izigame.me

Let me put this out there at the start of this review:
If you are not an avid fan of the exploration part of the metroidvania genre or are not comfortable with being given minimal direction on how to progress the main story of the game until you start finding the pieces of the puzzle, this game is NOT for you. This includes the concept of backtracking, if you're not very thorough or don't enjoy going back and finding new things you missed the first time, you won't enjoy this game in the long run.
If you are okay with that and like getting lost in a large world that tells its story through the way its been left and the sparse people around dealing with the aftermath of things you uncover as you adventure and as well as getting lost in another way because you're left to figure out where to go and how to get there with only some broad pointers here and there without lines connecting the dots, then you'll enjoy this game.
The demographic filter aside, let's talk about the game more.
Afterimage is a lovely game, it hooks you in with its incredibly beautiful presentation and then leads you forward with an opening sequence that effectively gets you all the information you need to set out on your off-rails journey through the vast lands of Engardin.
The writing is more than sufficient, and while it may not reach the same emotional heights that some other titles have, it does weave a tale that intrigues the reader enough to keep searching for answers. Should you uncover enough information by the time you reach the game's endings, some of them may leave an impact. The world of Engardin has a storied past that slowly unravels to you over time as you've given answers to questions you didn't know you even had, letting you connect some of the dots as you go. There's a lot to unravel, and spread sparsely across however long it takes you to reach can leave you with gaps in your memory.
The meat of the game lies in the gameplay. Combat is enjoyable, with 6 weapon types, a bunch of obtainable input moves for each, and various weapons that have special properties, there is a very large array of options for you to pick from, especially when you can have 2 weapons equipped and weave their attacks together without any drawbacks like needing to swap between them. You get a lot of freedom to experiment with the way that you want to approach encounters and the spread of weapons makes it so that you rarely find one weapon type lacking in power compared to others when you get in the flow. I stuck with the Dual-Blades & Katana combo because I enjoyed the high mobility and fast strikes, but there were fights where I found more success trying out other things, like Dual-Blades & Greatsword or Scythe & Whip. Those weren't the only combos that I used, though. Each area of the world is distinct and has clear connections to other areas as well as their own pasts, and it makes everything feel fresh when you find your next destination.
The difficulty of this game is relatively low. There are certainly some boss fights that might give you a struggle even if you fight them on-level (Personally, those were Valo, Brandr, and Reaping Scythe, so sue me) but the difficulty of the game tends to be inversely proportional to how much you explore and how well you pick the map clean of its secrets. The more you uncover, the easier things will be. I personally avoided using potions since they made the game feel too easy, and that was a choice that I made for myself.
After completing all the achievements and the game in general to its fullest completion (except for the Trial of Soul, which is the boss fight gallery that many games in the genre have, as it's not my cup of tea nor do you need to do it for an ending of the game, one of my personal gripes with a certain very popular title that has yet to get its sequel 6 years after it was announced in 2019) I can safely say that they took care in the way that they placed everything around the map, and in the single hour that it took to do NG+ (do not treat it like a typical NG+ it is a separate story that runs parallel to the main one with Renee) so many things started to click. Even things as simple as the locations of a few seemingly unimportant items started to make sense and then going into the true ending everything was wrapped up and came together at the end.
Afterimage is a game that isn't for everyone, and that's fine. Afterimage is a game that was made for people that play a lot of metroidvania games and what it does, it delivers on incredibly well. It's an experience that avid members of the metroidvania community will find a lot of enjoyment from, and that's what this game set out to do from the start. Incredible experience, I highly suggest it if you've played a lot of similar games or if the game that I have described in my review appeals to you.