Absolum

This year seems to be the year that keeps on giving. In terms of video games at least. I can’t say the same for real life and how society has been. Every night I just lie in bed. Let all the midnight thoughts kick in and worry what troubles the next day will bring and the day after. This is why we have video games. To help escape the worries of the real world and lessen the stress on our shoulders. Cool, anyways let’s talk about a roguelike. A genre that definitely isn’t stressful and oversaturated with entries. Nothing beats getting your ass kicked after thirty minutes of play and starting from scratch each restart. Roguelikes, ‘Games made for masochists.’ Jokes aside, I love a good roguelike every now and then. One of my favorite games ever is a roguelike, Hades, and its sequel Hades 2 is my game of the year for 2025. This year has been chock full of roguelikes and I haven’t had time to play them all. Monster Train got a sequel and from what I heard it’s a vast improvement in almost every category. Mortal Sin hits its 1.0 release and it’s what happens when you take the mediocre first person melee combat, inject it with acid, and make it  good. Ball x Pit is one of the biggest surprises of 2025 from what I’m told. Then there’s today’s game.

Absolum, the game that asks the question: What if we took Hades and combined it with the beat ‘em ups such as Streets of Rage 4. In fact, the game is made by the devs of Streets of Rage 4, so that’s nice to see how they’ve branched off since then. I remember covering Streets of Rage 4 a long time ago, and while I did think it was a great game I can’t seem to remember anything about it. Never had any interest in going back for a second playthrough. I just played it once and never touched it again, which is weird because Streets of Rage 4 for a lot of folks is a highly replayable game. I’ve seen people who’ve dumped a hundred plus hours into this game. Streets of Rage 4 is not that long. It’s like four to five hours at most depending on what difficulty you play it on. That means people have managed to play this game twenty times or more depending on whether each playthrough grew faster. I took this as a sign that Streets of Rage 4 never clicked for me, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with Absolum. After the development of the last Streets of Rage, the developers went two ways. Some went to work on remasters of old school titles, and the others started development on Windjammers 2. However, there was a third team and those were co-developers who wanted to experiment with what they learned. 

With fond memories of Dungeons of Dragons and Golden Axe as well as inspiration from the popular roguelike Dead Cells, the team decided to make another beat ‘em up with the two twists of course being that it’s a roguelike and fantasy themed. Absolum was revealed earlier this year with an animated trailer featuring gameplay. This amazed me when I originally saw it. Not just because I’m a sucker for fantasy and stylish hand drawn animation, but… okay maybe it is cuz of that. Absolum was shaping up to be something great, and I kept a close eye on it as the team slowly approached its release date. The game came out just a few weeks ago and so far reception for Absolum has been extremely positive. With some outlets citing it as one of the best indies of 2025. Now having played the game myself I can safely confirm that Absolum is in fact that good. Better than I was hoping it would be, and unlike Streets of Rage 4 it may have gotten me to start caring about beat ‘em ups. I probably should’ve stated this during the start, because it’s gotten me to realize why I probably didn’t go back for future playthroughs of Streets of Rage 4. I think beat ‘em ups is a good genre. I’m not gonna say they lack depth, because there’s more depth than you and I actually think. Learning to master a character and their moves, the encounters in each level, and chain long combo streaks. However, I’ve never been one to go crazy with combos in games, and always preferred slower, more thoughtful action.

Absolum has finally started to make me care for beat ‘em ups. Not just for the combat, but the several aspects surrounding it. The systems at play, the world and it's characters, all the consideration that come with every run through. There’s a lot to love about Absolum even if you aren’t a fan of this genre. Absolum is a game made by people who grew up and love beat 'em up games, and it shows through the suprisingly high quality and bar set by thhis game. Today we’ll talk about why I adored Absolum, and why it deserves your attention. 

Story

Several years ago Talamh was led by an omnipotent order known as the Root Sisters. Each race of the land had a sister representing them, and together they helped spread magic throughout the world. Training subjects who could harvest and control the magic. Letting them become scholars and wizards who’d help generations of magic users prosper. The thirst for knowledge grew as the months went by, but one tragedy occurred. A great explosion emerged from Yeldrim killing all the people within it. Transforming its former inhabitants into the undead and horrifying beasts. It was discovered the explosion occurred due to magic boiling deep beneath the earth. It had now become overused, abused, and pushed beyond its limit. Word got out and people began to panic. What is a society heavily reliant on magic to do now that it has the potential to kill them at any unsuspected moment? That’s when a new figure arose from the shadows seeking to overthrow the current beings in charge. Azra the Sun King, and at first people looked towards him for hope. He trained and led his forces to topple the Root Sisters. Banning all forms of magic substances, and soon sending search parties to capture and contain any wizards left. 

Those who remained fled and sought refuge in a place unseen by normal eyes. Azra ruled over all, but little did the people know how cruel he would become. He ruled over them with an iron fist, and any who dared not support his views and laws were to be burnt away. Stomped on as the shining hero had become the worst figure to ever grace Talamh. Things got worse and it seemed like no hope was left in sight. However, with the secret refuge lied heroes. Wizards who spent day and night readying themselves. Fighting for the possible future of a world without Talamh. A world where society would be given a second chance with magic, and they would harness it to help one another. The game opens up with two wizards fighting to save the sorceress Uchawi. They succeed in doing so, but are quickly cut down by Azra’s forces. They are left bleeding to their deaths until a golden light grasps them. Transporting their bodies back to the safe haven where they resurrected. Now with a sorceress helping to lead them onward our heroes venture out into the land. To fight those who stand in their way, make it to the capital city, and defeat the evil Sun King once and for all. The sun gazes upon all, but you burn brighter. Burn as your wings soar on high.

Gameplay

Much like what I stated during the intro, Absolum is what happens when you combine Hades and Streets of Rage 4. Each run has you starting from homebase. Here you can unlock upgrades, talk to surrounding characters, choose your character, and initiate a run. Absolum is straightforward in terms of how you progress a run, but what makes Absolum unique is how exploration is done. The world of Absolum is divided into numerous paths. Some paths converge in the same place, but each path contains their own challenges and enemies for you to overcome. Meaning you got a choice on what dangers you’d rather face instead. For example, the first area is between the first filled with goblins and traps, or a seaside coast leading into a village under attack. The path to the village is littered with dogs, crabs, and eventually guards who have set up barricades and are outfitted with lethal weaponry. With the occasional goblin from the forest stepping in to fight the guards. You have to be wary about two factions at once, but you can also use the war to your advantage as guards and goblins clash. The forest is the safer option, but the goblins may use the environment against you. Cleverly hidden traps or charge at you with boars. These paths may even contain more paths that diverge, and it’s all about choosing what poison.

Combat is exactly what you expect from a beat ‘em up action. There’s a light attack which does good damage at a fast enough speed. A special attack where a character uses a skill pertained to their physical attributes or weapon of choice. A dash and a jump button which combined with the attack buttons let’s do aerial attack. You also have arcana, which are lethal moves good for doing heavy damage and juggling enemies. However, arcana uses mana which is only refilled through attacking enemies or finding mana potions. It’s why chaining combos in Absolum is important, and why you shouldn’t use all your arcana points at once. The most unique mechanics at your disposal is deflecting and clashing. A well timed dodge or special skill in the direction you are being attacked in will initiate one of the two. You’ll leave the enemy briefly stunned, giving you the opening to slash away. In most cases you can combo them, but some enemies don’t stun or can be juggled easily. They have thick defense or need to be weakened enough. Just like Sekiro you need to learn perfect deflects otherwise you won’t be getting windows of opportunity. After beating an enemy encounter you’ll be given one of numerous rewards. A key one being the ritual crystals. They function much like boons in Hades where choosing a crystal will outfit one of your actions with an attribute. Different crystals will give your actions different effects, and accumulating more during runs may net you powerful builds. Fire can afflict burn, thorn drops daggers for you to throw, static has lightning bounce between foes, etc. 

You also have boons which boost one of many stats during a run, or grant a unique perk. Granting the power you need or leading into even more crazier builds. Remember that this is a roguelike and at some point you will die. Either because you run into an enemy you weren’t prepared for, or due to bad luck. You get kicked back to base losing everything aside from crystal shards you’ve looted. Just like Hades these can be spent to unlock upgrades for your characters. Stat improvements, perks, or what are the equivalency of a Death Defiance called Mother’s Grace. It means that future runs become more manageable as the player grows stronger. I understand some people may not like this approach and we’ll talk more about this later, but personally I like this. It allows failure to grant you some reward and means to push forward despite how demotivating it is to start from square one. At the end of each major sector lies a boss and they are what blocks you from progressing forward. These guys are rough and may take numerous attempts to beat, but once you bring them down it feels tremendous. Aside from that there’s not much else for me to say about Absolum. The game is exactly what it ventured out to be, a beat ‘em up roguelike, and it strives in being just that. Your training has brought you far, and hopefully it’s enough to create a future where Talamh can finally be at peace.

Thoughts

Absolum is the first beat ‘em up I’ve played that I would strongly recommend. Usually I save my review score and level of recommendation till the last two lines of the review, but I’m saying it right now. This is an amazing game that blends two genres wonderfully together. There are some flaws, but none of them held me back from having a blast during the ten or so hours it took me to acquire the true ending. When it comes to beat ‘em up combat the two factors that drive it is player mastery of the character and knowing how to handle enemy encounters. As of right now Absolum has four playable characters, and I expect there to be more added through expansions as that’s what the developers did with Streets of Rage 4. However, compared to Streets of Rage 4, I feel as though mastering the characters of Absolum is much easier as you can quickly grasp their mechanics and quirks. Karl is short, but can hit hard and blast foes away. Cider is nimble and close distance easily with her grapple arms. Bromer is the slowest character, but uses long range attacks and spells. Personally, my main character was Galandra. Her simple toolkit makes her a great starting character, and when built right during a run can unleash colossal damage. Knowing how to apply the limitations of these characters to varying combat scenarios is what makes this game challenging yet so addicting. One enemy may be more challenging than another, so it’s all moment to moment consideration on who to approach first.

Compared to Streets of Rage 4 this game felt like it pushed me further to pursue long combos. It wasn’t just because the game was hard and I wanted to get the most out of downed enemies, but because of how it handles mana. The mana bar is used to perform arcana skills and majority of the time it’s good enough to stun enemies or break their guard. Mana is refilled from attacking, so it drives you to pursue long streak combos to quickly refill it. That or pursue the strategy I had which is to break, juggle an enemy for a bit, use an arcana skill, and then keep juggling. This design choice does not only encourage an aggressive and active playstyle, but also keeps pacing at a good speed. I like how instead the rituals function much like boons in Hades. A system I’ve always liked as it makes you consider what attributes to apply to each skill. How to build your character so they’re not only making good use of their abilities, but what they’re infused with. One playthrough made it so that my special attack inflicts flame, and my normal attacks create gusts of wind. So I’d hit them with a few light combos, launch them into the air, hit them a few more times, and then finish with a heavy midair sword slash. It also helped that a miniboss I had fought earlier transformed my midair sword slash into a spin attack so juggle time was tripled. Another run had me spawn thorn daggers everytime I hit an enemy, build up static with combos, and I found a charm that return thrown objects by fifty percent. So I would chain a long combo, loot the dropped daggers, back away, and start throwing.

I will admit though that even though there’s a good amount of build and item choices in a run of Absolum there’s not much variety compared to something like Hades or Dead Cells. The variety is good, but you won’t be given as many choices as the latter. One of my biggest criticisms with this game are not the rewards you’re given. Most ritual and item rewards are things you’ll use, and if not you can exchange them at vendors to purchase gear you would rather use. What I dislike is how Absolum doesn’t signal you what kind of reward you’ll get from fights. You could argue Hades has conditioned me into this mindset, or the joy of a roguelike is working with what you have. Fair enough, but sometimes it sucks to go through a hard challenge only to be given a sack of gold. However, I like this as the game is driven more by skill than stats. Absolum has an upgrade system similar to that of Hades. You’ll increase base stats from spending crystals, and perks to make later runs more manageable. Some Folks will argue it means early runs of the game are spent grinding until you build up enough strength to steamroll the game. The same applies with Hades and even though I understand the critique with both these games I prefer this system. It means failure can net some reward that can help you. Make things easier or open up new choices rather than do the same song and dance again and again at the start. However, even when I had good stats in Absolum my ass still somehow got  kicked. Area two and onward has a significant enough difficulty spike, and healing stations don’t refill a lot of health. 

This is why I said skill beats stats. Hades was also a skill based game, but Absolum seems more focused on it between the two. I like this. Much like Hades you must realize each death what killed you and how to avoid it in the future. It lets further steps in later runs feel more rewarding. That one more run feeling that drives every roguelike, and it’s ever present here in Absolum. Now the runs here are quite long. A successful run is about 40-50 minutes long, and it took me eight hours to achieve my first successful run.  That might be a bit bloated depending on your ideal roguelike runtime. However, I never noticed how long runs were. What matters most of all is whether I’m having fun, and I was. Brawling my way through a variety of enemies which there’s a lot of. Carefully considering what paths to take and what boss fights I would rather face. Gaining enough upgrades so I don’t suffer later. I was engaged in combat and systems at play. There’s enough complexity without being too much, and the simpleness is good without ever becoming too stale or repetitive quickly.I only have one critique in terms of the excellent combat. I kinda despise how your ultimate is a one time and the only refill you get is a purchase provided a little bit before the final boss. I’m surprised they didn’t make it so that it refills every time you beat a boss or every two minibosses. It’s not that having the player carefully consider when to use it during a run is bad. It’s more like you condition them to not use up until the end. Deflecting and clashing while great does take a bit of time to get used to. You think to deflect you gotta stand still, but no you have to dodge in the direction of an attack. So not only do you have to be wary of the attack itself, but also how your character is going to move forward doing so. Good deflect system. One of the better ones I've seen, but takes time to get used to.

Without spoilers, the final boss is a bit too overturned. Every other boss fight I enjoyed, but this one doesn’t give me enough opportunities to strike back. He hits fast, has a load of health, and knocks you into his own chain combos too easily. Normally I love opponents who share the same skills, attacks, speed, and size as you. A fight between two equals, but here it doesn’t feel all that equal. It feels unfair and remember runs are 40-50 minutes long. Then after your first successful run you have the true final boss right after this one, and I cannot see a majority of players being able to do this when the base final boss is already hard enough. Thankfully there are accessibility options, and they’re excellent. Helping those who struggle to keep up with the visual chaos which there is a lot of, or make the game easier. Heck, you can make the game harder by making enemies hit harder or deal less damage yourself. I love when devs allow you to do this, because they know some players will either want a harder challenge after having beaten the game a few times or are masochists. Even outside of gameplay there are numerous aspects to appreciate. The story while being simple has quite a bit of depth if you manage to pay attention to lore and tidbits given to you by surrounding characters. They’re not great tidbits, but what I can glean from them was interesting. Of past societies, hidden truths, and an end twist that shows that you may not be entirely the good guys in this endeavor. It reminded me of The Talos Principle 2 and its message oddly enough. Was giving the people this great power truly worth it? What if they don’t handle it responsibly just like the previous society?

Are you willing to take responsibility for this?

A main selling point for a lot of folks will be the gorgeous animation and art style. I mean that is what sold me initially. I love all the colors on display, the design of the characters, locations, and how smooth each frame flows together. I’m struggling to think of a cartoon that resembles the best. The closest I can think of is that it feels like something Genndy Tartakovsky would make. Have you seen that one series Unicorn Warriors specifically? That is the closest comparion I can think of. God I hope it gets another season at some point, as that cliffhanger left a lot to work off. If you look at it long enough you’ll see it. Anyways, we're getting a bit off track here. The music is great, all composed by Gareth Coker who you may also know doing the music for the Ori series and Halo Infinite. It’s elegant, majestic, and ferocious exactly when it needs to be. There’s even a track by Mick Gordon himself, and the first time I heard I was banging my head. So to conclude the review, Absolum is one of the greatest beat ‘em up games made in recent memory. Maybe even the best of all time, but that’s all my opinion. Despite it's flaws, I'd easily rank this among the greatest roguelikes I've played. The devs have improved a lot since Streets of Rage 4, and I hope they continue to deliver quality titles . In the end I am going to give Absolum a 9.5/10 for being superb. 

9.5/10, Superb