I want to start this off by saying I love this game to death, and that if you find this game on sale, I highly recommend you check it out and play through what there is to offer. It’s a beautiful game with an in-depth combat system, detailed graphics, unique costumes, and gorgeous landscapes. With that being said, I can’t recommend this game at full price for a few reasons I’ll dive into.

Absolver is one of the, if not best disappointing games I have ever played. What I mean by that is this game does not have enough substance and content to be deemed as great or outstanding, but there's enough passion and entertainment in this game to give just as much happiness and fun as you'll have sadness and disappointment. Now, if Absolver was still being worked on with new content, areas to explore, an active player base and events, then I could easily recommend this game and look forward to the new things to come. Unfortunately, development for Absolver has been canceled since around August of 2019. The game comes as it is, and since it hasn’t seen any attention from its developers for 6 months now, it's safe to say it’ll stay this way for the remainder of its lifespan. On the bright side, servers are still currently up, which means you can still interact with players online, as well as play with your friends.

I want to start by talking about the style and world of Absolver, since it’s one of the first things that attracted me to this game. The world is a vast and beautiful land with a variety of forest and temple-like areas. It’s style is similar to Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, but there's still so much uniqueness and originality in this game that it stands on its own. Every player must wear a mask, but there's so many different masks and outfits to choose from, that each player can customize themselves to look and fight the way they wish. It gives all who play it a sense of individuality, being able to tell their own story and do as they please. The amount of freedom you are given, despite the fact that the game isn't an open world game, but instead free roam, is simply incredible.

This game has an amazing combat system, which you, the player, are able to customize fully to your liking. On top of that, the A.I. are can be challenging to fight and are capable opponents for the most part, being the enemy A.I. use the same moves and combat the players do. In fact, countering enemy attacks will allow you to slowly learn those said attacks and add them to your inventory, so that you can build up your attacks and use them against the enemies. That factor alone keeps the PvP and PvE consistent, making both choices of gameplay equally as fun. Even by the time I stopped playing this game, the combat never got stale, nor did I feel burnt out over it.

Even though the A.I. are a joy to battle against, I do have to admit that the most fun I had playing this game was fighting with and against friends. The game allows 3 player co-op, so you and 2 other pals can go out and explore the world in front of you. Even though you’re banded in an alliance with your teammates, there is no way to turn friendly fire off, meaning you still have to watch where you’re attacking so as to not hit your buddies. I really appreciated this because it meant you couldn't just spam attacks on one enemy, you’d still have to strategize together and figure out collectively how to counter enemies.

Even though nowadays, it can be hard to find other players online walking around and doing activities, there's still a good amount of multiplayer based game modes to choose from. There's the Downfall expansion where you can tackle a dungeon on your own, or invite some friends to take down a big baddie and get some good points. Then there’s 1v1s, where you’ll get matched up with an opponent online, best out of 2. Lastly, and mostly, there's 3v3 tdm and point capture. This was and always will be the most fun I have ever had with this game. One time, I got together 5 friends who owned the game, and we all competed in a 3v3 point capture match. It was extremely intense yet insanely fun. Lots of laughs and battle screams were shared with each other that day, and it'll always be known to me as the greatest gaming experience with my friends for the year of 2019.

If you’ve been reading up to this point, then you’ll notice that for the most part, I’ve had nothing but praise to say for this game. I didn’t even get into detail about the school system, weapons, shop, bosses, and final areas that I enjoyed in this game. This is where I have to be realistic with my overall verdict with the game. As much as I love this game and everything it has to offer, I could still only milk what it gave me in under 40 hours until I stopped playing. There's just not enough content built around what this game does to sustain it. For all the fancy outfits, luscious areas, and challenging foes, there's only so much provided to the point where you’re just looking for more that isn't there. You can beat the entire game around 5-6 hours, and from that alone, you've seen almost every enemy and area there is to see. The multiplayer experience is a blast and still worth checking out. However the current state of the games player base is so dead, you’ll be lucky to encounter a 1v1 match. 3v3’s are almost nonexistent, and the only real way to experience them now is if you gathered 5 friends or people from the community and planned a match up with them, which isn’t always doable.

The last thing I saved to talk about this game, is the story. Usually, the story is the first part to review, but for this particular game and what it means to me, I had to leave the story for last. If nothing else, Absolver’s story is extremely lacking, and is the most disappointing part of this game. In the story, you, the player, are the chosen one, and must defeat some bosses. That’s really about it. There are a total of 2 big bosses and 1 final boss, who each have a bit of personality but overall hold nothing more than a challenging time. The end boss is super rewarding, and when you beat her, it seems like the story is finally taking off. She escapes, and you officially become an Absolver, now ready and prepared for new and daring adventures. Except you aren’t, because that's where the story ends. Right when it feels like the story had started, it already ended, and leaves you feeling nothing more than sheer disappointment.

It honestly saddens me that the community has put more love and effort into the game than the developers have themselves, spawning plenty of interesting lore and talented fan art. Although I have no hope for the developers returning to the game and adding onto it, there is one small hope I still have in the back of my mind. I wish for the developers to open up a workshop or open sandbox for the players to create and customize at their free will. If this was open, there wouldn’t be a need for the developers to do any more, as the community would be more than willing to expand the game with mods and campaigns. The Absolver discord, subreddit, and steam page shows more than enough proof that the community is extremely dedicated to the game, and I hope that the devs take note of that one day.

That's all I have to say about Absolver. I really do love this game and could go on for hours about what I love, but being it’s given me an equal amount of emptiness and disappointment, I believe I’ve already given this review too much effort and attention. However now I can feel satisfied and content with the experience I had, officially closing the book to Absolver, and moving on. Thank you so much for reading!