The Metroidvania genre is full of variety. There are Metroidvanias that lean more toward the Souls-like side of focusing on difficulty and exploration. Alternatively, there are Metroidvanias that lean more into the exploration and narrative side of things. Afterimage is in a weird middle ground and offers a bit of fun despite its eccentricities.

Afterimage is a Metroidvania that puts you in the role of Renee, an amnesiac girl who is the sole survivor of her village. She has been raised and trained to fight mysterious forces that are conspiring to destroy the world. After her new home is destroyed, Renee sets off to find her missing mentor and may very well decide the fate of the world.

Afterimage is more open than most Metroidvanias. As you explore you’ll get “Afterimages” which increase your capabilities. Renee can equip two main weapons (of six different types) as well as a subweapon, which usually involves magic of some form. You can also collect armor and accessories for Renee, which can boost her defensive stats.

As you defeat enemies, you’ll level up. Leveling up gets you talent points, which can be put in a skill tree. You can also find Talent points in the world, and sometimes they may drop from certain powerful enemies. The different weapons aren’t incredibly varied, but as you level up the skill tree nodes, you can branch out into “builds” focused on specific weapons.

My personal favorites were the standard sword for fast cuts and the whip for higher damage. Technically though, Afterimage doesn’t force you to stick to a particular build or anything. There are enough talent points to go around for you to be able to enjoy experimenting. There are also a lot of areas for you to explore, with very little direction on where you should be going next.

Strangely, the narrative is very disjointed, or at least I found it hard to follow. Because of that, it may take some time for you to figure out where you need to go next. Due to the open nature of the environments, it never feels like you’re restricted or forced into one way of playing. You can also carry healing items to supplement Renee’s ability to heal herself, so the difficulty isn’t as punishing as other more Souls-like Metroidvania games.

The combat isn’t all that interesting in comparison to other Metroidvanias out there. However, Afterimage has a beautiful art design and gives players a lot of freedom in how they want to build their character and how they want to focus their fighting style. For that alone, I find that while Afterimage might not be the most engaging Metroidvania combat-wise, it is a great option for beginners or people who aren’t all that fond of more difficult games in the genre.

In terms of accessibility, the dialogue is easy to read and there are multiple text-size options. Dialogue is also voiced, though the audio-balancing in terms of volume is a bit low. The controls are intuitive, though it is designed to be played with a Gamepad, I’m not sure how well it would play with Keyboard and Mouse.

If you’re looking for a less intense Metroidvania than something like Blasphemous II, check out Afterimage. It isn’t the best one I’ve played, but it has a wealth of content, gorgeous environments, decent combat, and multiple endings to discover. It is definitely worth your time if you’re a fan of Metroidvania games.

A PC Review copy of Afterimage was provided by Modus Games for this Review.

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Afterimage

$24.99 USD

8

Score

8.0/10

Pros

• Beautiful Environments
• Multiple play styles and build options
• Vast open environments
• Accessible text
• Lots of secrets, content, and replay value

Cons

• Story feels disjointed
• Combat isn't super interesting