Absolum

My first hour with Absolum was spent just staring at the screen between fights, which is a rarer compliment than it sounds. Supamonks, a French animation studio whose prior credits are mostly in television, brought a comic-book ink style to every frame of this game - thick silhouettes, cartoony smear animation on fast attacks, layered environments that never collapse into visual noise. It is, without question, one of the most considered-looking brawlers in recent memory, and it comes paired with a soundtrack assembled by Gareth Coker (the Ori series), Yuka Kitamura (Dark Souls, Elden Ring), and Mick Gordon (Doom Eternal). The audio-visual package alone puts this above most of its genre peers before a single punch is thrown. Under that gorgeous exterior sits a beat 'em up that Guard Crush Games - the same studio that co-developed Streets of Rage 4 - designed with surprising technical depth. The four characters, Galandra the elven swordswoman, Karl the dwarven brawler, Cider the mechanical-limbed rogue, and Brome the frog wizard, are not just palette swaps. Galandra's Reaper Cyclone Arcana launches enemies airborne and keeps them bouncing off arena edges; Cider's grappling hook enables infinite combo extensions that no other character can replicate; Brome's Chain Lightning scatters wildly unless a partner like Galandra has already frozen enemies into clusters. The core input set - light attack, heavy attack, grab, dash, and the mana-charged Arcana specials - sits closer to a 2D fighter than a traditional brawler. Perfect-frame dodges deflect incoming attacks entirely. Clashes trigger when two heavies collide. The depth is real, and it rewards patience. The roguelite layer sits on top of that combat engine rather than underneath it, which is a deliberate and somewhat divisive choice. Progress is tracked through three currencies - gems, seeds, and fruit - that feed into a permanent upgrade tree called the Tree of Talamh, unlocking stat boosts, new starting abilities, and expanding the trinket pool available mid-run. Within runs, you collect Rituals tied to fire, water, wind, and earth elements that bend your moveset in new directions. The honest criticism here is that heavy meta-progression means early runs can feel underpowered in a way that leans on the upgrade tree more than on personal skill growth. Players expecting Hades-style run parity from minute one may feel the grind before the system opens up. That said, the branching map structure - alternate paths that can surface secret bosses, rare relics, new ally encounters, or entirely different regional biomes - gives each run a structural freshness that counterbalances the progression ramp well. Narrative is not where Absolum flexes hardest. The world of Talamh is richly constructed, with inter-species politics, a genuinely surprising late-act reveal around Sun King Azra's motivations, and character writing that has real personality - Brome in particular, a bitter, humor-edged survivor whose commentary sharpens as his race's extinction becomes more apparent. But the storytelling delivery is thin compared to modern roguelite peers that use the loop itself as narrative engine. If you come in expecting Hades-level character bonding across runs, recalibrate. What Absolum builds instead is world-knowledge: each run peels back another layer of Talamh's history and culture until what looked like a familiar fantasy setting reveals something more intricate underneath. For players who engage with that mode of world-building, it lands. For others, it will feel underserved. Co-op - local or online, cross-platform across the supported versions - is reportedly where the elemental synergy system truly sings, with coordinated Arcana chains producing chaos that solo play rarely reaches. At 87 on Metacritic and sitting at 93% positive across several thousand Steam reviews, the consensus is unusually clean for a genre hybrid this ambitious. The difficulty curve is steep enough that newcomers without patience for failure states may bounce off early, and the muted in-run build variance will frustrate anyone who came in wanting Slay the Spire-level strategic complexity. But for players who love a brawler that rewards timing, build experimentation, and re-running the same world to understand it better, Absolum is exactly as good as its review scores suggest.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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