Absolver Review – Stylishly picturesque and intricately deep

Absolver is a picturesque, martial arts RPG by Devolver Digital and Sloclap. The game is an ambitious leap into the Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG) genre and one that manages to create a unique and captivating experience for the player. With an engaging campaign on offer and the ability to jump into PvP duels, Absolver can be enjoyed on multiple levels – but don’t assume this will be an easy journey.

Developer Sloclap has made something pretty spectacular in Absolver. The game plays out like a Souls game (kind of) with even your run of the mill enemies capable of putting up a real fight. The world is made up of interconnected regions, and Altars can be located which function as bonfires in the game, allowing you to heal but respawning enemies. Real player allies can also be summoned into your world for a cooperative experience and enemies can invade your world for some PvP action. At this point the Souls comparisons begin to fall off, because even though there is some clear inspiration here, Absolver finds its own niche in the market and manages to become quite the unique experience.

The combat in the game is super intricate and finely crafted, playing out much more similarly to a game Like For Honor. And the world is just straight up gorgeous, like unbelievably gorgeous, like a painting come to life kind of gorgeous.

You begin the game as a Prospect, an inexperienced fledgling who is taking their first steps in a long journey to master the art of fighting and to become an Absolver. You are met with many foes, the most predominant of which are a set of “Marked Ones” and 3 Bosses who you have to defeat in battle in order to prove yourself. Doing so will take a lot of learning and a lot of failed attempts, but those dedicated enough will be able to master their art and become a powerful Absolver in their own right.

The premise of the game is simple, but it’s also powerfully effective. The journey your character goes on from Prospect to Absolver mimics your own personal journey as a player. A player who is coming to terms with quite an intricate and deep combat system which at first is overwhelming and difficult, but by the end you genuinely feel like a master.

Different attacks unlock as you play in a really clever “learn as you experience” type of system. Doing a well timed block or dodge against a new move will help progress you along an experience bar to learn that move. Once learned you can then slot that new move into a multitude of different slots that function as part of any 1 of your 4 stance attack combinations, or in your alternative attack slots.

If that all sounded a bit complicated it’s because it is. But that’s part of the beauty of Absolver. It wants you to feel overwhelmed and out of your depth at first but learn as you play and become a master of your own fight. Learning moves slowly as you progress and unlocking new attack slots and powers is all apart of that same progression curve that ties in so well with the game’s premise.

The style of the game then permeates to every corner of the experience. Graphically and stylistically I just can’t sing enough praise here.

Having that drop in / drop out multiplayer helps to give the game an extra layer of depth and longevity. Absolver lets you queue up to go toe to toe with an opponent and I can see players taking full advantage of this system and battling it out long after they are finished with the campaign. Multiplayer most certainly isn’t perfect though. The game felt a little too easy once a co-op partner was introduced but what really impacted me was the lag. I don’t know how much of my lag experience comes down to Australian connectivity issues, but the kind of lag I got from joining another player’s game was bordering on unplayable, and made any kind of reflexive dodges or blocks near impossible.

The biggest problem with Absolver, for me at least, is that it simply ends too soon. I’m not suggesting that the game didn’t wrap up satisfyingly (it did), nor am I suggesting that the game’s length isn’t worth the price of admission (it is). What I’m suggesting is that the systems and mechanics that are core to Absolver’s gameplay are detrimental to a short experience. When playing Absolver you unlock things slowly. Whether that is new moves, new equipment, new attack slots or new powers. You also learn the game as you play and everything comes to a nice little climax at the end where you finally feel like you are mastering things and you now have the attack combinations and abilities at your disposal to wreack havoc. But then the game ends, and you can’t put your new found mastery to the test. Imagine an MMORPG where you finally hit level cap but then there is nothing left to do. It’s just disappointing. I reached the end of Absolver and I didn’t just want more, I felt like I deserved it after the journey I took. Hell, even a New Game + feature would have gone a long way.

Having said that, PvP is an option and I think this is where players will be able to continue their gameplay and get their fix after the campaign ends. For people like me though, PvP usually isn’t a game’s biggest draw, especially when lag becomes an issue.