2023-05-30 14:00:00
After Us is the second game from the Barcelona studio Piccolo Studio, a platform title that represents a planet totally destroyed by our own race
A topical issue today is the damage that humans are doing to our planet. Issues such as climate change, pollution or animal extinction are the order of the day, and despite this, it seems that humans do nothing about this. Well After Us is the representation of everything that will happen to our planet if we humans continue with this attitude. The second title from the developer Piccolo Studio, after Arise: A Simple Story, is a bigger and more ambitious title, a vindictive platform game, puzzles and some combat, with spectacular graphics. If you want to know everything about this very personal game, in this analysis you will know everything.
Gaia, savior of souls
In After Us we will be Gaia, a spirit of life represented in a young woman with long white hair. Mother (a representation of Earth) has lost her vital energy, so Gaia must recover it, freeing the souls of the animals that once populated the planet, but are no longer more than blue forms of light. This process will not be easy. And it is that the path to reach these souls will be very complicated, since the planet is totally destroyed, and it will be full of many dangers.. Also, Gaia, every time she releases these souls, she seems to get weaker. A feature of the title is that most of the title’s plot is told contextually. It is true that it has some cinematics to explain main things in the plot, but it is through images in its world where we can get an idea of what has happened to the planet, and give a greater context to everything. It is a game that each person can interpret differently.
The main plot isn’t bad at all, but it certainly isn’t surprising, as does the message the game wants to deliver and how it delivers it. The game leaves some very cloudy images and prints. Those who were once human, find themselves in the world petrified, naked, and all with a face of suffering. Many of them seem to follow the crowd like sheep, straight to their self-induced end and extreme capitalism. Some of these scenes are similar to many we see today and it is something that is very scary and upsetting.
we get what we get
As we have mentioned before, After Us is a platform title, and therefore throughout the adventure we will be carrying out actions typical of this type of game. Our protagonist Gaia, At the beginning of the adventure, you won’t be able to perform many actions, just jump and run, but as we progress through the adventure, new mechanics and abilities will be introduced.. This is something very positive, since, although the game is not complicated at all, nothing is done repetitively and we constantly have the feeling of progress. For example, in one section combat with enemies is introduced, in another the ability to run along the wall… there is always something new to learn and discover. If we talk about combat, this is quite anecdotal. It is true that every time they appear they do not bother, but they do not contribute anything either. This makes us have the feeling that if the game did not have them we would not miss anything. If there is something to criticize about the gameplay, it is its camera. This is placed in very strange places that do not let you see clearly, causing you to die because of it.
After Us is a fairly linear game, although the scenarios seem quite large, they have practically nothing to do, we can only collect the souls of animals hidden throughout the scenarios, something very simple since we have an ability that tells us where they are hidden. Despite these quite corridor scenarios, The player is given some freedom in the forks, and there are moments in which we are given different paths to take, it being our decision to take one path or the other first. The duration of the game is about 10 hours, being a couple more if we go for all the collectibles.
A devastated and beautiful world
After Us is a beautiful game. Despite representing a destroyed and dark world, this one is just beautiful. The game, which has only been released for new generation consoles, has some very remarkable graphics. It shows that they have focused on the new consoles. The artistic design of the game is spectacular, with a totally outstanding scenario design. It is not perfect, for example, the design of our protagonist I think is not the right one. This one is quite basic, giving a feeling of plasticity.
The performance of the title itself is more questionable. After Us has a quality mode, which will work at 4K and 30 fps, and a performance mode, which will work at 2K and 60 fps. We have played it in quality mode, since due to the type of game I did not think that the performance of the title was so important and in this mode it is not a disaster, but it does not run too well either. There are many freezes, frame drops and even in some of these freezes I had to restart the game because it did not work. Hopefully it will be fixed soon with patches. If we talk about its soundtrack, this is quite good, it perfectly accompanies the action that we see on the screen. For example, there are some very melancholic melodies, perfectly accompanying the pictures of destruction that we see.
After Us Conclusions
After Us is a very personal title that will strike a chord with you if you are even the least bit sympathetic to the subject. A somewhat simple platform game, but one that never falls into repetitiveness because they are continually teaching us new mechanics. It is true that it has some serious problems, such as the use of the camera or its performance, but we forget all this when we see the beautiful and at the same time terrifying images and prints that the game leaves us. A graphically and artistically impressive title that after finishing it will leave us with a terrible bad body and will make us reflect on the direction we are taking as a society.
After Us
29.99€
Pros
- Graphically and artistically it is spectacular
- It is a game that will make you reflect
- Always introduce new things to surprise
Cons
- performance issues
- The camera is not implemented correctly
- Large scenarios where there is little to do
#Analysis #dark #future #human #race