This is not how beat ‘em ups normally go.
It handles for the most part as a beat em up might.
Ill be honest, this doubling of deflection techniques confused me at first.
My favourite small-yet-smashing touch in combat is the simple ability to sidestep attacks (eg.
There might be those who think such agility goes beyond the trad stiffness of the arcade brawler.
To them I say: stop hitting yourself.
Anyway, thats all the ‘em up parts of this questionably named genre blend addressed.
What about the rogue bit?
Its all quickly apparent.
Swappable character abilities, multiple paths, back-to-the-start respawns, the gradual collecting of crystalbits to unlock new powers.
Every few screens you get a choice between a couple of perks or items.
I kinda want to pat the characters on the shoulder and tell them to lighten up.
Not least because it clashes somewhat with the colourful and expressive art direction.
Until now they havent worked directly on a game as developers.
It’s been rewarding, they say, if challenging.
Turns out game development demands a kind of quick-footedness that isn’t ordinary for a traditional animation studio.
In animation you have to stick to: first step, the script, then storyboarding.
Everything is very linear. "
And maybe they learned something in all that ducking and diving.
Because its the animators who’ve pushed the game in its nippier direction.
They didnt want to be shackled by the groundedness of something like Streets Of Rage 4.
“We proposed as animators to explode that,” says Mary.
“Can we run?
The references were… outside the beat ‘em up.
We looked atDead Cellsand the rest.
What can you say?
They like when things go whoosh.
But I’m glad the designers of Absolum listened to their animators.
There are a lot of ways this could justfeelwrong in your hands.
Which is, um, quite different in art style from what Dotemu are going for.
Still, the publisher is confident Absolum fits its own niche.
Even if they’re still struggling to come up with a soundbite worthy way of explaining it.
“The lines between genre are getting blurry, says Micke Moisa, a producer at Dotemu.
We were thinking of how to name this genre.
Something we don’t really have a name for yet.
Sadly, for everyone involved, the nameStreets Of Rogueis already taken.
Probably “roguelike beat ‘em up” is good enough.
We’ll have time to find other words to describe the arcade-departing roguebiffs of Absolum anyway.
Its not due out until sometime later this year.
We’re sorry for the errors.
