Amedama

Genre: Action

Players: 1

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Review:

Amedama, released in 2024 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, is a game I would tend to describe as an Action game, though at times it seems similar to an Arcade-style Brawler, and at times it seems like something else entirely that’s hard to pin down to a specific genre.

The premise of this game has players taking the role of Yushin, a former samurai warrior peacefully running an umbrella shop with his sister Yui when one day a group of thugs bursts in, kills Yushin, and abducts Yui. However, seemingly due to a small nearby statue, Yushin’s soul remains, capable of possessing other lifeforms. Using this ability, Yushin jumps from body to body as he searches for the whereabouts of Yui and attempts to rescue her from the thugs who killed him and kidnapped her.

One thing you’ll notice right away when playing Amedama is that this game is absolutely gorgeous. It uses an art style that might be compared to the HD-2D style Square Enix has popularized in its games, but there are distinct differences. In addition to the beautifully-detailed backgrounds, the human characters are either extremely fluidly-animated 2D characters, or more likely 3D characters with a sort of pixelization filter placed over them to make them look like 2D characters. Whichever it is, the results are striking, and this is joined by gorgeous-looking puddles being spattered with rain. All of this is backed by a soundtrack composed of traditional Japanese instruments, befitting the game’s setting.

I wish I could heap the same praise on the gameplay that I do on the visuals, but Amedama has some serious problems here. The main one is pacing issues – this game frequently interrupts you with fights, and each fight begins and ends with a lengthy bit of text as Yushin thinks to himself. It feels like you can barely move around in this game without being interrupted by this, and it absolutely kills the game’s momentum.

Another issue is that while this game’s possession mechanic has a lot of potential, it frequently seems like more trouble than it’s worth, forcing you to swap bodies if you’ve used your current one too much, only letting you take bodies that are already knocked out or pathetically weak, forcing you to work your way up the food chain from frog to dog to old man to someone more combat-capable, and this is a process you need to repeat whenever you die.

On top of this, while the game’s dodge-parry-focused combat seems promising, and at times can be quite fun, it becomes a chore of managing targeting whenever you’re fighting groups, as you can only ever face in the direction of, and move in relation to, your current designated opponent.

It’s frustrating that the gameplay in Amedama has so many issues, because the presentation is phenomenal. But the poor pacing, tedious possession system, and clunky combat all add up to make a game that’s more interesting to watch than it is to play.

tl;dr – Amedama is an Action game where players take the role of a samurai’s body-snatching spirit trying to save his abducted sister. The presentation in this game is absolutely gorgeous, but the gameplay is clunky, tedious, and has absurdly poor pacing. This results in a game that is far more interesting to look at than to play.

Grade: C+

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