Absolum - Full Game Clear, No Deaths (Galandra)

Absolum is a brand new beat 'em up from DotEmu, Guard Crush, and Supamonks - the studios that brought us the incredible Streets of Rage 4 back in 2020. It's not easy following one of the all time great games, but I'm happy to say they've created a worthy successor! ...Although it is quite a bit different.

While SOR4 was a straight forward beat 'em up, Absolum has heavy roguelike elements blended into it. There are random powerups you can choose from after every few battles, shopkeepers who have random items to buy, and even the stage design has a lot of random variations. There are several branching paths you can take to reach the final battle against Absolum, but even if you choose the exact same route every time, there are several stages that have multiple different versions of it, so you never know exactly what you're going to get.

There are eight different skill trees (called rituals) to upgrade your character with, and they're all based around different concepts. The Fire tree is built on constant damage over time, the Thunder tree is based on building up static to release a big bolt of lightning, the Time tree gives you shadow clones that repeat your actions, and so on. For a while, I felt like some rituals were straight up better than others, and I'm sure there are some 'ideal' combinations that are stronger than everything else, but now I feel like you can get really powerful by the end of the game no matter which rituals appear in your run. Everything feels pretty balanced once you learn how you should take advantage of each ritual's benefits. So I think they did a pretty great job in that regard.

While there are many different possible routes through the game, none of them feel noticeably easier or 'better' than anything else. You're free to change things up whenever you feel like, which is great.

And like all (?) roguelikes, it has a lot of permanent unlockables and upgrades. Even if you die, you'll still gain currency that you can use to permanently upgrade all kinds of things. It doesn't take long to max everything out, so you'll never feel like you have to grind or anything.

While all of this is good, and I do enjoy roguelikes (I think I've liked every single one I've played), there are drawbacks to the style. All of the randomness means that no two runs are going to be alike, which reduces the repetition you can feel from pure arcade games. But I like having that preset, consistent challenge (with a little randomness sprinkled in). Mastering that is just more appealing to me than playing something random every time, even if the latter is as well made as Absolum.
It's worth noting that there is scoring in this game, which is similar to how SOR4's scoring works, but they made it easier and more forgiving. But with no two runs being comparable, I can't take it too seriously. I do appreciate that there's something there, at least.

Right now, there are four playable characters: Galandra (all-rounder), Karl (powerhouse/grappler), Brome (mage), and Cider (speedy combo-centric character). They play a lot differently from each other, and they all have their own individual storylines and quests to complete. Four characters is fine for a beat 'em up, but of course, I'd love it if they could add more. It might be hard to do smoothly, given the nature of the game, so I'm fine with what we've got anyway.

I'm sure everyone's going to be wondering, is this as good as Streets of Rage 4? To me... no. But it's also not trying to be the same type of game as SOR4. They wanted to do something different, and for what they were aiming for, I'd say they've done an excellent job. I can't come up with anything significant to complain about, really. The game looks great, plays incredibly well, and has a ton of content that was thankfully split up into different paths (runs are a reasonable length!). It's a fantastic game. It may be the best game of 2025 so far. So, of course, I highly recommend trying it if the concept of a roguelike beat 'em up sounds appealing to you!

Absolum is available now on Steam, Switch, and PlayStation 4/5. If you're going to play on PC, I'd appreciate it you'd use my affiliate link to buy from Fanatical, which has it on sale for $19.99 (20% off) right now: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/absolum?ref=ngnhyzk

Huge thanks to DotEmu for sending me a key in advance! It gave me plenty of time to dig into the game, and have a decent video up ASAP.

One note about this video: it says "no deaths", but you HAVE to die in order to fight Absolum. So it's more like, no *unnecessary* deaths... |ω･`)

0:00 Intro
2:10 Grandery
18:08 Jaroba
34:56 Asterios
51:00 Azra, the Sun King
54:29 Absolum
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Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvMhpG1GR9sk8OYiWQMZZTgl
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfI6IYca_kvNFjpnJ59Th6N0IU1PSpD3d
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFE6B3779BE759F71 Receive SMS online on sms24.me

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