Absolver
Every night’s alright for fighting
WHEN IS AN MMOG not an MMOG? When it’s M, and O, and a G, but not M (that’s the first M, by the way, the one that means “massively”). Absolver would be better described as a GMOG—a gently multiplayer online game. With only a few “real” players in the same space as you at one time, and the ability to turn even this off, it’s a novel way of handling PvP encounters, turning them into one-on-one duels.
Absolver is a martial arts fighting game, set in a small open world, and illustrated in one of the best, most successful graphical styles we’ve seen in a while. Creamy, watercolor-like washes and painterly trees mix with some chunky ruined architecture and a lovely softening effect into the distance. It’s a look that will probably age well, so it’s a shame that it’s coupled to a game that, based on its current early showing, might not.
It’s in the very nature of online games that they are patched and expanded, of course, but at the time of writing, Absolver has you skilling up your character by beating up newbies, in order to take out a number of sub-bosses and a big bad. There’s a high-level end game, involving combat schools and the training of others, but Absolver is crying out for some large injections of content. We want new things to hit—and lots of them.
Combat is the heart of the game, and while you start with a range of kicks and punches, the only way to get new moves is to get beaten up by them, and learn the blows as they crunch against your skull, literally beating some sense into you. However, the only way to cement this knowledge into a move that can be added to your combat deck is to win the fight. This turns fights against those with complex moves into battles of attrition, as you fight, lose, respawn, and return to fight again. PLAYING WITH A FULL DECK? The combat deck is where the great depths of the game’s combat system can be found; a list of attacks your character can use, which you can shuffle into combos. Attacks require stances, of which there are four, and some are exclusive to a particular stance. Switching stance also changes the direction from which you approach an enemy, so it’s possible to cut around someone’s guard by approaching from front-left, feinting, switching stance, and slamming a fist into the other side of their head.
Done well, it’s a rather lovely ballet of violence, all sweeping kicks, flaming alt-moves, and flying fists. New styles, such as drunken boxing or those involving weapons, can be learned, changing the way you fight. Of course, forget the controls or get confused, and it becomes a buttonmashing hell, and while it may be possible to win low-level fights in this way, you won’t last for long without a little practice.
Absolver is deep and beautiful, capable of holding you in its clutches for the time it takes to defeat the biggest baddies. After that, there’s nowhere to go, and there’s not enough meat in the end-game to hold your attention for much longer. An expanded world would do the game so much good. Let’s hope it’s going to get one.
Absolver
ABSOLVED Wonderful graphics; deep combat system; innovative online system.
DISSOLVED Not enough to do once you’ve beaten everything; sparse soundtrack.
RECOMMENDED SPECS Intel Core i54670K, AMD FX-8320, or equivalent, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 960 (4,096MB), Radeon R9 380 (2,048MB), or better.
$30, https://absolvergame.com, ESRB: T