The time has finally arrived. The journey of jumping out of our chairs to watch the reveal, playing the game, and finally putting together this review. It has genuinely been mind-blowing. Immortals! Prepare for Gameffine’s Review for Ascendent Studio’s Debut title Immortals of Aveum, an EA Orginal. On Launch, the game is available for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X & S and PC.
From Rags to Royal Magician
Voiced by the multi-talented Darren Barnet, you play as Jak, who was born powerless, but whose future held a much stronger path for him. Jak initially lived in a remote town with a small family. To put food on the table, Jak and his best friend Luna took to stealing as a way to put food on the table for the family. After their last adventure of the day, the entire family felt a grim feeling. Luna was to turn 16 and be enlisted in the army.
The situation was soon defused by the family’s youngster, who had taken to troubling ways to earn a day’s keep. The family soon discovers the youngster has returned with a wound alongside the treasure. The injury is soon tended but requires medicine.. or magic? Luna and Jak embark on an impromptu adventure to save their family.
Soon after acquiring the desired item, a misfortune followed that changed the life of Jak permanently. Rasharnian army invaded their home and destroyed everything in their way. Jak’s dormant magical powers awakened after a significant event (that we have decided to keep withdrawn for a spoiler-free experience), making Rasharnian regret putting a foot on the town. The Lucian Grand Magnus General Kirkan soon discovers Jak. She adopts her, and being the leader of the immortals, she trains the newly found tri-arch that could change the fate of the Everwar.
What’s happening in Aveum, you ask? Well, here you go.
Aveum is a battle-torn magical land riddled with cracks and veins of magic flowing all over the aveum. A significant threat, known as corruption, grows all over the land that develops and kills life every day. But that is not the more substantial concern at hand. A war for centuries rages over the ground for the control of absolute power. Control over magic. Rasharn’s newfound leader Sandrakk has broken the centuries of Stalemate and cracked the link of all Lucium allies. Rasharnians are on the brink of taking over as the absolute power of magic, and Lucians must give everything they can.
A few drawbacks of the combat aspect would be to dodge. However, there is magic to do a safe dodge that runs on a cooldown. So if your shield is expired and Dodge is on cooldown, nothing happens. The damaging impact on the screen feels unnatural. If you get shot with a bow, the screen turns red enough to scare you as if you’re critical. The green slowing blast damage concusses the screen, making it confusing with the health. A good audio indicator is also needed here.
This is where you come in. You play as Jak, a sporadic form of magic wielder known as the tri-arch. Being a tri-arch, you can wield all three forms of magic – Blue, green and Red. Fight for yourself, discover the truth, uncover the lies, and become an Immortal.
The Sigil Mastery
Alright, first things first. How is the combat? One-word answer – Mind-blowing. The first few glimpses of when the game was revealed were terrific. But during a more elaborate reveal session by Ascendant Studios, we were bored after the first 10 minutes. The combat became to feel monotonous. And that was precisely what we thought during the first 3 hours of our gameplay. The game’s epilogue starts haphazardly and almost feels like the prologue was put in at the last minute. And even the starting sessions, where we are learning the ropes and controls, feels very slow with very boring writing that gave no opening to the lore.
But slowly, when the world opened up and Jak started asking questions, the game caught an exciting plot. Along with the story, counterspells and totems were unlocked to deal with the generic enemies, shooting arrows hiding behind a bubble shield. So our advice, wait for it; it gets better!
As for your combat, you can choose three different types of magic on the go. Blue is a rifle-type magic that can be categorised like the other magic styles. You can use it like a sniper or tap-fire M1 Grand-styled rifle. As for green, it is simply an SMG. You can either wield it as an LMG or an actual SMG. And finally, Red, you guessed it, SHOTGUN! The red spell can be chosen between a one-shot burst or with multiple rounds but lesser damage. It depends on how you want to play the game; each works in its favour. Although you must refresh your magic after firing a burst of magic, the total number of bullets/spells is unlimited.
Along with the spells of firing, you get totems. As you progress, you get a total of 3 totems along with stones of healing. You get a blue whip to trap enemies or travel across the map, green essence that can be used to slow down enemies and a red crystal to break enemy magic and unlock puzzles. Use the totems per your style; you would rarely be forced to use them during combat. But alas, the proper usage will allow you to correct and exploit your enemy’s weaknesses.
And, at last, the actual spells. The full-scale attacks are devastating and can put down enormous damage if used correctly. However, these spells require the usage of mana, which needs to be recharged by Mana stones or by putting down enough damage.
Overall, as the game progresses, the enemy variety gets tougher, allowing you to adapt your weaponry and movement, making Aveum a fast-paced FPS magical shooter. What set’s it apart from a Call of Duty game? There is no cover; you summon one. You can hail a shield and use the shotgun spell while walking right into your enemy. Be dominant, or shoot from afar; you get to write your own story.
The Lands of Lucium and Beyond
The graphical setting has been mindblowing and full of life. With secrets and puzzles scattered everywhere, the world of Immortals of Aveum is full of life. The linear story progression will never cross the exploration and puzzle-solving aspect giving both genres of players a great experience. Hence, if you’re not much of an explorer and are here only for the story, you can always go ahead without solving hours of puzzles and shroudfanes. But, in my recommendation? Explore every corner! You may stumble across artefacts not yet accessible, but in time you’ll be able to return and gain powerful items essential to complete the shroud-fane challenges.
As for the performance, the game performs quite well for the PlayStation 5, concerning the minimum requirement of the PC settings. We could see the scope and how much better the game would look on PC, but it also does a reasonably great job here. There is no option to switch between graphics or performance, but it is the right decision for an FPS game. The game never suffered from an FPS drop. And by the time we publish this review, a Day 1 patch will also arrive, improving things.
Oh yes, a beautiful shot out to the audio/OST team of the game. The light hip-hop-styled background music is the most addictive and fiery ambient music we’ve listened to.
A few drawbacks are that sometimes the game gets too flashy, making it harder to focus on enemies. During the ultimate attack, you can barely see what you are shooting at and only understand the impact with audio. At times you may also notice slight desync with the audio and voiceover. And the initial cinematic’s voiceover and effects don’t blend at all.
VERDICT
Immortals of Aveum is a work of art and truly reflects the ideas and love the game has been made with. The FPS magical shooter may have a worrying start, but that quickly turns into excitement, followed by a crucial turn of events, keeping you hooked. The combat and enemy variety grows as your progress, controlling the flow of combat enjoyable throughout. Topped with excellent voiceovers from talented artists and a brilliant hip-hop-styled ambience, Immortals of Aveum was a big box of surprises for us.
With a few drawbacks with the overall feel and pace of combat and lack of haptic feedback for dual sense, we are confident these issues are temporary and can be fixed in future updates.
We at Gameffine loved this venture from Ascendent Studios.
FINAL RATING – 80/100
