yet to come but one single run will cost you somewhere between 25 and 30 hours to complete. Afterimage offers a rather impressive semi-open world to explore and if you’re brave enough you can even discover tons of hidden chests. Be warned, however, that the best secrets are often guarded or difficult to reach so you’ll need a combination of flawless platforming and combat in order to unlock those secrets.
Early conclusion:
Afterimage is an interesting Metroidvania with gorgeous visuals and tons of enemies to defeat. The presentation showcased a great balance between exploration and combat so I’m pretty eager to dive back in. It certainly has the potential to become a very entertaining game for the Metroidvania fans.
