Afterimage is a sprawling 2D Metroidvania that, at times, feels like it goes on forever in all directions. The problem is that it's almost impossible to know which of those directions you should be headed.
You are Renee, a warrior in white, joined by your spirit pal, Ifree, a little floating dude in a floppy hat. There’s not much more I can tell you about these characters beyond the fact that they're always together. Afterimage doesn't really spend time on the usual building blocks of story like character or stakes or motivation and, as a result, the narrative it tries to weave as you wander its huge map is incomprehensible.
From the first scenes, this platforming RPG from Aurogon Shanghai throws an endless barrage of proper nouns at you, opening with a cutscene that sets the historical context for its world, Engardin. This crawl is so lore heavy — each sentence complicating beats the previous sentence didn't bother to explain — that you begin the game more confused than you would be without any introduction at all.
You can ignore this, to an extent, once you get exploring. Metroidvanias scratch a really specific itch for me, and Afterimage is no exception. I rarely feel more energized by a game than when I finally get a tool that opens up new possibilities in previously dead end areas. That happens often in Afterimage, like when I got the double jump that allowed me to reach areas that were previously too high up, or when I got the climbing gloves that allowed me to scale any surface, or when I gained the ability to swim, unlocking the depths of the map. All of these items add major skills to Renee's repertoire, and that classic loop still feels great no matter how many times I've done it. It helps that Afterimage looks really nice with bright colors and memorable environments, like one where giant moss-covered chains are visible in the backgrounds as you platform past. And most of the time your exploration is soundtracked by peaceful, melodic tunes that make the world a chill place to be.
The story is a problem because the way Afterimage presents its narrative interferes with the good stuff — exploring its world effectively. Once the game starts, the proper nouns continue apace, spilling out of the main characters’ mouths unabated in stilted dialogue. This makes it impossible to care about the central duo, but it also makes it difficult to even know where you’re supposed to go. It's like if a game as open as Breath of the Wild was constantly trying to confuse you. Afterimage does have a critical path, but it’s extremely difficult to discern if you’re traveling along it, with unclear journal entries and a complete lack of map markers. You can see where you lost your XP, and you can see where your character currently is, but that's it. You can't mark a quest on your map, and you can't mark locations you want to revisit either.
That can be frustrating because I would sometimes encounter bosses that seemed way too difficult for me, but the way the story is communicated, it’s impossible to know if you’re in the right place or not. The game’s world is so big and fast travel is, for much of the game, locked behind single use items, so you are often traveling on foot for long distances to check if something has changed that will allow you to pass a previous obstacle -and you better remember where those obstacles are.
Eventually, you unlock the option to fast travel between certain points in the game, but it does the Bloodborne thing of leaving your healing items used up even after you die. So, if you attempt a tough boss a few times to no avail, get ready for the long trek back to Resting Town, where you can buy some more potions (if you've managed to save enough money). Items can be just as confounding. There's a page in your inventory devoted to "Scattered Prism Bones," which are described as "a valuable item" that "merchants are keen on buying and collecting," but the game hits you with a pop-up warning you that you can't buy back key items if you decide to sell them.
Combat is fairly one note. You need to hit things until they die, and you can equip two weapons to hit them with. You also have a magic attack, which can be fire or ice or, the one I stuck with the longest, a wind attack that whirls out in a circle from your position, among others. The problem is that the finer points of combat don't matter all that much. Bosses will chew through your health bar if you're underleveled, and if you’re overleveled, you'll chew through theirs quick enough that you don't need to worry about dodging their attacks. Few of these fights are interesting. Generally, if you're the right level and have a healthy stockpile of potions, you can spam your way through it. If you don't, you won't. Afterimage rewards grinding much more than skill in battle.
Playing Afterimage, then, is a lot like going to a congested airport. It offers you the chance to visit a ton of interesting destinations. But, getting to them can feel like waiting through a long TSA line only to find out you're missing essential paperwork. Yeah, I want to see Naples, but maybe not that bad.
