What do you have if you combine Dead Cells and Streets of Rage 4? Well, to save you the hassle, we’ll let you know. You have Absolum, a ‘Rogue ’em Up’ by creators Dotemu, Guard Crush Games, and Supamonks which we recently got to experience through a streamed preview build. It applies the quick, smooth, and responsive combat systems that you expect from a vintage beat-’em-up game and introduces alternate playthroughs with branching paths, permanent upgrades, items, and quests.
Swapping Streets of Rage’s urban roads for green, lush environments that look like they’ve been pulled straight from the pages of Tolkien (or, better still, Golden Axe), Absolum has you control one of four revolutionaries who aim to overthrow Sun King Azra, a god-like figure that rules over Talamh’s fantasy world. In the short preview build, we got to play two of the four playable characters: Galandra, a quick sword-wielding warrior and Karl, a large dwarf whose rifle enables him to damage enemies at a distance.
The game does not dally getting you into fight mode, and it is clear that Dotemu and Guard Crush have taken the time working on Streets of Rage 4 to create a fighting system that is rewarding from the start but secretly complex. We tested with an Xbox controller, and you simply press ‘Y’ (‘X’ on Switch) to release a quick melee combo, ‘X’ (‘Y’ on Switch) to wield your weapon and deal a heavy blow, and ‘RB’ (‘R’) to release a powerful special ability that’s guaranteed to knock up a couple of enemies.
Fights are presented regularly as you travel through the landscape and, in classic beat-’em-up fashion, the road ahead is blocked until all enemies have been defeated. The twist here is that some of the victories come with optional rewards which enable character enhancements and it is here that Absolum solidly embraces its roguelike status.
Similarly with Dead Cells and Hades, the upgrades themselves are usually not solo items in their own but are presented together in pairs of two or thrice, wherein you get a choice to see which one among them sounds best and suits you. You can choose something like an addition to a burn element in your initial combos, or perhaps you fancy a killing beam of lightning descending upon you in a perfect dodge.
We can only speculate on what will be available with the complete game, but even with the comparatively brief preview, the extra abilities made a definite difference to fighting, making you feel decidedly more powerful as you progress further into the levels. Naturally, it’s still no walkover, and death can come quickly if you’re not paying attention or find yourself caught out in some unexpected way.
Again, taking a page out of Dead Cells’ book, dying results in a fresh game playthrough through the world, so you can review your situation, heal yourself, purchase a few handy items, and then go out and do it all again. The layout changes every time, but thanks to the extremely stylish graphics and lovely fantasy world, you’d be hard-pressed to imagine that each playthrough hasn’t been painstakingly hand-made every time.
The preview ended with quite a bossy boss with a big health bar of its own at the bottom of the screen. Either when you play alone or you’re employing a co-op session with friends, these boss battles seem to be constructed in a way that you use the best out of your capabilities and attributes to emerge victorious. It’s fun business, and we have to admit we had our bums kicked a few times before we beat the demo’s kingpin.
Presentation-wise, the graphics do take quite a bit of influence from Streets of Rage 4’s hand-drawn style. Here, though, it’s a little more stylized and abstracted, almost like it’s been taken straight from an Image-published fantasy comic book. There’s a shot where the characters are sprinting across the foreground, completely blacked out like silhouettes, while in the far-off background an explosion destroys a stone bridge in the misty glow of a rising moon. It’s a fine-looking game, no doubt.
The same can be said for sound design. Standard fantasy melodies actually add so much to your fight encounters, and each blow of your fist and swish of your blade is punctuated by excellent, punchy diegetic audio effects. Some more banter or remarks from the characters while you collaborate in taking down your enemies would be nice, but we’re equally happy if they’re stoically silent.
The preview build we got to play through was free from any hideous bugs or performance issues, though we obviously can’t comment yet on how it’ll run natively on the Switch, though based on the solid foundation of Streets of Rage 4, we’d hope so. We’re keen to see how this one pans out later in the year.Absolum is scheduled for release on Switch and other consoles some time in 2025, though no specific date has been proposed yet.
What are your thoughts on what you’ve witnessed thus far? Can’t wait to witness more? Tell us by commenting below.
