When first playing Testament: The Order of High Human, I thought I was getting a PS2-era AA-studio level RPG. The accent of the blandest man in video games, Aran, is speaking through heavily accented English. The setting is (as told by the name) dark high fantasy-esque, and the un-remappable controller inputs are somewhat awkward. It turns out that the 15-person team at Fairyship Games that made Testament over the last several years is very much US-based. That doesn’t excuse what I am now categorically calling a war crime in that there is no field-of-view option for a first-person game.

Set in this fantasy land of Medias Res, Aran wakes up in angry Groot’s cottage and goes on a march to regain powers and take on the son of Fárbauti who wants to bring about darkness. The plot is a mish-mash of good vs evil, light against dark, and you know how this Rick Roll goes. Aran is never going to give up, even if you might. Storywise, there is little that is new, refreshing, or enjoyable. Quite frankly, with a run time closer to 20 hours rather than 10 (if you are quick), I think the pacing believes the story and gameplay of Testament is more impressive than it actually is.

From the technical side, I didn’t run into copious bugs or entirely poor performance, especially for running in Unreal 4. It is simply the lack of a few features or simply the overall accessibility that stands out against an otherwise proficient title. It isn’t the most detailed in terms of graphical options, though certainly if you find Testament dropping a lot on lower-end PCs, I think there is plenty to keep your PC running smoothly enough. Despite a lack of remapping for the controller, the rather simple keyboard and mouse controls for something inspired by older RPGs can be remapped.

How awkward are these controls though? Combat is supposedly inspired by FromSoft’s Souls series, though despite light attacks (and either-handed magics) on RT and LT, neither melee attack packs that Souls-punch, though crawling up behind halflings does let you automatically kill lower-ranking enemies and bite the ankles of the others. It is more so the controls for jumping and sprinting/dodging that feel awkward to deal with alongside your faux-Estus/Crimson Tears. Run/dodge is on LB, jump on RB, Mana potion is your left direction button, health to the right, Batman-vision is down, and item wheel is holding up.

Changing weapons/attacks is X, Y, and B, so what is the point of the item wheel? It is used for crafting, everyone’s favorite thing on this side of an intracranial hemorrhage. A bit like Tears of the Kingdom, there may be too few memorable buttons for the number of things attempted with a control scheme that either hasn’t been used in a long time or possibly ever. Trying to reinvent the wheel is about as great an idea as trying to turn a scimitar into a toy: It is more painful than it would have been sticking to something established, understandable, and joyful to play with.

Being an RPG, the focus is somewhat on the story, and for the life of me, I find it difficult to keep up as Aran’s ramblings were more about world-building than anything else. Akin to the lady Croft who doth protest too much about a Jonah, there is an almighty attempt to establish a mythos and a grand background for this world we’re in. Truth be told, none of it matters too much. At the end of the day, I wanted to spare myself from this stakeless, emotionless, and mismatched plot being spread about, but it continued on and my desire to care died before I did.

Intentionally a little out of sequence, the story of Tessara (the world) and Aran is broken up into flashbacks and moments of “we’re going to take 40 seconds to exposit at you.” The latter of which aren’t flashbacks or flash-forwards, just weird acid trips about people you are supposed to know but don’t because no one has sat you down yet to tell you about anything. Set-up isn’t the strong suit of Testament: The Order of High Human, and despite piling on the countless world-building elements, there is something there. It is just hidden under drunken ideas of becoming Skyrim.

I found it strange when told of Testament to think of it as an “old-school retro RPG with challenging gameplay but with a lot of the superfluous busy work [that] modern contemporaries tend to cut.” While also saying, “it’s ambitious but intentionally focused on key gameplay areas rather than trying to be all things to all people.” I’ll agree with busy and superfluous that maybe should have been cut, but the gameplay itself isn’t entirely challenging as it is difficult to enjoy. The supposed Souls-like combat is a part of that, as every swing of your sword is slow but doesn’t feel heavy as there isn’t a great deal of feedback.

Similarly, the bow or your magics don’t give much feedback either through vibrations in your controller or from sound effects. The weight of the Souls combat is defined by the reaction as well as how slow a slash, stab, or hit happens to be. A slash is great until the person you are in close quarters with shrugs it off, rips your arm off, and beats you to death with the wet end. With Testament, I’m left with no impression that what I did to take half the health from an underling or a bite-size from a boss’ health actually did anything in my progress other than the visual of the health bar.

The restricted field of view often doesn’t help when (for example) a boss commands his mutts to make a meal out of Aran’s genitals. If you can, I’d suggest standing back in a safe place in a room full of these underlings while picking them off with arrows. Hit in the right spot as highlighted by your Batman vision, the most basic or tough enemy you’ll face in the open air or deep in the mines goes down in one shot. The trouble is that the bow combat has nothing on Far Cry 3’s perfection. It might seem like a strange comparison but the UI offers something akin to the marksman sight.

Precision platforming with such a lack of FOV options is also quite vomit-inducing. I know that from experience as an early puzzle asked me to climb inside a spinning M.C Escher cube and not spread my breakfast up the walls/floors. The puzzles themselves aren’t bad, and in fact, they offer something of a relief from the combat. Sadly, they aren’t the most complex of things to figure out. Aside from platforming through the Crystal Maze’s medieval zone, you are tasked with reflecting light off of some mirrors like a basic Pipe Mania/Pipe Dream. I don’t hate the puzzles, it is the FOV that’s the problem overall.

Made with a sense of love for the project, it is disappointing to see my time with Testament: The Order of High Human boiled down to not enjoying the combat, not entirely enjoying the puzzles, and only having a passing interest in the story of Aran and the world of Tessara. The downfall of the story is simply front-loading itself with world-building that lacks any sense of emotion or stakes to get me invested as a player. I’ve no idea who the voice actor for Aran was, but I’ve seen comedically depressed Eeyore being more lively talking about dark things than our exposition-spouting lead is.

Testament: The Order of High Human has a lot of grand ideas of what an RPG should be and how to execute them. When it comes to actually putting them all together it falls apart like a house held together with double-sided sticky tape. I keep coming back to the melee combat as it is the meat in this sandwich and arguably the bread too. It tries to pass off that it is a combo-based system, but it isn’t until much later on. Limited arrows and magic, or inability to hold a sword and do magic, only suggest by design that you’re supposed to enjoy the melee combat more. I find my bow more enjoyable.

Possibly due to the AI which will all run straight up to you unless you find a ranged halfling, in which case they stand there waiting for death when you are near. At the very least there is a parry that is easy enough to time with several sign-posted attacks. Some will also flash red because despite having Batman vision you are also Spider-Man too. Not that the AI is great in the first place, as there are often ledges and other ways to break up the combat arenas. That just means if you’re in the room before a boss battle you can sometimes run straight to that instead.

I’d also argue that bosses absolutely require the use of the crafting items (fire arrows, damage reduction, and timed shields) that consume your limited mana. I wouldn’t mind that if it were the case of a toggle to open the item wheel, which again is up on your directional buttons. So I have one finger on LB as I run away, a thumb on the analog stick, and I’ve yet to hold up to open this wheel with another finger on my left hand as the right stick is used to select items from the wheel. I thought Nintendo was the one that believed that we are many-limbed aliens, but here we are.

All the pieces for a typical fantasy game are here, and despite understanding that the story of an RPG is often the strong suit, Testament: The Order of High Human was set up by Fairyship Games to be far too ambitious for its tall task. Vacuums of charisma take the reigns for your more than 20-hour (probably closer to 30-40) adventure that is comparably as linear as Call of Duty, with minor side quests offering slight diversions into more bland fantasy realm scenes. Said quests are often rewarded with more boring plot elements, combat, or slight relief with puzzles.

Despite wanting to like Testament: The Order of High Human, it has spent hours breaking my will to keep playing. I can’t help but wonder what is supposed to be fun here. All there is here is a tedious plot with pacing slower than a version of Gardener’s Weekly the length of The Bible, and gameplay that frustrates more than excites.

It makes me think even the man that wrote “without its undergoing any intermediate process of change” would find it laborious. Ultimately, there is nothing special or interesting about Testament beyond wondering how anyone thought this was Souls-like while also trying their best to poorly imitate Skyrim.

A PC review copy of Testament: The Order of High Human was provided by Fairyship Games for this review.

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Testament: The Order of High Human

$34.99

4

Score

4.0/10

Pros

• The bow is better to play with.
• Puzzles are a relief from combat.

Cons

• Directionless plot.
• Charismaless characters.
• Tiring melee gameplay.
• No FOV-slider for a first-person title.