Edward Harding
Edward HardingIn my ongoing quest to find a Pokémon game with actual effort put into it, I stumbled across the Aethermancer’s demo while browsing monster-collecting games on Steam. Developed by Moi Rai Games, the pixel art style immediately captured my interest and I decided to dive in. Multiple hours later, I’m happy to say I was pleasantly surprised and am looking forward to the full release.
Aethermancer is built upon the genius idea of combining the Roguelite genre with the charm of a creature-collecting game. If you’ve ever undertaken a challenge playthrough of a mainline Pokémon game you’ll notice its similarities to the Roguelite genre. The Pokémon you encounter in each route are chosen from a random pool with randomized natures all of which affect stat distributions in subtle ways. The old games in particular are designed in a way that encourages multiple playthroughs to find hidden areas, items, or rare Pokémon that you may not have caught on your first time adventuring.
In Aethermancer, you take on the role of a mythical sorcerer who can summon the spirits of defeated monsters to explore the Fractured Ruins. Each time one of your creatures falls in battle it’s gone for good until you revive it at the beginning of the next area. Your party consists of three creatures, each of which is associated with one of the four elemental types. Every area will have a few random battles featuring classic turn-based combat to level up your team.
You’ll also have the chance to pick up not only items and gold but also interact with key NPCs who will not only unveil details about the world but unlock features within your home base. Apart from the usual merchant offering upgrades for your character and powerful items you can find a character who can help change your starting creature to any of your captured roster. This demo includes only two starters initially but the full game will have more.
Unlike Pokémon, successive fights are far from boring due to a few additional mechanics thrown in. Each attack you unleash will cost you aether of an associated element which is generated through landing basic attacks, and passive effects. Aether can also be generated randomly at the start of your turn. Your Aethermancer can also impact the battle by casting spells to support allies. Finally, there is a stagger system that is not only integral to capturing new creatures but can also aid you in disrupting key attacks or dishing out serious damage.
As is the case in Pokémon, most creatures will have a weakness to a particular element and hitting them with corresponding attacks will rapidly break their poise. When this reaches zero the enemy is staggered allowing you to deal bonus damage, capture their soul for a future run, and interrupt their current action for the turn. As a result, there’s a lot more decision-making within the simple battle structure, which is certainly refreshing.
The best aspect of this game is by far the creatures themselves. One would think that each one would simply serve a singular purpose given the elemental type structure. While that is true to a degree, every creature also slots into a few interesting subthemes which are fleshed out further as you level them up and gain access to new attacks or passive abilities. Though this demo only contains two distinct biomes and around 15-20 creatures I was able to craft a huge variety of team compositions and strategies playing off interesting mechanics. One of my favorite runs relied on applying poison status to my team to trigger the passive effect of one of my creatures which essentially reflected status ailments back on the opponent. It’s elements like this that cemented my immediate love for this title.
This wonderfully addicting gameplay is also wrapped up in a charming cartoon art style with some fantastic animations and killer sound design. It’s extremely satisfying to interact with enemies in both the overworld and in direct combat. Traversal is certainly quick and responsive, but I wish there could have been a bit more to do within the overworld besides combat and resource gathering. Perhaps, adding some traps or puzzles to each environment would help in this regard.
My only real request for this game is that the party size should be increased slightly though this is more out of greed than necessity. Three is certainly not bad and works fine, but I often wished for just one more slot. Most turn-based RPGs operate with around four characters and having that additional slot would both allow for a little more room to experiment with playstyles and allow you to show appreciation to more of these cool-looking monsters that the team has put effort into designing.
All-in-all, this is everything I could hope for in a demo. It gives you a great taste of what the game has to offer while still leaving much to be explored. I’m excited to see what new biomes, bosses, and challenges await in the full release.
Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.
Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!
23
