Absolum - Nods/references to pop culture. Partial review.

 Absolum’s references, Easter eggs (kinda?), Homages. 

REFERENCE, this has best good info so far (not sure I agree with their Pickaxe gold counting numbers) (totally disagree with their Chef's Ladle opinion, it is broken good) if you don't want to figure it out yourself first: https://progameguides.com/absolum/absolum-trinkets-tier-list-common-rare-epic-trinkets-ranked/ 

Updating the list every day or two lately. I'm putting the ones I remember down here. Can't go searching for stuff b/c too many spoilers out there. Hopefully I won't spoil too much, but something might be. 

• Brome's first super move Orb thing can do bounce combos, much like SF5/SF6 Ed's super/Ultra. 
• Note how his beginning Orb super is great for bouncing them up for longer combos, a la like Ed's slow ball super/ultra in SF5/6: https://youtu.be/QCTf9bV-QOE?t=63
• Of course, we already mentioned and know the Street Fighter Urien mirror homage in Brome's Wall of Contempt (or was it anger or hate or ?) super. 
• “Mediocre!” Said by Lizard King when defeated… same as the old masked boss in Mad Max Fury Road when the skeleton faced guy screwed up in the car chase.   
• Golden Axe money goblins! The little stinkers in this game also steal your gold pouches, and you gotta nuke them to get your gold plus their gold (that they also stole no doubt).  
• I remembered:... what the heck was it. Something I noticed on day one and I keep forgetting to put on this list of mine. Was it a D&D thing, a Doom2 thing... something even older? I've got about all the Street Fighter references below. It was Golden axe money goblins!!
• The six (four?)eyed alien look is on the dogs and maybe something else (maybe end credits, heh).  That look is way overplayed for me, but I recall it being fitting in Doom 3 (first major appearance?) on the spiderlike imps in that version.  Seems like every other artist and scifi movie since then has used the look though. Memorable in the Pacific Rim movies for sure. I just like 2 eyed monsters unless they are spiders. 
• The flower minster headed plant monster has the same flower head-mouth like the so-called demogorgon in Stranger Things. Original D&D Demogorgon here. 
• the jumping screamers things (officially naming 'em) in the undead area seem to be based off the headcrab things from Half-Life, similar spikey legs, no eyes, they jump on your head. Just learned about an old school D&D monster he Brain Collector (Neh-Thalggu in that giant Bestiary for Shadowdark that LichHouse talks about). 
• Your Doppelganger in the misty area pit is much like Luke's vision in The Empire Strikes Back, fighting himself. 
• “There and back again” says Karl the dwarf shortly after respawn to start area. Like in LOTR by the hobbits… Bilbo”s book 
• In the Fire Swamp (Princess Bride reference anybody?), you’ve got walking flower shaped plants that shoot stuff and big root tentacles.  Yep, same two plant monsters as 2-3 minutes into Ghouls ‘n Ghosts 1988, classic side scroller. 
• "A Fistful of Crystals", is in reference to Clint Eastwood's A Fistful of Dollars movie. 
• The metal magic rovers… their voices sound like Doctor Who Dalek enemies that say destroy destroy. 
• Rovers also said “i may not be able to see you, but i can smell the magic that taints your blood” (is that a reference?) then “you will be shredded”… in reference to Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade I for sure think… they look and move a lot like the metal roving robots (with shock tentacles) from that game. — this happens in the swamp world a lot. 
• Red Forest south south path… raft area. Much like in D&D tower of doom or shadow over mystara arcade game's raft area. 
• Rock throwing like thief in DnD SoM arcade. 
• The mount animal that looks like a dragon... might be a "dracoraptor"... it has animations and especially the fireball attack that look just like the one from the arcade classic, Golden Axe. 

How do you like the shadow under the fb? It's for fairness, eyeballing it. 

Aww, no fireball shadow. Looks nice though. 

• Swamp area, spike worms have the vacuum suction thing… where is that from … was it tmnt or Final Fight? Man that is so familiar. 
• The "grab 'em, hit hit throw" stuff was in Final Fight and Street Fighter 2. Was also in Double Dragon on the NES, so that mighta been first. 
• Cinder's Wall jump from Street Fighter 2 -… and she has the off the wall air vega claw+arms open wide+chest hit attack (Flying Barcelona Attack) from SF2 also. 
• Galandra’s dive kick is styled much like Cammy’s move from Street Fighter.  
• Brome’s reflect mirror super is like Urien’s in Street Fighter. 
• Cinder's (and others?) Dive kick from Street Fighter 3... Yun and Yang were the first I recall at least. Oh wait, TMNT the arcade game had dive kicks of course! Probably something else before that. 

Divekick in TMNT.

• Cinder's Maximum Spider super move, like Spiderman's from Marvel Super Heroes, the arcade game. I think newer Cammy has a version, too. 
• Cinder says vs. undead dwarf giant king - “look on my xxxxx and despair!” From LOTR the elf Galadriel. 
• Cinder’s Dash into grind attack from… from… so familiar. What the heck is that from? 
• Cinder - “So shiny, my precious” when good loot. LOTR's Gollum's saying.  
• Galandra's name (the necro chick) has to be inspired by LOTR's Galadriel's name. 
• Mouth of Sauron from LOTR reference below. One of the Blackcoats has the look. It occurs in the necromancy/dead area... behind the portcullis door that requires the "thumbs dwn thumbs up password".    

The covered face with only a giant creepy smile. Mouth of Sauron. 

• Lizardpeople - the main bad ones look and move a lot like the Lizalfos from the recent Zelda games. 
• The main Necro chick with the giant Dark Souls sword. Sword looks goofy just like in Dark Souls, which got it from the Berserk Manga... but anyway, yeah, it swings (with an effort, a heft) very much like Dark Souls to my eye. 
• Brome floats/levitates like the Lich in D&D TOD and the dashing Green and Black wizards in D&D Shadow Over Mystara. I like it. 
• He also has a Hold jump button, slowly floats down. Feels like... yeah feels like Storm in X-Men:COTA arcade game (I think you hold UP with her to slow float fall)! And maybe the 6 armed Spiral in COTA had similar(?). And maybe Magneto from Marvel Super Heroes arcade fighting game... or was his just Fly?  
• The Raft Scene is very similar to the one in whichever D&D arcade game that was, TOD or SOM. 
• 
  

 

Slight Review

FUN?

The game is fun, really fun, let's get that straight. It took some adjustments for me, but once I got over the first couple of hours, it started to make more sense (from a gaming/fun perspective). 

TYPE OF GAME?

Beat 'em up or Roguelike? Well I practically grew up on what people now call Beat 'Em Ups. Golden Axe and the sort were like the best thing ever as a kid. I also was fairly heavy into the early years of Blizzard's Diablo 1 and 2, and that's the closest thing (as far as I can tell) to a Rogue-like game that I've played. So my viewpoint is not a typical video game reviewer who has played 500 games already this year. Nope, I save my playtime for only games I stumble upon that are really fun, then I tend to play them heavily for a while. 

So what is this game then? To me, it's a game where you can't quite configure your characters the way you want (like in Diablo)... and you can't quite perfect what you are trying to do, b/c those options don't come the first 20 hours of play. No, you get just a couple of "tools" that are consistent, and the rest is random. So as I play on, I am good with the variety... although my "gotta hone this option" gene is annoyed, it's satisfying the "try out something new" gene and the "is this combination of things so good it's kinda broken in a fun temporary way?" gene. Let's talk about that more.

Update: been playing more. Beat the first run through of the game with frogger Brome (the delay Pressure for bigger combos plus stacking dmg on his melee is gooood), but it's not really over. Got to the end of the second run through with Brome and Galandra (trying not to type Galadriel). Starting to feel like the way to beat the game is to get all the super power ups, stack more power ups, and then it's not too bad. It goes from hard to power-overwhelming at some point. Maybe there is a gradual shift, but it felt a little abrupt every time I did it. See my Kinda Broken Combos below.... I guess the good news is that they purposely(?) put in some weaker options so you can mess around. For instance, just for the hell of it I went all Luck Based on my last run with Galadriel... and to my surprise it became really powerful. Had 20% no it was 30% dodge incoming attacks, had like 12.5% luck, etc. Will talk more below on the Luck Build. 

TIPS/SECRETS

• Jaroba’s fire swamp, sputh path…the secret is right side of pond, down down, a bramble to hit. Past that and “under” the purple pond is a Chest! Nothing to do with the funky NoClipping rocks.  

 KINDA BROKEN COMBINATIONS, in a good way?

• Unstable Dash Time ritual to dash thru phase thru is AWESOME Vs. bosses like the undead king in mine. 
• Cinder with the triple jump + wind gale thing on her feet or on the enemy. She tends to combo them into the ceiling.  
• Cinder's Skill move, the arm that stretches out... if you get in the right situation, it is really good at comboing bosses into the ceiling by repeating it a lot (needs to be mostly the forward stretching not the diagonal I find). Against the giant sized green goblin(?) boss, I had a couple of times where it was nuking him. 
• Brome's dash into Drill move (Skill triangle move option you might get) seems really really good. Do that, into the default Skill move (giant exploding globe), repeat forever I think. Oh, I had the Wind Gale yellow rings (probably improved) on the enemies when I did this, and it made it really hard for them to deal with, they kept floating up forever. 
•  Update: upgrading his melee is awesome. His thingie that makes melee hit twice per one hit (something about how many mana bars are full or something?, it's green power) is awesome. Stack that with Burn, Super Punch Knuckles(?), Eyeball Mono dmg, and whatnot, he will be hitting HARD. Like stun locking everything in the game, especially bosses. 

• Dwarf's grenade R2 super move + Big Waves (option) on R2 super + the Reload Mana option. Wow, this is broken. I blew through the entire swamp world and was only stopped by the giant Lizard boss at the end b/c I didn't know what to expect with him. Up until that point, it was very broken. Shoot to the right, reload, shoot to the left, reload... etc. just wherever the enemies are, you'll get 'em and sometimes juggle them with the reload even. Only once or twice it got tricky b/c the enemies (I think the Rogue looking ones in maybe the library area) were so fast they'd run up and get me during a reload. 
• The Necro chick, Galandra, with the giant Dark Souls sword. I have played her the most, despite her voice. If you get her infinite spin on their head with the sword move (skill move in air), that seems really broken. No other combinations needed, so this seems kinda easy to get. Then again, I thought I saw it as the 2nd to last pay-for-with-game-currency upgrade, so... is that the upgrade that stays with you? Must not be permanent, but another chance drop, I'm still not organized there yet. 
• Use her dash into regular combo a lot.  

•  What is the deal with Deathvines and her? Every site says it is good. Tech hit? What is that in this game, i can't find it. One says she has a skill that works on downed enemies. Is a tech hit just hitting a guy on the ground or something? ?

• Luck Build. Update. Happened to be using Galandra, got the spinny super Reaper Cyclone that is probably her best, and I got the invulnerable pet Sword that lasts forever. Had four of the 4-leaf clover trinkets. Had a  Crown of Dissonance Epic +2.5% Luck per Ritual family held (total 10 luck). Had two of the Cloaks that give you dodge Evade 5% based on luck. Had a Crown of Harmony Epic (more of same ritual is better).  By the end, had a whopping 30% Evade (awesome!... wait, I see a Backtrack level 2 ritual of Time showing me 30% chance to Evade, so is that the same thing completely overlapping or was it stacking???). And was so lucky on loot drops on the last stage/tower, that I randomly got a Spark of Power in a hallway statue (the Star double trigger Ultra-Super-Duper move that you get only 1 or 2 of ever). Also had awesome options at the end to choose from, got a Chef's Ladle Epic giving me 50% extra lifebar. First time ever, I got a Level 3 Burn on melee hits... and first time ever got a ritual giving Spectral Armor on melee hit. That comboed well with Spectral Armor other effects (was it... something that seemed like it was stacking, but spawn a Rose turret on dropped armor or something?). 
• Reaper Cyclone Arcana side note - sf2 style "walls" they bounce off of will do dmg to enemy.  
• Haha, I just found this... apparently I got two of the 3 S-Tier items for this Luck Build. Just lucky when I went for it I guess. https://progameguides.com/absolum/absolum-trinkets-tier-list-common-rare-epic-trinkets-ranked/

DESIGN/LOOK Problems?

I have beef with the divergence from classic D&D, sword and sorcery, and that sort of thing. I don't like mixing genres. I don't like things that just go against the medieval feel of those worlds. So yeah, I would have done a lot of things differently. Also, I like grittier art styles, but this thing does look good overall. OK, enough dancing around the topic, here's what I would have liked to have been done differently:

• Voices. Please no modern voices. No tough guy businessman style, or overly Cockney style (I can't help but get London modern criminal actors out of my head), or overly stereotypical American movie teen speech. This is a tall order, I am sure, but... yeah. 
• I prefer more realistic representation of NPCs. Males have historically for thousands of years held more of the fighter/knight/soldier/warrior type roles. I'm cool with like one or two special for the story types of women... maybe the main heroes, that's believable and fun. When 1/2 of the super tough types are women shaped like men, with giant man arms, it doesn't suit my tastes. Are we looking at bodybuilders from the world of 2025 on Earth? Stop taking me out of the immersion of the game/genre. 
• No guns. No guns. No guns. I don't want blackpowder anything, my medieval fantasy worlds are before guns. 
• Overly cartoony art on many characters. The goofy giant fists + wrists that are half the size of a torso are no good for me. The characters that are 90% torso + arms and 10% legs give me  serious annoyances. 
• Mushroom people monsters are wwaaaayyy goofy. Too goofy for me. 
• I prefer goblins to be 100% evil, but I can deal with this game making them neutral I guess. Well, this game pretty much makes all monster races neutral in the sense they might be good or bad. I prefer to have only purely evil monsters to kill in games myself. 
• UPDATE: man, the amount of po litical stuff in this game (too many games nowadays, I miss the old days) just grates on my nerves. Keep all that junk out of my escape from reality, if I want to see po litics I would watch the news every day. 

DESIGN/LOOK Good stuff?

• Backgrounds, plants, floors, buildings, wagons, etc. look really good. 
• I like the goblins a lot, in their look. yeah slightly too cartoony, but overall kinda great. 
• The lizardmen(people?) are fun. Not super gritty, but still neat, just like when they were in Zelda.
• The map looks great. 
• The story is mostly pretty cool. Having to look at a giant pregnant belly every time I die is definitely incentive not to die. Hey, having kids is great and obviously the most important and awesome superpower of us animals in real life. It's disturbing to see the human version of it constantly in a video game though.