Don’t walk away, Renee.
There’s nothing quite like a good Metroidvania. Dense labyrinths to traverse, many kinds of demons/undead/monsters to slay, new equipment to find, hazards to leap, and, most importantly, abilities to acquire that allow you to explore even more. We’ve gotten quite a few stellar genre entries in the last decade, but now we have another that aims to join the most memorable of them: Aurogon Shanghai’s Afterimage. This sprawling, anime-inspired take on the genre double jumps and air dashes with the best of them, though it isn’t without its quirks.
Afterimage opens with a vague, Dark Souls-like overview of how its world has decayed, depicted with a series of gorgeous, hand-drawn images. We understood none of it. In fact, the narrative is a convoluted mess of fantasy pronouns and anime girls; even after a dozen hours, we still didn’t know what was going on other than that, taking control of a young magical girl named Renee, we had to seek out a cloaked girl that stole her master’s soul. Joined by a sassy spirit called Ifree, we were off through hand-drawn biome after biome, whacking a wide array of enemies with whips and great swords as we explored every nook for treasure and upgrades.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
