Throughout my gaming life I have always been drawn to the fighting genre by default, a result of spending way too much of my schooldays and pocket money on the nearest Street Fighter II and Wrestlefest arcade machines. From Mortal Kombat to Tekken, Final Fight to Streets of Rage, fighting games have a permanent place in my heart. So when something new arrives with the potential to freshen up the genre it will have my attention. Absolver grabbed my attention from its first trailer, and happily the game itself is something very special indeed.

Absolver is certainly something very new and takes a genre I love and know well and gives it a twist many players will not see coming at first. The game is an online shared experience title where the player creates their ‘Prospect’ and is sent into the world in order to survive and learn new fighting styles on their journey to become the coveted Absolver. The character creation suite is very basic with only the options to pick a gender, hair style and hair colour. The reason for this is that all prospects have a mask that covers their face and upon being selected to be the next Prospect, it is seemingly infused with a fighting spirit that will enable the player to start learning new moves and interact with the various fighting schools located around the world.

Each Prospect enters the world with only the basic of fighting moves. As you move around the world, you will meet other prospects, both AI controlled bots and other human players but will come to that side a bit further on. By fighting the player has the opportunity to learn new moves by both guarding and blocking attacks or by dodging or using their fighting style ability. When enemies use attack moves that the player does not know, they will begin to learn these moves the more they are attacked with them. By either keeping that fight going or by repeated encounters with others using those moves against you, the player will fully learn that move and have the ability to add that move to their combat deck. If you should fall in the encounter, anything learned about that move or others will be lost, winning the fight will lock any progression on that move.

The combat deck is the real core strength to Absolver. The real goal to the game is to build and develop the combat deck of your fighter, which is where the learning of new moves comes into play. By entering meditation, players can start to edit their combat deck and change the moves to form new a new combat sequence. There are four stances in top left, top right, bottom left and bottom right. Each move starts in one stance and ends in another allowing for the next move to start and so on. From basic punches and kicks to sweeps and roundhouses to heavy hitting flamboyant attacks, how you build your deck to take not only the increasing difficulty in AI fighters as you explore and rise in level and skill, but also against other players also doing the same as you, creating a powerful deck of moves.

Why this system works so well for me, is that players can really tailor their decks to have a variety of combat styles to what they want. By understanding how moves start and end in different stances allows for a deceptively deep but rich character development. Players are encouraged to go out into the world and battle each and everyone they meet to help build their decks and make a stronger fighter. Tackling higher skilled enemies will help discover and learn new and stronger moves. But players need that understanding of how to build a strong deck, to learn what moves compliment others and how to put them together to enable a strong fighting deck capable of competing against both AI and human players. That will take time as learning new moves and particularly those moves that can pave the way to success.

Which brings me to the shared experience element of the game as Absolver is a fully online game. Though players can freely explore the world which has its own story side to it the more you get into the world, sharing this with other players is an interesting blend of both PvP (players vs player) and PvE (players vs environment) gameplay styles. In this world other human players are introduced into your world as you play and explore and what is interesting, is that it does not always end up in being a fight. Players can choose if they wish, to either engage in battle, to ignore each other or can request to form a partnership and explore the world in a co-op way. Up to three players can link to work together, which allows them to start learning moves from each other and of those they fight. When I first started the game on PS4, the majority of other players I met were friendly with plenty of them using the emote system to show respect by bowing or even just helping out if an encounter with AI bots proved overwhelming.

But soon I began to encounter some high lever players who would position themselves in areas where lower levelled players would naturally come to and simply attack them, overwhelming them with their stronger combat decks even if that other player had neither initiated the fight or showed a lack of interest by moving away or using the emotes to show they did not want to fight. This can really be annoying and though it is not strictly against the spirit of the game, it is a little cheap and can be very frustrating at times. But happily I can say that these instances are few and far between but highly noticeable when they do happen.

Other annoyances for me happen when the game detects that a new human player has joined the world as the world will visibly stutter for a few seconds if one or more new players venture into the area around you, but hopefully future updates can address that. My biggest issue with the game currently are AI bots. When you move around an area you will see certain spaces where AI bots will always be, handy if you want to farm new moves. AI bots can be on their own, with a friend or at worst you can encounter up to three or four AI bots at a time who will instantly fight you the moment you engage them. This can often lead to fun fights but on occasion and something I noticed quite often, they will often break away from the fight if you have moved it away from where they started. They will stop the fight and run back to that area, forgetting you unless you follow them and the fight can carry on. Also at times I noticed some AI will literally disappear during the fight only to respawn will full health and start the fight again, which is very frustrating and hopefully will be fixed in an update.

Absolver is a genuine fresh take on the fighting genre. It is visually stunning with its water paint art style and carefully detailed animation depending on which fighting style you choose to adopt of each move. The world is vibrate and the online servers are very stable and as yet I have not suffered from any disconnections from them. I would not say that Absolver is a pick up and play title unless you are familiar with fighting games and have the patience to work on building the combat deck and then to learn how that deck can be forged to create a good fighter which can take time. This game will require patience and time to really delve inside it but it is worth it. This is certainly one of those special titles that deserve attention and if like me, you are a fan of fighting games, Absolver takes it to a new level but it is a niche game.

This is a visually beautiful game and one with perhaps the deepest most immersive fighting systems this genre has seen that the developer SloClap is to be commended for its ambition. The niggles I mentioned can be worked out and with the option of having more than one fighter to work on and the fighting school system for high level players means there is always a reason to return to this world and always something new to learn and master.

The Neo Geo console was an infamous one back in the day for me. It was an expensive console that was capable of playing real arcade games in your home, but if the console itself was out of reach for most gamers of school age, the games certainly were with most over £100 from the start. I was luckily enough to have had a friend l who just happened to have a pretty well off Uncle who bought him one, and outside of fighting games, the one game we got the most action out of was Windjammers. Now 20 years after its original release, this instant classic is back and with online play for the first time and boy has it only gotten better with age!

Known as ‘Flying Power Disc’ in Japan, the best way to describe Windjammers is that it is basically Frisbee throwing meets Street Fighter II meets tennis on super strength Red Bull. This game is nuts on paper but when it is all put together, you have one of the best sports games ever that even twenty years after the original release, kicks ass now as much as it did then and what is even more impression is just how the gameplay has aged beautifully. Playing it now really feels no different to playing it two decades ago, something that most re-released titles fail to do such as Dino Dini’s Kick Off which did not age well…at all!

Another strength is that the original visuals have been kept, not remastered or changed to make them look more modern but kept just as they were and the art style is such a huge factor in how this game and the generation of gaming all those years ago was like. The nostalgia force is strong with this game, the music and visuals put me right back to that time without strangely enough making me feel old and instead just reminding me that it was a time when gaming was probably in its purest form with gameplay being at the very core and wrapped up in over the top visuals and sounds.

So from the trailer you get a great sense of what Windjammers is about. Two players face off in a small tennis court style arena with the aim of throwing a Frisbee or flying disc passed your opponent goal line. Doing so will score points with scoring zones marked out as either 3 or 5 points for the disc landing there with 2 points scored if a player fails to catch the disc and it falls on the ground. Each mach is a best of three sets or games, with the first player to win two games declared the winner. To win a game the player first to score 12 or more points will win. The disc can be thrown against the walls to give the shot a ricochet effect to try and make the other player miss and just like in tennis, you can move up to the half way line where the net would normally be to try and power shot a score for which your opponent can either bounce the disc off the wall around you or even just go for a cheeky lob and throw a slow high disc to catch you off guard.

Now describing the gameplay in words really does not do it justice so above is a video showing my complete run through of the arcade mode. The arcade mode puts you against all the AI controlled characters, each representing a different county like UK, Germany, Japan, Italy and USA. These characters are over the top but amazing to see on screen and each has their own balance between speed and power. As you can see, the speed of the game is fast with furious action with the flow of each game changing on a dime as players score three and five pointers. Then you get the Street Fighter II influence with mini games after every two victories with one where you toss a Frisbee and then control a dog having to chase it to catch it but having to jump over sunbathing beauties and avoid obstacles. The next is ten pin bowling but using the Frisbee as the bowling ball. It is all just crazy over the top fun even in just solo play, but like any game of FIFA or Pro Evolution, comes even more alive when playing with friends in local play. This is very addictive when playing with friends and harkens back to when sofa shared play was how most people played their video games with or against friends and Windjammers is just perfect for this.

But it is 2017, and so for the first time Online battling has been added to Windjammers which brings online leaderboards and leagues as you take on people all over the world online. Now at this time of writing, it is just a few days since the game released and the online element sadly is the only downside to the game right now. Poor connections lead to laggy matches depending on who you are matched up with which can cause disruption and disconnections. Hopefully in time and some title updates the online side will improve adding even more competitive action to this game but the solo and local play alone still makes Windjammers a great title to have in your library.

Windjammers was amazing when it released 20 years ago and now in 2017, it stands toe to toe with modern sports titles and stands its ground well. The action is fun and fast with crazy moments enhanced when shared with friends on the sofa. Though the additions of online play modes is rather hit and miss right now, but the low price tag of £11.99 absolutely makes this an essential game to have in your collection for PlayStation 4 or PS Vita. It serves as a reminder of how great gaming was back in the day but also in that strong gameplay and excellent execution are as important now as they have always been in generations of video games going back decades.

First time I came across Sundered was in announcement trailer which captivated me with its art style right from the start. The gameplay had a real metroidvania style but the visuals were just rich with their hand drawn styling and the story looked inviting and mysterious. It was time to see if the game itself could live up to the promise it showed in the trailer.

Set in a seemingly, players take the role of a wanderer named Eshe who stumbles across a large facility in a post-apocalyptic ruin where upon meting a strange and mysterious entity then convinces Eshe to explore further in order to gain more power to help Eshe escape. The world has different areas and environments filled with enemies and hazards which Eshe will have to fight his way through and overcome to open new areas on his mission to learn new skills and abilities. Some areas will be locked off to start off with until Eshe has acquired the skill needed to open them up giving the game the element of returning to previous areas later in the game.

So let me start with the visuals as this was my attraction to Sundered to begin, and they are truly stunning. The animation and hand drawn art style are so fluid and striking on screen that the world Sundered is set in. They bring the world to life and create an almost sinister atmosphere to it especially when you explore deeper into the world around Eshe and start to unlock the different areas. The music and sound scheme both compliment and then enhance the world even more as the musical score and background sound effects especially when you unlock the more otherworldly areas. Love the animation as well as Eshe runs, jumps and fights his way in this world with such fluidity which becomes almost a dance in the combat.

The combat is a combination of melee and projectile attacks whilst Eshe can dodge and wall jump which can also be used really well in traversing the area and reacing higher platforms. Now it is fair to say that nothing here is really new or refreshing and they are pretty much standard movement and fighting techniques used in this genre with the animation quality being so smooth, once Eshe begins to move around exploring or when engaged in combat, as before it does feel like a dance thanks to the animation instead of blocky jumping and weapon swinging. Eshe can upgrade his health, shield level and stamina along the way by returning to the Entity and spending upgrade points to increase Eshe powers and ability. These are further enhanced by gaining new perks for Eshe and tend to compliment the addition of a new weapon for example.

The combat is relatively easy to get to grips with which is vital because Sundered has a particular way in which it tests Eshe along his journey by quite simply throwing hordes of enemies at him with each encounter. Once combat starts, enemies will appear in numbers to attack you and whilst some are easy to take down, the sheer amount of them will be a threat as Eshe is attacked from multiple directions. Awareness of the environments is also key to stop Eshe from being swarmed or trapped in a tight area where he cannot jump or dodge his way to a more open space to fight in. I did find these both distracting and a little annoying after a while, especially right at the start where you need to start exploring this world only to be attacked multiple times by gangs of enemies. This horde style of enemy grouping does make the combat stand out but it can slow the progress down a little if on every screen you move to you are having to fend off multiple low level enemies at a time and then they will also chase you and can follow you no matter how high you jump. Once the fight has engaged it won’t stop really until you have killed that group but then if you are being chased and run into a new set of enemies, the fight will then feature the chasers and new guys till you wipe them out. It gives you the genuine feeling of being hunted but again, when you need to explore the world, having to constantly stop to fight these guys hinders the pacing just a little too much for me.

Then there is the exploration which can become a little confusing at the opening to the game as you constantly find areas that are locked off leaving you moving from screen to screen almost aimlessly having to contend with hordes of enemies. I do appreciate the lack of hand holding but the first two hours can feel a little hit and miss. The constant battling does allow for Eshe to level up and should he fall in the fight, will simply respawn at a location that he can spend his upgrade points in order to be stronger the next time the player ventures out. Using the map and remembering key points is the formula for success in Sundered.

Sundered has a lot going for it and the elements it has taken from the Metroidvania genre on the whole work really well. The visuals and music are strong selling points and it successfully creates a world full of atmosphere which will keep the player on their toes throughout with the constant threat of enemy attacks and exploring to push further into the world. Thought the constant fighting can slow the pace down a bit too much for me personally, the fact enemies are everywhere feels a natural part of this world, a world where our main hero Eshe is completely unwelcome to be in and is treated as such. As an action platformer is certainly ticks a lot of boxes that it has to and the story when it starts to unfold is enjoyable. But the slog of the continuous battling can feel just that, a slog and a grind which I had not expected which for some will be the reason to play this and for others may be a deal breaker if it stifles progession.

But this is certainly worth taking a look at if you are a fan of the genre even if just for the art style alone. There is plenty of game here but will take some time to settle into which is worth it in the long run.