An Undertale-like with the wackiness and shade dialed as much as 11.
It’s simple the impression that Toby Fox’s Undertale had on the online game business, and indie video games particularly. Few titles, nonetheless, have been daring sufficient to try to roughly replicate the expertise wholesale. Enter Athenian Rhapsody, which appears to skirt the border between imitation and homage, particularly by way of its RPG fight. That stated, whereas Undertale dabbled in a mixture of each delicate humor and slapstick, Athenian Rhapsody is far more in your face with its comedy, with hilarious sound results, fart jokes, and a cavalcade of outrageous characters.
After a sequence of quiz questions set in opposition to a black background, your Ness-looking character awakes on the planet of Athens, and it is laborious to disregard the colourful, cartoony atmosphere through which you end up. Among the many first characters you encounter are a pair of inseparable creatures that appear like both Grimace knockoffs or Pokemon that ended up on the chopping room ground (which might truly describe a good few of the ridiculous Athenian denizens you find yourself befriending). That is Richard and James, and so they set the tone for the extremely absurd puzzles, antics, and trials you’ll encounter all through the sport’s roughly 10-hour predominant story. Your final goal (insofar as the sport truly has one) is to succeed in the Gardens space on the finish of the world, whereas working to know the drive of so many in Athens to earn as a lot EXP as they’ll. Nevertheless, a way more efficient method to expertise Athenian Rhapsody could be to steadily cease and scent the roses, even if you happen to’ll finally catch a whiff of one thing quite disagreeable.
Not like bigger or extra mainstream RPGs, there isn’t any quest information or guidelines to work on as you weave your approach round Athens. As an alternative, you’ll have to hearken to what characters let you know and communicate to everybody, which finally ends up being worthwhile for different causes, too. For example, it’s not at all times apparent which characters could be invited to hitch your celebration, so including to your secure is one reward for chatting everyone up; one other perk is that numerous the writing is genuinely humorous, and I by no means discovered it boring to stroll a few new space and test in with all of the locals. Every new atmosphere inside Athens provides a brand new shade palette and design as nicely, which helps to differentiate these areas and hold pushing you in the direction of the endgame. The catchy soundtrack doesn’t harm, both.
You possibly can win turn-based battles by attacking and defeating enemies or by befriending them, which sees you taking an motion like posing, insulting, or laughing till your opponent is prepared to surrender and settle for your friendship. Throughout an enemy’s flip, you’ll have to play a dodge-’em-up minigame that’s precisely like that of Undertale, whereby it is advisable to rigorously keep away from a sequence of projectiles from all sides of the field in the course of the display. Each primary enemy and boss has a novel model of this minigame, with bosses usually introducing a handful of variations to it. If you happen to select the extra pacifist befriending route, you’ll have to step as much as the problem of an HP meter that principally by no means grows (because you don’t earn any EXP) and enemy assaults and obstacles that may put out heaps of harm. You do earn cash from any profitable fight, and these can be utilized to buy therapeutic gadgets, however your pocket area is restricted, and so chances are you’ll discover that well being restoration is usually in jeopardy.
Two components that may assist flip the tide in battle are the flexibility to swap your predominant character out to your chosen companion ally, who has their very own distinctive talents to prop up your staff or end a struggle. The opposite is the Burst mechanic, which lets you draw from one other pool of factors to heal your self or pace up your avatar within the dodging minigame. Efficiently evading enemy photographs can shortly restore your Burst meter, however taking too many hits will lower each your well being and Burst, which makes for a harsh penalty. Athenian Rhapsody does have a “Chill Mode” choice that may make the fights a bit extra palatable (by providing non permanent invulnerability after you get hit), however even with it activated the issue stage by no means felt too low. What always did really feel too low, nonetheless, was the overly restrictive merchandise storage field and your character’s personal pocket, which mixed nonetheless solely allowed you to maintain about 20 gadgets.
There are components of Athenian Rhapsody that time in the direction of a long-tailed future for the sport after its launch. For one, every playthrough of the sport creates a person, customized Rhapsody, which could be shared with different gamers or rewatched by your self. The sport’s Steam web page means that Rhapsodies could be mixed and even used to entry particular in-game occasions; I’m wanting to see if a considerable neighborhood kinds across the sport and if these options result in some fascinating methods of sharing and storytelling. I do know I haven’t seen every little thing the world of Athens has to supply, however it feels like there’s potential for this world to develop if the assist is there.
Athenian Rhapsody is far more than simply one other creator’s tackle Undertale. By efficient comedic writing, a world that’s crammed to the brim with surprises, and a horny presentation, developer Nico Papalia has crafted an expertise that stands by itself as each an homage and a reimagining of what Toby Fox achieved nearly a decade earlier. The concept of every playthrough being reworked into its personal object and gaining a tangibility is an intriguing one, reinforcing the facility of decision-making in a world of unknown consequence. The vibrancy of Athens comes as a lot from its nature and biomes because it does from its inhabitants, and it was in the end a honest pleasure to spend time right here. As a lover of each Earthbound and Undertale, I discovered in Athenian Rhapsody one other expertise that felt like house, full with characters randomly exploding extra instances than I might rely.