Vibrant, quirky, and fully chaotic, Above Land: Rhapsody principally takes the three-player co-op carnage of Elden Ring Nightreign and injects it with some hilariously over-the-top weapons and particular strikes that appear straight out of a Yakuza avenue brawl. At a latest BiliBili: First Look occasion in Shanghai, I spent a few hours hacking and slashing away at monsters in a land above the clouds, on this frenetic roguelite that marries breathtaking bursts of motion and tower protection parts with a deep sense of fight customisation. But what actually stood out for me was the inventive mixture of weaponry at my disposal. I imply, when was the final time you performed an motion RPG that allowed you to chop down goblins with a big broadsword in a single hand, and carry out slam-dunking ending strikes with a basketball dribbled with the opposite?
Simply why do you have got entry to an eclectic arsenal of weapons that appear to be stripped out of the pages of a tweenager’s sketchbook? Properly, that most likely has one thing to do with the very fact that in Above Land: Rhapsody you really play as a younger baby, at the very least exterior of every battle. Right here your downtime is spent wandering by way of the bowels of a floating vessel dubbed ‘The Invincible Bebe’, buying and selling for particular potions with the alchemist, getting ready meals with the chef that present buffs throughout fight, and visiting the tailor to unlock varied aesthetic upgrades like witch’s hats and aviation goggles in your avatar.
A very powerful NPC to befriend, although, is the Bebe’s blacksmith who gives you with a weapon set that combines a customary suite of excessive fantasy armaments with what seems to be probably the most needed objects on a grade schooler’s Christmas wishlist. After all there are swords, dual-wielded daggers, and a highly effective bow to deal injury with, however there’s additionally a yo-yo, electrical guitar, and the aforementioned basketball so as to add some slapstick to each monster arse you kick. I’m assuming the crew at developer Flying Amateurs are WWE followers, too, since you may even select to wield a folding chair, precisely like the sort sometimes clattered over the skulls of greased up grapplers ringside at Wrestlemania.
You may say that the builders have employed an ‘the whole lot however the kitchen sink’ strategy to designing your character’s arsenal in Above Land: Rhapsody, however since within the early model I performed there was solely 12 out of the greater than 30 weapons set to be out there within the completed sport, I can’t rule out the likelihood that there may really be a kitchen sink or another random piece of plumbing to wield when Above Land: Rhapsody finally comes out. It’s fairly nuts.
Above and Past
When you’re good to go you then shift by way of the pages of an intricate pop-up ebook left to the kid by his lacking mom, which then teleports you into a battle realm composed of floating chunks of shattered panorama and populated with hordes of minions to conflict with and numerous secret treasures to scour for. On this dimension you remodel into a lithe warrior and, both solo or with as much as two companions in tow, should survive 4 waves of more and more difficult enemy hordes earlier than overcoming an finish boss in a gameplay session that principally constitutes about 30 breathless minutes of mayhem.
Every wave of enemies you dispatch drops randomised character modifiers that you may equip on the fly, starting from merely electrifying your weapons, to a buff that makes the scale of your character slowly develop and turn out to be extra highly effective at the price of your total motion velocity. Apparently within the full sport there can be much more absurd modifiers that flip enemies into sheep, or assist you to actually shout your enemies to demise utilizing a headset microphone. Lastly, a gameplay mechanic goal constructed for each shrieking adolescent I’ve ever encountered in Name of Obligation.
Even with out the novel gameplay twists launched by these modifiers, which I’m advised can be near a staggering 1,000 in quantity, the weapons are already an absolute blast to make use of. Along with customary assaults, every weapon additionally has two particular abilities that function on a cooldown timer. For instance, the broadsword can deploy an automatic turret to assist skinny enemy numbers in your neighborhood, whereas the folding chair can summon a wrestling ring to rope within the enemies round you and stop them from dodging your chair-swinging assaults.
Every weapon additionally options its personal distinctive fight mechanics. With the katana I used to be merely alternating between the 2 foremost assault buttons to drag off slashing uppercuts and charged up stabs, however with the electrical guitar I fell into a fully completely different rhythm. Fairly actually so, since wielding the axe of the fretted type brings up a tempo indicator on the backside of the display screen; the higher you time every strum of the guitar, the extra injury you cope with the musical notice projectiles that fireplace out in all instructions, as your character kneeslides and duckwalks across the fight area like an motion roleplaying Angus Younger. I have to admit that the manic nature of Above Land: Rhapsody’s scraps meant that I didn’t all the time fully know what was happening, however I used to be nothing if not entertained always.
Above the Rim
It’s price stating that the precise multiplayer part of Above Land: Rhapsody is nonetheless very a lot a work in progress, and most of the options deliberate for co-operative play weren’t current within the early construct I performed. Particularly, the complete sport is set to permit gamers to commerce objects like capacity modifiers between them, however maybe extra enticingly, your fight talents can be much more complementary in a scrap. An instance advised to me by one of many builders, was that if two gamers every had the basketball geared up, they could be capable of move it backwards and forwards in fast succession with the intention to create a highly effective whirlwind to break enemies with, earlier than ending them off with one participant lobbing the ball to the opposite for an alley-oop dunk on the enemy’s head.
To be clear these ideas are solely tentative at this stage, however I’m definitely eager to see what sort of tandem takedowns will find yourself in Above Land: Rhapsody when it launches. Maybe you might have a trio of guitarists shredding a concord solo to actually soften enemy faces with, or perhaps a number of yo-yo wielders might spin up a internet of strings and actually rock the cradle with pounding, pendulum-style assaults. There’s definitely scope for some actually enjoyable mixtures right here.
At this early stage in its growth, Above Land: Rhapsody is additionally in determined want of higher onboarding for brand new gamers. Though its fight is extraordinarily simple to select up as a result of its easy and immediately rewarding design, there are an awesome variety of programs to work together with throughout every battle. These embody varied statues littered across the area that grant will increase to your most well being or elemental protection, with some requiring the providing of particular keys you gather throughout battle, some with brief puzzles to resolve, and others demanding the usage of one other consumable referred to as a G-stone. There’s additionally the Wobbo, which appears like an Australian nickname however is really a companion creature that can both operate as an autonomous bodyguard, and even enable the participant to remodel into a highly effective monster for brief durations of time.
Evidently, it was fairly a lot to course of in between the fixed hacking and slashing of hordes, however the builders guarantee me that they’re engaged on an expanded tutorial for the complete sport that will transcend the essential introduction included on this preview construct.
If developer Flying Amateurs can knuckle down and get the fundamentals sorted, then that ought to actually enable the foolish aspect of Above Land: Rhapsody to essentially shine. This is an motion RPG overflowing with power and playfulness, and I’m definitely eager to see extra. With no launch window confirmed at the moment it might nonetheless be fairly a whereas earlier than we get the completed sport in our arms, and it’s laborious to inform from this brief slice simply how a lot story substance can be evident, and what different fight arenas can be included to maintain the preventing contemporary. However for now, I can say that the potential of Above Land: Rhapsody is definitely sky excessive.
For extra on Above Land: Rhapsody, remember to try the complete announcement particulars right here.
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN’s Sydney workplace. He attended the BiliBili: First Look occasion in Shanghai as a visitor of the organizers.