Afterparty

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Afterparty is a Graphic Adventure released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2019, and then ported to PC and Nintendo Switch in 2020. It follows a pair of youths, Milo and Lola, who are just about to graduate and head out to start their lives as adults when they are surprised to discover they have both apparently died and are now in hell. Not sure how this happened, and both wanting to get out of hell and back to their lives, they latch on to a spot of hope in the form of a ritual of sorts they’re told about that if anyone can defeat Satan himself in a drinking contest, they can be returned to the mortal world. However, actually challenging Satan isn’t as simple as walking up to him and asking to do shots, and Milo and Lola need to find their way around the strange landscape of hell while interacting with a varied cast of characters.

Afterparty feels a bit like a combination of developer Night School Studio’s previous work, Oxenfree, and legendary Graphic Adventure classic Grim Fandango. From the former, you get Night School’s focus on dialogue-driven gameplay with the running conversation tree system introduced in Oxenfree, with this gameplay element even given a boost by the different fictional alcoholic drinks your characters can consume that can embolden them, make them flirty, or give them a splash of wit for a short while, enabling additional conversation tree options that wouldn’t have been available to you without a dose of afterlife booze. You’ll find that Afterparty is light on traditional Graphic Adventure puzzles, and instead everything comes down to talking with different people and making conversation choices.

As for those different people and the locale you’ll be exploring, that’s where the Grim Fandango influence comes in. Afterparty’s vision of hell is an interesting spin on how you may picture the realm of eternal torment. Humans are indeed sent there to be tormented, and the demons aren’t shy about being fine with all sorts of grotesque imagery found throughout the place, but for the most part they aren’t really malicious about it like you might think. While you’ll encounter your fair share of jerks, most of the devils and demons you encounter are just working stiffs trying to do their jobs, and perfectly happy to clock out when their shift is over and hit the bar, leaving the subjects of their torture to just do whatever.

It’s a fascinating take on the pit of fire and brimstone, and more often than not you’ll find yourself sympathizing with the demons who have no problem with torturing humans – after all, they have no choice in the matter, and while most have learned to be content with the state of things, they’re mostly not jerks about it either, and they generally have their own problems to deal with, whether that’s a lazy coworker pressuring them to cover a shift, an entourage of clinging sycophants that won’t leave them alone, frustrations about prejudices they frequently encounter, or just their afterlife responsibilities weighing down on them.

This is all conveyed through well-acted and fully-voiced dialogue, with well-voiced characters, with some voiced by veterans like Ashly Burch and Dave Fennoy. This joins a soundtrack that appropriately often sounds like you’re listening to rock music playing in a party slightly muffled because it’s the next room over, though it has a some odd exceptions to this theme on occasion.

As for the rest of the presentation, Afterparty features a mix of 3D and 2D visuals that have some ugly issues like some low-resolution textures and lots of aliasing, but still get away with being stylistically interesting like something from a Henry Selick movie.

Apart from these technical issues, there are a few other issues here. There are occasional minigames that aren’t very deep and don’t seem to have anything to do with the gameplay of the rest of the game. In addition, I think the walking speed in this game is far too slow and can make things tedious at times. Also, I’m honestly not a fan of Milo’s character – he seems whiny and talks too much as a way to avoid the discomfort that being more direct would cause him, and it gets old fast. Lola, on the other hand, is great – she can be a bit blunt and insensitive, but she generally means well and it’s not quite clear why she hangs out with Milo, other than their shared habit of complaining about everything.

However, while it has its rough edges, overall I really enjoyed Afterparty. The interesting world the game presents full of fascinating characters with well-written and well-acted dialogue makes this well worth a look for any fans of the genre.

tl;dr – Afterparty is a Graphic Adventure about Milo and Lola, a pair of youths who find themselves in hell and set out with the goal of challenging Satan to a drinking contest to win their way back to their lives on Earth. This game is an excellent dialogue-focused journey with an interesting locale with great characters that features strong writing and great voice acting. There are a few technical issues and some shallow minigames, and I’m just not fond of the Milo character, but overall this is an excellent Graphic Adventure well worth a look for fans of the genre.

Grade: B+

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