Absurdika: Rebuild

A long time ago, back in the early days of game reviews, a critic could get away with writing two or three sentences about a game and calling it a day. Sometimes they didn’t even need to do that, as we saw when Donn Nauert concluded that Flying Dragon is “just another karate game.” That’s it. That was his whole review. Sometimes I wish we could go back to those simpler times, when I could review a game using twenty or thirty words. That is definitely the case when it comes to Absurdika: Rebuild, a terrible new platformer with ugly graphics, frustrating level designs and the type of writing that thinks its far more clever than it actually is. In the olden days, that could have been my whole review. But alas, here’s a much longer and more detailed review of Absurdika: Rebuild, the new game from the makers of Cat from Hell and Bad Cat.

Absurdika is rotten right from the start. Instead of being introduced to our chainsaw-wielding hero, we instead spend an extended amount of time debating the merits of a video game telling a great, thought-provoking story versus a game having great gameplay. There’s quite literally a devil on one side and an angel on the other, while the narrator sits in the middle taking in both arguments. They ultimately conclude that maybe the trick is to tell an especially gripping story while also giving the player exceptional gameplay. Spoiler alert: They failed.

We’re quickly introduced to a nameless traveler with bad fashion sense who is given a chainsaw and transported to what he’s told is a “wonderful world” where he can confront his inner fears. We’re told by the narrator that we have a fear of conflict, a fear of loneliness and, of course, a fear of meeting girls, which can all be overcome with a chainsaw for some reason. While I wouldn’t call this a “gripping story,” it’s designed to motivate our hero into action so that we can experience the “exceptional gameplay.”

Unfortunately, this is a very simple platformer with laughably bad play mechanics. The traveler can run, jump and slash his chainsaw, a close combat move that leaves him vulnerable to hits. He also has a long-range attack that you can use three times in each stage and we unlock a helpful double-jump after conquering the first fear, but that’s basically it when it comes to the gameplay. The traveler can’t even duck to avoid the angel’s harmful musical notes.

For what it’s worth, the problem isn’t that our hero only has a handful of moves, but rather that the gameplay is so loose that it barely feels like you’re in control. Jumping on platforms is imprecise and the game has a bad habit of turning you the wrong direction when you’re getting ready to attack. And even if you were facing the right way, it wouldn’t make up for the fact that the chainsaw attacks are frustratingly slow, making it hard to dodge enemy attacks coming from all sides. And did I mention that you can’t duck? That might not be a problem if you’re a pipsqueak like Mega Man, but the hero in Absurdika is tall and lanky, which translates to taking a bunch of cheap hits, especially when playing on a higher difficulty.

And then there are the level designs, which come in two different flavors – straight-forward and maddeningly obtuse. In theory, the goal is to collect a gem that opens a way to the exit. Simple, right? Not so fast, because sometimes it might be best to NOT pick up the gem, because it might take away an important bridge or trap the portal behind a barrier. They’ll also try to hide the gem you need, which creates an annoying trial-and-error loop where you have to keep trying new things and dying until you find the right solution.

This wouldn’t be an issue if the checkpointing was better, but you’ll often have to replay multiple stages to get back to where you were, only to try another solution, die and repeat the whole process yet again. This sucks, and I never once had fun trying to guess what the game expected out of me. The game has a bad habit of putting platforms out of view, so you’re jumping blind, hoping to not fall into one of the many, MANY spike pits. There’s no reason for this. There’s no skill in completing these platforming puzzles, because it’s all luck and memorization. Once you know where all the platforms and gems are, you’ll already be so sick of the level that you’ll just want it to end.

Of course, it doesn’t help that the stages look terrible. There are basically only a few backgrounds, including an indoor section with a painted brick wall, an outdoor area with a blood red sky, and bits where everything is drenched in an obnoxious green tint. The game repeats these three areas for about 30 minutes and then the game ends, complete with an ending that tries to flip everything and make a point about perception and not letting your life be governed by fear. It’s the kind of Very Special Episode energy that might have worked in a better game, but here it just left me rolling my eyes.

There is a real lack of care running throughout this game. It feels like the developer had a funny beginning and end, and just slapped together a bunch of levels as quickly as possible in order to get it on consoles for a budget price. There are basically only three enemies you run into, and the boss fights are nothing special. This is a barebones idea that wasn’t fleshed out in any way, which makes it all the more annoying when they start the game talking about games having “gripping stories” and “exceptional gameplay.” I don’t know what game they’re talking about, but it certainly isn’t Absurdika: Rebuild.