Absinthia

I keep coming back to small RPGs that know exactly what they are, and Absinthia is one of the clearest-eyed examples I've found in this corner of Steam. Joshua Keith and Team Bewitched built a traditional turn-based JRPG around two women who each carry a specific wound: Freya, the disgraced knight chasing redemption, and Sera, a young warrior learning to process grief after losing someone close to her. The story threads those two perspectives together with real care, and the emotional range on offer here, from quiet sadness to jealousy to the particular sting of betrayal, lands more consistently than plenty of bigger-budget titles that treat queer characters as afterthought decoration. In terms of combat, the system is clean and deliberate. Fights are triggered by visible enemies on the field, so you can choose your battles rather than suffer random encounter interruptions. Each character takes their turn in sequence, and between rounds your magic points regenerate passively, rewarding patience and the occasional well-timed defend command. Team-based attacks add a small layer of coordination, and the difficulty slider is wide enough to accommodate both pure story readers and players who want to feel actual pressure. What I appreciate is that grinding is never necessary; the pacing trusts you to progress without padding. Post-launch updates added a Master Mode difficulty and optional endgame content including a scaling boss called Cleocatra on an unlockable Feline Island, which shows the developer kept listening after release. The presentation is the part that quietly wins you over. Artist Rae Stilwell's contribution to the visual style gives Absinthia a more cohesive and colorful identity than previous games in the Knight Bewitched series, with flowing battle animations and environments that actually feel inhabited. The soundtrack, composed by Jazz Stewart, sits in that warm space between Earthbound and Chrono Trigger without being a straight pastiche. It carries the emotional scenes without overselling them, which is exactly what a score like this should do. Fair criticism does exist. Some mandatory puzzles demand multi-step precision that feels out of step with the otherwise forgiving pace, and a single misstep on certain combinations means restarting from scratch, which is frustrating in a game that otherwise respects your time. The auto-combat feature is best left ignored entirely. The romantic subplot also moves faster than it probably should given the number of characters competing for screen time, which means some relationships feel assumed rather than developed. None of these are dealbreakers, but they do mean the experience is uneven in spots. At somewhere between 9 and 15 hours depending on how thoroughly you explore, Absinthia is the rare RPG that sets a sensible scope and sticks to it. It is a genuinely crafted small game in a genre that often mistakes length for ambition. If the SNES-era JRPG is your comfort zone and you have been looking for something that centers queer stories with sincerity rather than spectacle, this one is worth your weekend.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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