Edit: As mentioned, storyline is VERY difficult to follow if you can at all. If that’s what you’re after then this won’t be the one for you, if you’re a souls fan though it actually felt quite reminiscent. Gameplay is where this one lives. Ah a good old Metroidvania review I feel like I might be the outlier with this one.I will say i totally forgot to mention text size is also small but there is voice acting for all subtitles for handheld players thought - worth considering.. let me know what you think! Mark
The story is actually a bit easy, the issue is that you literally dont know anything about it until you unlock NG+ and start seeing things from 42's perspective, obviously a very glaring problem.
This was so cool to watch. I voice Ifree, and I really appreciate the kindness/ shout out for the voice acting! I’m glad we were able to add to the experience in a positive way :) (also, I just added my mom’s maiden name to my performer name, and this is the first time I’ve heard it out loud. Totally made my day :) )
Hi christina, I am curious, have you played through the entire game yourself? If so I am wondering what your thoughts are on the challenges of the game, and some other things?
Thanks for the very detailed review! We're truly appreciated. As for some of the problems addressed in the review like the teleporting, will be changed in the coming patch.🥰
Will you guys be attempting any fixes for the frame rate skips/stutters that sometimes get in the way of the controls? Because it seems to me... and I'm not a game developer... that if you guys couldn't get an Absolute locked 60fps, a 100% locked (or capped? ) 30fps would have been better, no? With all of that said, this is still a great game and I'm glad there are those out there who still cherish these types of classic 2D Metroidvanias. So thank you for sharing your creation with the world.
this game is absolutely breathtaking. easily the best metroidvania i've played on playstation in recent years. and i've played alot of them, lol. the scale of the gameworld is mindblowing. it's very clear that you guys are absolute fans of the genre. i just found a very specific easter egg in one of the later areas and couldn't help but smile for multiple minutes, lol. i also want to mention that i really appreciate how quickly you guys react to feedback. i personally didn't have issues with how the game worked prior to todays patch, but some things like how the map now covers up while exploring is definitely welcome. in a time where huge tripple a game studios deliver more and more questionable products it is indie titles like afterimage that make me never forget why i love videogames. thank you again for this beautiful game. cheers!
As a recent player I came to confirm: they improved fast travel, map display, potions, AI, hitbox, character progression and other things. I highly recommend trying this game now, since it vastly fixes some of the valid complaints. Nowadays is a must buy for Metroidvanias and Soulsborne fans.
@@steelcurtain187 You're welcome buddy, have a great time. An advise: when you feel there's a dead end, you'll always have at least two or three places to visit, even at the endgame.
This game looks beautiful and I always am down for a good metroidvania game! These are the types of games I’m happy are still around and actually getting really popular again! Cheers guys!
Picked this up on Friday and have been playing since and it is just absolutely beautiful! Every so often I just stop to stare at the artwork. Wasn’t sure if I was going to like how the map works, only filling in after you’ve explored and saved, but I actually enjoy it. I also don’t mind the way you fast travel…I know it may be annoying to some but I’ve found quite a few potions allowing me to fast travel. I’ve also been having fun backtracking to find little areas ive missed and just exploring the massive world. The only issue I feel is the loading time when first opening the game and if you die it can take like a minute before you respawn but to me the good definitely out ways the bad.
You are definitely not alone. I've had my eye on this one and I must say it looks amazing. Combined with the perfect SwitchUp review, how can I go wrong. Certainly has moved near the top of the Wish List.
One thing that can't be ignored about this game is its SIZE. The map is absolutely MASSIVE. My only real gripe is the fact there's never any waypoints or objectives on your map. You got to find everything the old fashioned way, wandering. And as far as the teleportation goes, later in the game you'll find an island where you find the ability to fast travel for free at all the main tree confluences. But until you get there, you'll be reveling and cherishing every resting potion you find. The map is way too big to not have a teleportation system. The soundtrack sounds like it was pulled straight from Ori and the blind forest (though I wish they would have done more hollow nighty with it) But exploration is a mix between hollow Knight, Ori, and salt and sanctuary. And it's very clear where they took inspiration from these titles. There's one perk to this game that I absolutely love, and that there's no loading time between areas. Unless you fast travel, the entire game is going to feel like one seamless map. It doesn't load every time you go into another area making it a very immersive. HOWEVER, at least on the switch version, if you get a little too hasty and try to get from one side of the map to the other as fast as you can, it'll hit you with a random loading screen while it tries to buffer in the rest of the map you're going into and it usually will not pause the game so when you come out of it you'll be mid-battle against God knows what. Though this is very rarely an issue. Overall this is a pretty incredible metroidvania that's very worth giving a shot. Sure the story isn't the best, but it does just enough to give you direction.
So having 40+ hours in the game, and as someone that has played on the switch more than 20 metroidvania (some well known, some lesser known) i want to give my opinion about it. ~Starting with the negatives I don't want to go into to much details cause to be honest, the game did a lot of wrongs as far the map building goes and there is almost 0 guidance of where you need to go. Yes i know that's what metroidvania is all about but the least they could do is to point out were KEY objectives are based of Riddles or just plain out show were the bosses of importance are located on the map, besides that they decided to connect key elements of the map via a 2nd overworld map by riding a stingray which if not found you can easily end up doing circles searching of where to go next, which happened a lot to me cause i ended up out of my curiosity to do 2 sequence breaks which messed up all the flow of exploration and Npc encounters which made some of the dialogues weird due of interactions i suppose i needed to had before meeting them. Satisfaction level, due of how big the map is there were a lot of times that it was just plain exploring, no npc encounters for long time or important events, besides that for some reason they decided all the cool abilities to be given around the end of the game, to be more precise, enemies max out at lvl 76-79, i started getting cool abilities around areas that had enemies of 65+, so let's say at around after exploring 80% of the game. So a lot of the parkour abilities came up quite late which some of them are nice to have cause of how much better the fighting becomes. Spells are lost potential, because they have long cast times and you are unable to move, compared to bloodstained ritual of the night which is quite similar to afterimage in combat, they gave the player a lot of spells that allowed to be used while jumping or moving, something afterimage did not, making a lot of fights versus flying enemies more of a hassle rather than fun. Since there were subweapons and flying enemies i hopped some projectile based weapons like bows or kunais but sadly the game did not have these. Kind of crazy cause you move with the stick like in metroid dread so aiming wouldn't have been an issue, idk why they had that decision but it is sad cause games with a lot of parkour based levels are far better played on the arrow keys and besides that there are command moves that require direction inputs which the stick is quite unconsistenced for that kind of job. Some minor perfomance issue like random loading screens popping up due of hardware limitation, you see the game isn't connected via rooms like most metroidvania, it is actually a singular level, so it feels quite more open compared to hollow knight or bloodstained, so from time to time if you travel fast enough the game isn't able to keep up loading the map you head towards to so it ends up with a loading screen preventing you to move further, most the times there are no consequences but rarely it will cause you to get randomly hit by something and fps stutters, regardless most the time it was fine. Another issue quests may end up getting locked, in my case i was talking to an chef npc, i bought her meals which were suppose to make her move to another area but my switch turned of due of battery during that process. When i went to check she wasn't there, netheir at the previous location, so now i can't finish her quest. Quite few of these cases i read on the internet, this won't allow you to complete the game as far it goes for the side stories. Background music glitching when obtaining the dash abillity that allows you to dash through gates, atacks or enemies. Whenever you use that dash the music gets distorted due of the sound effect of that specific dash. ~time to summ up the good parts Big game, with 9 to 10 different endings (10th ending is an easter egg ending), i'll say a minimum of 25-30+ hours for your 1st playthrough just to complete the map and perhaps 1 of the endings. 3 of the endings are locked behind NG+ after completing some specific tasks, so perhaps we look at roughly 40-50 hours unique playtime here. Biggest map ever witnessed that doesn't loop around previous areas "to often", so unique playtime is plenty. Beautiful artstyle, got a hard time telling which i found better between afterimage or hollow knight, so the bar is quite high. Music in a lot of cases reminded me of Asian MMO's and Hollow knight, so they nailed that quite well. Story was okay and quite well delivered since there was Good Voice acting in Afterimage which is rare to see in metroidvania. Plenty of close combat weapons with a big skill tree to customize your playstyle, just prepare for a lot of grinding if you want to unlock all skill points, i am 40 hours in at lvl 79 while it maxes out at lvl 99. Cheap and fun, metroidvania fans should reconsider this game in their "wish list" ~Conclusion If i had to rank it between other metroidvania to give a vague idea of how well it competes i would make a list like this. Bloodstained < Steam world Dig 2
Later on in the game all the great trees have a Fast travel But the item that allows you to travel allows you to travel to any tree And I never found myself running out of those My only complaint in the entire game is the system where if you use a potion you lose a potion and some of the bosses in this game or no jokes so I burn through a lot of potions I just wish it saved with your potions and you could just keep retrying but that is totally not the case you use it you lose it I am not a big fan of that system other than that I haven't had this much fun in a metroidvania since dread the game is absolutely ginormous it's so big it literally has world map and on top of that all the worlds are connected very impressive
So you're saying that if I use a potion during a boss fight, then die to the boss, when I respawn the potion that I had is no longer there? If so, then I really hope the patch changes that.
This game is gorgeous and is very fluid in the gameplay. Really enjoying myself with it. That initial load time for the switch is literally about 5 minutes for those who aren't aware. I thought the game was bugged but give it time and it will pay off.
You DO get free teleportation, eventually. Midway through the game you'll find an ability that lets you fast travel to all the major trees you've been to, which are A LOT.
Ive been playing Afterimage for a while now, and Ive grown to love this game. Honestly, any "flaw" this game has, is grossly outweighed by how fun the game actually is. Imo, unlike 9 Years of Shadow, this game's not ONLY gorgeous, it actually has substance...and a lot of it. The story is a bit of a jumbled mess, but its an interesting mess. And just as a disclaimer for anyone reading, Ive personally been a metroidvania enthusiast for many years, and this might just be THE biggest metroidvania I have EVER played. Im not even kidding, this makes Symphony of the Night(full) pale by comparison. As well, if you think the inner ring of Afterimage abilities is all you get, the game says "hold my beer". As for the "teleporting cost", its no longer an issue later on when you can buy Resting Potions with money you barely have anything else to spend on. Now, this game does take a little bit to get accustomed to, to get the most out of it, but if you're willing to really give it a chance, you may just end up loving it like I do. Would 100% recommend, but again, just know, its a massively massive massive huuuuge game, 100% it will take up quite a bit of time. Tmv~
Thanks for the additional information. I'm pretty hyped to get this, despite some negative comments I saw on the r/Metroidvanias. All I'm waiting on is to hear that the patch has been added, and I know the devs have already submitted it to Nintendo. This will buy me some time during the insufferable wait for Silksong.
Question for the channel. What will you guys do if nintendo for its next console decides to change the name/branding, not out of the realm of possibilities since their previous model was the Wii and before that the DS. I wonder if you even thought about it when you named the channel. Also thanks for reviewing this game, glad i cancelled my order cause the way it is now it would give a foul taste that would make me dislike the game. Instead i picked Ori and the blind forest that was on sales and play that until they fix afterimage.
Oh cool was looking at this a few days ago and decided to get it on a wim😂 was not sure about it but now after your video I’m really looking forward to it❤❤
I really liked this game but wouldn't not recommend anyone buy it for the switch. The issues you mentioned with performance are all still there nine months later.
Great game! But, the "souls" type healing, and reclaiming experience/currency after death NEEDS TO STOP!!! every game is doing it now. It was kind of a good idea when it started just for a different take and a change of pace, but it is getting redundant! Especially the healing factor, when every boss can zip across the room before you can shove the wand up your ass and heal yourself lol, it gets frustrating. Dead in 2 hits. And common enemies sometimes take a dozen hits to kill... THAT really gets annoying. But like I said, great game otherwise, the platforming is absolutely phenomenal, and the pacing and difficulty are perfect. I also appreciate the length.... I havent quite finished the game, but I LOVE a lengthy game! BRAVO!
yes! enemie scalling sucks! no point in an level system when every enemie is your level anyway. this looks great. sadly i missed the sale on this one...
@@BloodyArchangeluswhat is a lie? seems you have missunderstoot. you are lvl 34 the enemies stay on their level. that is why i said "yes" there is no scaling in this game.
I finally got my copy from Amazon and had a small freak out moment when the game didn't started right away and just some sort of faery was snoozing in the screen appeared. But, eventually it started... It made me realize that I got used to faster loadscreens. Still, I need a symbol that says "hey I'm loading" so I don't think "It's frozen. I need to restart".
Thanks for the detailed video, it was super informative. One question: is there an option to change the language (both the voices and text) to Chinese?
£20 is a very good price for what looks like a long, beautiful and engaging metrovania. It’ll have to go on the wish list though, shelled out £50 for TotK - so excited!
I will FOR SURE buy this. It looks so good and I love when a game has a huge amount of different types of enemys. I will just wait a few weeks until they have patched it up.
I wish they would release a game digitally first, work out all the kinks then release a complete physical game. It seems like a no brainer. I guess they think everyone that would have a bought a physical won't because they bought the digital instead. I don't know. Wishful thinking i suppose. Love your guys reviews. Thank you.
Have they eventually found a patch that deals with the absurd load times? Anytime I boot this game up, it takes like two minutes before I even see the start screen.
early area is the only place u can one shot enemy..later in the game no matter how high your level is..enemy pretty much brutal. when level up,renee increase in hp,mp and defense...not attack. attack stat only increase by unlock at talent and equip armor/accessory that raise your attack stat. soo you're fck without better equipment..some equipment that have better stat hidden throughout the world,some require you to navigate a road full of spike and you need to do some pogo jump on enemy at same time.
I was going to pass on this one until I saw this review. Then again I was also going to pass on some metroidvanias that I thought weren't as good (Blasphemous and Bloodstained) only for Switchup to change my mind about it. Will have to put this one the wishlist!
Hey fellas, how are the load screens between areas? I’ve been playing a lot of Metroidvanias lately games like aeterna noctics have 10 to 30 second load screens between sections and I can’t take it anymore. If it’s only the initial load I can live with that. Thanks
Personally, I don't like the damage numbers it kinda loses quality for me but overall I love the aesthetic and gameplay. Might pick this up if it goes on a sale!
What are the high bars of Metroidvanias on switch? And how does this compare against those for someone who hasn’t played any? Is this top tier, or are there others I should play first?
That's a question that could have a rather lengthy answer honestly, there are so many great ones on Switch. Here's a list of some of my top mentions just from ones I own, though I know there are a ton more I dont have and probably am going to forget. I'll try to order them by most popular on down but I'd recommend any of these really: Metroid Dread probably the most obvious Hollow Knight Blasphemous Death's Gambit Afterlife Axiom Verge 1/2 Salt and Sanctuary Shovel Knight Treasure Trove The Messenger Chasm Ghost Song Iconoclasts Master Blaster Zero Roguelike Metroidvanias: Sundered Eldritch Edition Dead Cells Rogue Legacy 1/2 Rain World A Robot Named Fight!
Nothing too serious needs patching, actually I bought it at launch and don't think I've ran into even a single bug so far in 20+ hours of gameplay, which is rare nowadays. Just some quality of life stuff is being added (although it's fine as is for me), but other than that, it's one of the best metroidvanias I've ever played, and definitely worth it at full price.
Not gonna lie. I first thought this looked like a cheap mobile game. Detailed art but clunky animations and superficial gameplay. Thank god I was proved wrong! I looove metroidvanias. When will Castlevania return?!!
It looks a lot like ender lilies- which I believe is made by the same developers. That game has some great elements but kind of stays stale in the combat department from what I've played. Hopefully, the developer's experience from that game helps this one....
