Afterimage Nintendo Switch Review!

Sorry it took a while (only so many hours in the day and this was a longer one!) here's our review of Afterimage on the Nintendo Switch it certainly looks the part but how does it fare? Let's find out! #Afterimage #Nintendoswitch #review

The colour changing joycon we use - save 20% with code: SUP2022

Happy Gaming
Mark & Glen
SwitchUp

Subscriber count: - 313,465

[SwitchUpYt]

Edit: As mentioned, storyline is VERY difficult to follow if you can at all. If that’s what you’re after then this won’t be the one for you, if you’re a souls fan though it actually felt quite reminiscent. Gameplay is where this one lives.

Ah a good old Metroidvania review I feel like I might be the outlier with this one.I will say i totally forgot to mention text size is also small but there is voice acting for all subtitles for handheld players thought - worth considering.. let me know what you think! Mark

[christinacostello]

This was so cool to watch. I voice Ifree, and I really appreciate the kindness/ shout out for the voice acting! I’m glad we were able to add to the experience in a positive way :) (also, I just added my mom’s maiden name to my performer name, and this is the first time I’ve heard it out loud. Totally made my day :) )

[enman]

As a recent player I came to confirm: they improved fast travel, map display, potions, AI, hitbox, character progression and other things. I highly recommend trying this game now, since it vastly fixes some of the valid complaints. Nowadays is a must buy for Metroidvanias and Soulsborne fans.

[Aura-Of-Syrinx]

I absolutely agree, enemies having set levels for areas is way better than the scaling of say like Skyrim

[AfterimageTheGame]

Thanks for the very detailed review! We're truly appreciated. As for some of the problems addressed in the review like the teleporting, will be changed in the coming patch.🥰

[MrMochafrapachinolatte]

Thank you for what you do. I have created a backlog of games because of you guys, but your reviews are always spot on with what I am getting into.

[TheRealAero]

This game looks beautiful and I always am down for a good metroidvania game! These are the types of games I’m happy are still around and actually getting really popular again! Cheers guys!

[LighthoofDryden]

This feels like the intersection between Ender Lilies and Ori and I am HERE for it!

[solovoldo]

One thing that can't be ignored about this game is its SIZE. The map is absolutely MASSIVE. My only real gripe is the fact there's never any waypoints or objectives on your map. You got to find everything the old fashioned way, wandering. And as far as the teleportation goes, later in the game you'll find an island where you find the ability to fast travel for free at all the main tree confluences. But until you get there, you'll be reveling and cherishing every resting potion you find. The map is way too big to not have a teleportation system. The soundtrack sounds like it was pulled straight from Ori and the blind forest (though I wish they would have done more hollow nighty with it) But exploration is a mix between hollow Knight, Ori, and salt and sanctuary. And it's very clear where they took inspiration from these titles. There's one perk to this game that I absolutely love, and that there's no loading time between areas. Unless you fast travel, the entire game is going to feel like one seamless map. It doesn't load every time you go into another area making it a very immersive. HOWEVER, at least on the switch version, if you get a little too hasty and try to get from one side of the map to the other as fast as you can, it'll hit you with a random loading screen while it tries to buffer in the rest of the map you're going into and it usually will not pause the game so when you come out of it you'll be mid-battle against God knows what. Though this is very rarely an issue. Overall this is a pretty incredible metroidvania that's very worth giving a shot. Sure the story isn't the best, but it does just enough to give you direction.

[sevensyns]

You are definitely not alone. I've had my eye on this one and I must say it looks amazing. Combined with the perfect SwitchUp review, how can I go wrong. Certainly has moved near the top of the Wish List.

[MissaB]

Picked this up on Friday and have been playing since and it is just absolutely beautiful! Every so often I just stop to stare at the artwork. Wasn’t sure if I was going to like how the map works, only filling in after you’ve explored and saved, but I actually enjoy it. I also don’t mind the way you fast travel…I know it may be annoying to some but I’ve found quite a few potions allowing me to fast travel. I’ve also been having fun backtracking to find little areas ive missed and just exploring the massive world. The only issue I feel is the loading time when first opening the game and if you die it can take like a minute before you respawn but to me the good definitely out ways the bad.

[meluvutym]

Hey mates! I just picked this game up during the weekend.. Absolutely gorgeous I tell you :D Thanks for the review!

[nekokyonshi]

Glad to see the focus on a consistent framerate! I've got this title next in line after I finish up Aeterna Noctis. AN has been amazing, but man are those frame drops and blurry graphics on Switch a shame.

[petertaylorarts]

This looks fantastic. Those worlds are beautiful. Can't wait to play.

[iTechGamingLOL]

So having 40+ hours in the game, and as someone that has played on the switch more than 20 metroidvania (some well known, some lesser known) i want to give my opinion about it.

~Starting with the negatives

I don't want to go into to much details cause to be honest, the game did a lot of wrongs as far the map building goes and there is almost 0 guidance of where you need to go. Yes i know that's what metroidvania is all about but the least they could do is to point out were KEY objectives are based of Riddles or just plain out show were the bosses of importance are located on the map, besides that they decided to connect key elements of the map via a 2nd overworld map by riding a stingray which if not found you can easily end up doing circles searching of where to go next, which happened a lot to me cause i ended up out of my curiosity to do 2 sequence breaks which messed up all the flow of exploration and Npc encounters which made some of the dialogues weird due of interactions i suppose i needed to had before meeting them.

Satisfaction level, due of how big the map is there were a lot of times that it was just plain exploring, no npc encounters for long time or important events, besides that for some reason they decided all the cool abilities to be given around the end of the game, to be more precise, enemies max out at lvl 76-79, i started getting cool abilities around areas that had enemies of 65+, so let's say at around after exploring 80% of the game. So a lot of the parkour abilities came up quite late which some of them are nice to have cause of how much better the fighting becomes.

Spells are lost potential, because they have long cast times and you are unable to move, compared to bloodstained ritual of the night which is quite similar to afterimage in combat, they gave the player a lot of spells that allowed to be used while jumping or moving, something afterimage did not, making a lot of fights versus flying enemies more of a hassle rather than fun. Since there were subweapons and flying enemies i hopped some projectile based weapons like bows or kunais but sadly the game did not have these. Kind of crazy cause you move with the stick like in metroid dread so aiming wouldn't have been an issue, idk why they had that decision but it is sad cause games with a lot of parkour based levels are far better played on the arrow keys and besides that there are command moves that require direction inputs which the stick is quite unconsistenced for that kind of job.

Some minor perfomance issue like random loading screens popping up due of hardware limitation, you see the game isn't connected via rooms like most metroidvania, it is actually a singular level, so it feels quite more open compared to hollow knight or bloodstained, so from time to time if you travel fast enough the game isn't able to keep up loading the map you head towards to so it ends up with a loading screen preventing you to move further, most the times there are no consequences but rarely it will cause you to get randomly hit by something and fps stutters, regardless most the time it was fine.
Another issue quests may end up getting locked, in my case i was talking to an chef npc, i bought her meals which were suppose to make her move to another area but my switch turned of due of battery during that process. When i went to check she wasn't there, netheir at the previous location, so now i can't finish her quest. Quite few of these cases i read on the internet, this won't allow you to complete the game as far it goes for the side stories.

Background music glitching when obtaining the dash abillity that allows you to dash through gates, atacks or enemies. Whenever you use that dash the music gets distorted due of the sound effect of that specific dash.

~time to summ up the good parts

Big game, with 9 to 10 different endings (10th ending is an easter egg ending), i'll say a minimum of 25-30+ hours for your 1st playthrough just to complete the map and perhaps 1 of the endings. 3 of the endings are locked behind NG+ after completing some specific tasks, so perhaps we look at roughly 40-50 hours unique playtime here.

Biggest map ever witnessed that doesn't loop around previous areas "to often", so unique playtime is plenty.

Beautiful artstyle, got a hard time telling which i found better between afterimage or hollow knight, so the bar is quite high.

Music in a lot of cases reminded me of Asian MMO's and Hollow knight, so they nailed that quite well.

Story was okay and quite well delivered since there was Good Voice acting in Afterimage which is rare to see in metroidvania.

Plenty of close combat weapons with a big skill tree to customize your playstyle, just prepare for a lot of grinding if you want to unlock all skill points, i am 40 hours in at lvl 79 while it maxes out at lvl 99.

Cheap and fun, metroidvania fans should reconsider this game in their "wish list"

~Conclusion

If i had to rank it between other metroidvania to give a vague idea of how well it competes i would make a list like this.
Bloodstained < Steam world Dig 2 <Afterimage < Ori and the will of the wisp's < Metroid Dread < Hollow knight
Obviously there are more metroidvania out there but i just listed a few i reconsider from "good to the best" and afterimage is on my opinion "really good", on a discount i feel like a must buy.

Do i recommend this for a beginner metroidvania player, not at all, you are better of starting playing smaller games like minoria or kunai or the most beginner friendly but with high skill ceiling hollow knight, but for those who have played a lot of metroidvania and want a good mix between combat, exploration and platform challenge Afterimage does that.

[mariovj]

You sell it to me just with beautiful Metroidvania, love the exploration, the graphics, this art, all, thanks Mark

[ChareneBernabe]

This looks beautiful, kinda reminds me of Odin Sphere. How's this when compared to odin sphere ?

[cbgg]

I agree, finally something beautiful! I have been enduring watching Tottenham playing football for the last 2 weeks. My eyesight has returned! 😂😂

[knivesoutcatchdamouse]

As a huge Metroidvania fan, I think you just sold me on this one, although I think I'll wait until I hear the patch is out.

[Nedwig]

I was pretty excited for this one when I saw it in Glen's releases of the week video. Glad to see it's living up to my excitement