Let me start off by saying I did the thing I promised myself I wouldn't do anymore and that is play through a game I wasn't enjoying all the way until the end, but Afterimage was a game I was looking forward to quite a bit and I really wanted to like it so it saddens me to say this, but it was massively disappointing to me and one of the worst metroidvania games I've played in recent memory. With that said, it's not an abysmal game and has some redeeming qualities, but it's also just not really that good as a whole either.
Afterimage takes place in a world called Engardin and you play as an amnesiac girl named Renee who is the lone survivor from her village and on a mission to recover her memories and find her lost mentor. That's honestly all I can say about the story because and it is rare I say this, but I can't even begin to tell you what happened in this game's story because the game just conveys it so poorly and the translation from Chinese is honestly just as poor too. Which sucks because this game is VERY narrative heavy, so much so that they voiced (and even dubbed) every line of NPC and main story dialogue and while the voice acting isn't bad, a lot of the script just comes across as convoluted, confusing jargon which isn't interesting to listen to in the slightest and when some of the dialogue is paragraphs of text, it really ruins the pacing.
The gameplay is a mix of Igavania and Soulsvania. Like Symphony of the Night mixed with Hollow Knight almost to the degree of plagiarism at times. The game just feels like it has no identity of its own and I've played it before, but a much better version. So many of the game mechanics just feel like they exist just to exist and add nothing to the gameplay so you'll barely ever use them much like the cooking system or magic abilities which do almost no damage. Afterimage also gives the illusion of build variety by having tons of different weapons and skills but half the skill tree feels useless and so do most weapons whereas others are just clearly much better and it makes no sense to not use them so why would you bother making an inferior build?
From copying the combat of SOTN to the bosses (Which there's tons of btw, but 95% of them are completely forgettable and super easy too) of Hollow Knight and the FromSoft style of cryptic, nihilistic storytelling, you've seen everything this game has to offer in other games already and that wouldn't even be a huge problem if only the game was fun, but it just isn't and a big part of why that is the case is simply because the level design is legitimately awful and the worst thing about the game (which is one of the most important things in a metroidvania) this might very well be one of the biggest metroidvania maps I've ever seen (The game took me 35 hours to finish and I rushed the end because I just wanted it to be done, probably could've gotten another 10-15 out of it if I really wanted to), but Afterimage is a game that proves bigger isn't always better since so much space is just empty and feels like it was added just to pad the game out. All the areas are connected, but when they're so big that even when you teleport to the nearest teleporter (Which you can only do if you buy/find Resting Potions which use the same currency you use to upgrade weapons) you still have to waste 5 minutes running through half an area to get where you want and I just think that's poor design. The fact all the areas feel so similar (Take a shot every time you see horizontal platforms and spike traps) certainly didn't help either. You could easily compress most areas by 50% and barely miss anything, there's a reason SOTN and Hollow Knight are as big as they are and not bigger because it just doesn't make for cohesive level design.
I can tell the developers and creator put effort and care into the game, it's evident by how detailed even the smallest animations are, how beautifully illustrated the hand drawn art is and how well the OST is composed and with blatant homages and references to SOTN and Hollow Knight it's obvious the creator really likes the metroidvania genre and I respect that, but I can't in good faith recommend this game to anyone other than the most hardcore metroidvania fans who will play any metroidvania just because it is one due to how it completely misunderstands the whole design philosophy of the genre on a fundamental level, has awful level design, tells a confusing story and at the end of the day offers the player nothing they could just get from the games that Afterimage so desperately wants to be instead.
Afterimage takes place in a world called Engardin and you play as an amnesiac girl named Renee who is the lone survivor from her village and on a mission to recover her memories and find her lost mentor. That's honestly all I can say about the story because and it is rare I say this, but I can't even begin to tell you what happened in this game's story because the game just conveys it so poorly and the translation from Chinese is honestly just as poor too. Which sucks because this game is VERY narrative heavy, so much so that they voiced (and even dubbed) every line of NPC and main story dialogue and while the voice acting isn't bad, a lot of the script just comes across as convoluted, confusing jargon which isn't interesting to listen to in the slightest and when some of the dialogue is paragraphs of text, it really ruins the pacing.
The gameplay is a mix of Igavania and Soulsvania. Like Symphony of the Night mixed with Hollow Knight almost to the degree of plagiarism at times. The game just feels like it has no identity of its own and I've played it before, but a much better version. So many of the game mechanics just feel like they exist just to exist and add nothing to the gameplay so you'll barely ever use them much like the cooking system or magic abilities which do almost no damage. Afterimage also gives the illusion of build variety by having tons of different weapons and skills but half the skill tree feels useless and so do most weapons whereas others are just clearly much better and it makes no sense to not use them so why would you bother making an inferior build?
From copying the combat of SOTN to the bosses (Which there's tons of btw, but 95% of them are completely forgettable and super easy too) of Hollow Knight and the FromSoft style of cryptic, nihilistic storytelling, you've seen everything this game has to offer in other games already and that wouldn't even be a huge problem if only the game was fun, but it just isn't and a big part of why that is the case is simply because the level design is legitimately awful and the worst thing about the game (which is one of the most important things in a metroidvania) this might very well be one of the biggest metroidvania maps I've ever seen (The game took me 35 hours to finish and I rushed the end because I just wanted it to be done, probably could've gotten another 10-15 out of it if I really wanted to), but Afterimage is a game that proves bigger isn't always better since so much space is just empty and feels like it was added just to pad the game out. All the areas are connected, but when they're so big that even when you teleport to the nearest teleporter (Which you can only do if you buy/find Resting Potions which use the same currency you use to upgrade weapons) you still have to waste 5 minutes running through half an area to get where you want and I just think that's poor design. The fact all the areas feel so similar (Take a shot every time you see horizontal platforms and spike traps) certainly didn't help either. You could easily compress most areas by 50% and barely miss anything, there's a reason SOTN and Hollow Knight are as big as they are and not bigger because it just doesn't make for cohesive level design.
I can tell the developers and creator put effort and care into the game, it's evident by how detailed even the smallest animations are, how beautifully illustrated the hand drawn art is and how well the OST is composed and with blatant homages and references to SOTN and Hollow Knight it's obvious the creator really likes the metroidvania genre and I respect that, but I can't in good faith recommend this game to anyone other than the most hardcore metroidvania fans who will play any metroidvania just because it is one due to how it completely misunderstands the whole design philosophy of the genre on a fundamental level, has awful level design, tells a confusing story and at the end of the day offers the player nothing they could just get from the games that Afterimage so desperately wants to be instead.