Absolum Review | The Best Roguelike I've Played to Date
You can never go wrong with classic beat-'em-up combat.
REVIEWS
Woody Wood
7/21/20265 min read
Beat-’em-ups were the kings of the arcade when I was growing up. I remember spending hours during free-play on Tuesday nights playing legendary titles like Knights of the Round, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and X-Men.
The genre eventually got buried by 3D action-adventure games on home consoles, but I can’t help feeling nostalgic every time I see a modern take.
Let me tell you, Absolum is a great nod to those arcade classics that will take you straight back to that Golden Axe cabinet.
But it’s far from a clone! The game is packed with features that push both the beat’em up and roguelike genres forward, and it’s balanced in a way that can appeal to everyone.
I’ve played a lot of twenty-something dollar roguelikes this year, and Absolum is about as close to perfect as it gets.
Nails the Beat’Em-Up Formula
Under the hood, Absolum is an old-school fantasy beat-’em-up. You move through a series of side-scrolling areas, clearing waves of enemies in 2.5D. Along the way you’ll smash crates for food, hop on mounts, pick-up throwable weapons, and battle a variety of bosses.
The game features gorgeous hand-drawn art that is spot on for the game’s theme. Dotemu, the game’s developer, did a great job creating a world that feels bigger than it is thanks to its richly detailed and varied settings. The atmosphere is complemented by a solid soundtrack of wind, string and percussion instruments.
Your time in Absolum is spent travelling through Talahm, a realm destroyed by a magical cataclysm. Azra, the game’s big bad, enslaves magic to exert control over the population, and it’s your job to defeat him. It’s a simple plot that has a surprising amount of lore behind it. But because this is a roguelike, it’s spoon-fed to you over multiple runs so that it doesn’t feel like heavy exposition at every turn.
The combat itself is also considerably evolved. Each of the four starting heroes has a unique playstyle that you can customize in a number of ways from the hub and during a run.
As with any good beat-’em-up, the odds are rarely in your favor, and fights have you weaving between swathes of enemies to prevent yourself from being surrounded on both sides.
Timing is a huge part of mastering the game. Dashing through attacks avoids damage entirely, while countering with a heavy attack creates an opening to punish enemies.
That strong combination of world building and engaging combat is what makes Absolum such an addictive game.
Every Run Feels Meaningful
On paper, the progression system in Absolum is textbook roguelike. As you clear rooms, you’ll collect currency or power-ups that make you incrementally more powerful the further you get.
The twist in Absolum is the ritual system that adds a variety of elemental effects to your moves. For example, fire rituals will add burn to make your attacks deal damage over time. The necromantic rituals summon skeletons to fight alongside you. There are eight types of rituals in total and they appear randomly, meaning that your build changes significantly from run to run.
But the real magic is how the world itself changes the more time you spend in it.
Each time you die (and you will die a lot at first), Uchawi, the Root Sister that watches over your coven, brings you back to life for you to restart your adventure again. That means fighting your way back through the same areas and bosses, which sounds tedious.
But as you replay the campaign, new routes open up, new side quests appear, and you unlock new bits of lore about the world. Some rooms are replaced with entirely different events. Sometimes, alternate paths are filled with enemies and mini-bosses you’ve never seen before.
Some locations you previously discovered permanently change at certain points too.
One of my favorite examples is the conflict between the humans and goblins in the first area.
Depending on the route you take, you’ll experience the war from completely different perspectives. If you fight through the Goblin tribe, you’ll help the humans rebuild a bridge that changes your route through the village on future runs. But after a few more, you’ll return to find that same village engulfed in flames as the war escalates.
Every failed run opens up new choices, which keeps things fresh. Even after roughly 15 hours, I was still discovering something new every time I ventured into the world, and that made replaying through the same parts feel exciting rather than repetitive.
Just the Right Amount of Challenge
You can’t expect to just walk up and beat Absolum in one go. Instead, you’ll clear up to a certain point, die, power-up at the hub, and push a little further next time.
Absolum is amazingly well-balanced that way. You get steadily better, but you also start to encounter tougher versions of the same enemies in areas you’ve already cleared.
Food drops and camps don’t come along very often, which creates pressure to execute on each fight to preserve HP. Mistakes against stronger enemies can feel very costly, especially when you get pincered. Bosses can also strip away big chunks of health if you’re not careful.
The end result is that every victory feels earned, and reaching certain milestones with most of your health bar untouched is an accomplishment.
I learned to mitigate those things by choosing less risky paths, stacking the right rituals, hiring companions, and taking advantage of mounts. The more I learned the game and its systems, the more progress I made until I eventually cleared it.
That advancement without hitting a wall is really hard for roguelikes to get right, and it’s something that Absolum does better than most.
Plenty of Value for the Money
Absolum can feel a little short the first time you play through. It only took me around ten hours to beat the final boss by focusing all my resources on a single character.
But finishing the main campaign is only the the halfway mark. After the credits roll, Absolum unlocks a second act with the real final boss and a much harder road to travel.
Mysterious rifts begin appearing throughout the world, randomizing the enemies in each area. These new combinations force you to rethink your early game routine because you can’t predict how difficult a certain path might be. If you want an even bigger challenge, you can destroy crystal pillars at the start of each level that supercharge all the enemies.
Of course, players who want to keep the fun going after beating the second act can try switching to one of the three other playable characters. There’s easily 30 to 40 hours of meaningful content here for players who want to complete the game’s 37 achievements.
Absolum is available on PC, Xbox, and PS5. The digital version retails for anywhere from $15 to $25 USD, and is included on Game Pass at the time of writing. At that price, it delivers amazing value given how great it is. Physical copies are available on PS5, but you can expect to pay quite a bit more for a new one.
Verdict
Absolum is a game that has something for everyone. A great story that doesn’t get in the way. Fun combat that walks the line between cakewalk and overwhelming. Constant discovery despite Roguelike progression. Stylish presentation at a budget price tag.
The game will hit home even harder if you’re a fan of classic beat-em-up games!
Regardless of whether you are or not, do yourself a favor and give Absolum a try.
