Afterimage Review: A Masterful Metroidvania Set In A Breathtaking World

Developed by Aurogon Shanghai and published by Modus Games, Afterimage follows in the footsteps of Soulslike Metroidvanias such as Blasphemous and Dead Cells. Successfully Kickstarted last year, it’s a stunning, handcrafted adventure set in the rich fantasy world of Engardin. You play as Renee, a young amnesiac seeking to recover her memories, rescue her lost mentor, and unlock the secrets of this strange land dotted with verdant forests, craggy canyons, dank dungeons, and other jaw-dropping locales teeming with a menagerie of monsters.

Afterimage has a tale it’s eager to tell you, as the game wastes no time with a lengthy exposition dump dealing with deities, lost souls, and cataclysmic events. However, whether you’ll be able to comprehend it could be a different story. Even after spending many hours soaking up the lushly-detailed land of Engardin for this review, I’m still not quite able to wrap my head around all of its finer points.

But don’t let this dissuade you from joining Renee and her plucky spirit apprentice on their fantastic voyage. Because as dense and incomprehensible as Afterimage’s overarching narrative can be at times, I barely gave it a second thought when I was wholly engrossed in exploring wondrous caverns lit by sentient bioluminescent fungi or crossing swords with fearsome foes in spectacular boss battles. It’s impossible not to be immersed entirely in Afterimage’s world. From sun-soaked fields brimming with beautiful flowers to haunting flooded grottos, every scene is brought to life with the dazzling depth and detail of a Studio Ghibli production, making it one of the most breathtaking games I’ve seen in years.

En Garde, Engardin

One thing that sets Afterimage apart from other games in the Metroidvania genre is how robust the combat system is. You’ll begin your journey with nothing but a simple sword. But before long, you’ll amass a sizable collection of weapons, including greatswords, whips, dualblades, scythes, and a wealth of magical abilities that can do things like punish your enemies with columns of earth or incinerate them with fireballs.

As you defeat monsters and complete quests, you’ll earn talent points that you can spend on a sprawling talent tree that further expands your repertoire of moves for every weapon type. These moves, performed with fighting game-style inputs, allow you to do things such as unleash a flurry of whip blows, deliver a devastating downward thrust with your greatsword, and more. I really enjoyed this, as the way Afterimage offers you a steady drip-feed of new abilities eventually gives you great freedom when it comes to how you approach each encounter.

In addition to bolstering your combat skills, you’ll also find a plethora of Afterimage abilities scattered throughout Endgardin. As you’d expect, given this is a Metroidvania, you’ll use these to overcome seemingly blocked paths and other obstacles barring progression through Afterimage’s sprawling, interconnected world. They let you do things like double (and even triple) jump, perform Guilty Gear-style air dashes, slide like Mega Man, and more. Once you get these abilities, Afterimage truly opens up, allowing you to deftly navigate each environment like a veritable force of nature.

Before you get these skills and unlock the various shortcuts in each area, however, exploring Endgardin can sometimes be a chore.  The game requires a great deal of backtracking – even by Metroidvania standards. Sometimes you’ll be forced to travel three or four biomes to cash in for a quest or visit a shop to stock up on healing items, stat-boosting cuisine, and other provisions. And, as you’d expect, having to hoof it back and forth such great distances can really hurt the flow of things after a while. A particular item does give you the power to fast travel between Confluences — Afterimage’s version of save points — but they’re so rare that I found myself never wanting to use them unless absolutely necessary, such as when I dove off a cliff and landed in an area suggested for characters more than ten levels higher than my current one.

A Sight For Sore Eyes

As I said at the outset of this review, Afterimage is one good-looking game. Any given scene looks like a frame-worthy piece of art you’d proudly hang on your wall. Featuring vibrant colors and stunning use of foreground and background parallax that provides each area with an incredible sense of depth, it’s easily one of the most awe-inspiring titles I’ve played this year.

And while the character models are a bit on the diminutive side (to the point where they can be annoyingly hard to spot sometimes), they’re exceptionally well-animated, too. Seriously, mere screenshots, as good as they look, don’t even begin to do Afterimage any justice. Check out the launch trailer at the bottom of this review, and you’ll see what I mean when I say this game’s nothing short of a work of art when it comes to its aesthetics.

As gorgeous as Afterimage looks, it’s no slouch on the aural front, either. Its eerie-yet-enticing post-apocalyptic world is brought to life with somber, heartfelt melodies that fit Afterimage’s theme of a lonely land reclaimed by nature like a well-worn glove.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an adventure that will keep you busy, Afterimage will fit that bill quite nicely. A single playthrough will take you roughly 30 hours to complete. With such a sizable quest, heaps of hidden items to uncover, and multiple endings to unlock, dedicated players can expect the game to keep them busy for weeks on end. Not bad for a Kickstarted project from a tiny Shanghainese studio, right? To call Afterimage ambitious would be an understatement, to put it mildly.

Despite its excessive backtracking and hard-to-follow story, Afterimage is hands-down the most enjoyable Metroidvania I’ve played since Hollow Knight. With an engrossing world to explore, superb combat, and a plethora of fun abilities to master, it’s a game that’s almost impossible to put down once it gets its hooks in you. Even if you feel like you’ve had your fill of Soulslike Metroidvanias in recent years, you owe it to yourself to make time for Afterimage.

Final Verdict: 4/5

Available on: PS5 (reviewed), PS4, XBox One, XBox Series X|S, PC, Switch (Reviewed); Publisher: Modus Games; Developer: Aurogon Shanghai; Players: 1; Released: April 25, 2023; MSRP: $24.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Afterimage provided by the publisher.