Immortals Of Aveum Review: More Magic Needed
- A wonderfully crafted world
- Characters are memorable and entertaining
- Spell variety and shooting are immersive
- Using a controller, both in combat and during interactions, is not a viable option
- Frame rate drops will frequently hinder your experience
- The story feels underwhelming and predictable at times
A PlayStation 5 code was provided to SVG for this review. "Immortals of Aveum" is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
The infatuation of humanity with the concept of magic has captivated the minds of generations throughout history, whether it be in the form of myths, legends, short stories, or the occasional real-life attempts to gather the power of the occult. In the world of entertainment media, the most popular IP is by far, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The idea of wielding magic to do the most absurd or the most common tasks often takes a privileged place in our minds.
But let's be honest. If magic was a thing and humans could wield and master it, just like any technological advance, a select few would undoubtedly use it for the detriment of society. That is, of course, war. You don't have to be Oppenheimer to know this. That is exactly what "Immortals of Aveum" is all about. A world consumed by magic and its wields, incessantly trying to conquer each other while being completely oblivious to the fact that the world they long to conquer is on the verge of being destroyed. Does this game excel at what it is trying to convey? Is the world of "Immortals of Aveum" a treat for the eye? Will you enjoy interacting with the world and fighting hordes of magic-wielding enemies? Put plainly: "Immortals of Aveum" is a pretty middle-of-the-road experience, but ultimately worth checking out.
What a wonderful world
While "Immortals of Aveum" suffers from a less-than-desirable release date thanks to other giant releases such as "Baldur's Gate 3" and "Starfield," one thing that you can expect to experience in this game is an incredibly beautiful and well-designed world. You can even say that it is, wait for it ... magical. From the first scene, you will enjoy a world filled with an outstanding arcane-punk aesthetic powered by the novel Unreal Engine 5. Side note: We will talk about gaming performance later, but let us focus on the art and graphics.
The world exploration and battle encounters will immerse you in the world of Aveum, with the character's spells and abilities filling the screen with colored particles that show how magical and deadly this world can become. You will find yourself enjoying even the most rutinary reload animations with the amount of detail and peculiarity. Snapping your fingers to reload your blue magic? Satisfying enough to justify a full session of unnecessary reloading while the world is expecting you to save it.
What steals the show regarding the graphics is the incredible design of the main characters. Jak, the protagonist, features a design that expresses his intense and sometimes over-the-top personality. However, if you have seen "Suits," you can imagine the awe and over-excitement when we saw Kirkan, portrayed by the wonderful Gina Torres. Just like Jak, her design will blow you away with her dual magic-wielding abilities proper of a Magnus Diarch (she can wield both green and blue magic). Overall, the world and its characters are a visual treat.
What could have been
You play as Jak, a citizen of Seren who while being a thief is also a Triarch, a Magnus that can control the three types of magic: blue, red, and green. Due to the conflict of the Everwar, Seren suffers the loss of his foster family, triggering his three-sided magical potential. Kirkan, the Grand Magus of the Immortals, leads the defense against Rasharn's tyrant, Sandrakk. Kirkan discovers Jak after his Triarch awakening and recruits him to defend Lucium, Kirkan's kingdom.
This is all well presented and a fine start to a story. You even get to train alongside Kirkan to discover the different sigils — the items that allow you to cast the different types of magic spells, and the spells themselves. However, after training ends, you are then given the "Endgame" treat of receiving the message of: "Five years later." Why aren't we able to experience some sort of character development for both Jak and Kirkan? Moreover, other characters are introduced to Jak during that five-year time jump so we don't have the time to connect with them from the get-go.
Yes, we get to meet new characters later such as Devyn and Zendara, and for what it's worth, you will enjoy their unique personalities. But something that you will notice is that, despite five years of fighting in the front lines, Jak hasn't changed a bit. Maybe he gained some introspective chops, but his quippy, whiny, and cocky nature remains untouched. If war changes the hearts and souls of its survivors, we don't see it here.
The story "Immortals of Aveum" tries to make a point with its decaying world and magical conflict that feels flat, and worse, predictable. You can see the major plot twist coming from a mile away after all the prologue interaction between Jak and his foster family, showing his disdain and rejection toward the Everwar.
Shooting magic with style
What shines alongside the great graphics is the gameplay and the first-person shooter action in "Immortals of Aveum." That said, you'd better play this game with a mouse and keyboard. Yes, some keybinds may not feel as smooth with a controller, but using a controller to aim in this game is a recipe for failure. Interacting with other characters and opening chests is also quite an ordeal. You need to position yourself in the right spot and look exactly at the golden dot in the HUD to be able to interact with characters and objects.
Additionally, why not include some sort of aiming assist for players with controllers? At the risk of sounding like a noob, this could potentially make the experience a bit better and not have players constantly use the homing projectiles of the green sigil to be able to get rid of enemies. Finally, during our PS5 playthrough, we did encounter several instances of frame rate drops. They were not very frequent or chaotic, but perceivable enough to be noticeable, hindering the experience.
With that out of the way, if you can circumvent the issues above that may sound like nitpicking, you will find a very fun FPS that makes great use of its magic/arcane setting thanks to the several spells and magic types you can choose to cast. As mentioned before, you have three types of magic. Red stands for destruction, allowing you to deal with heavy-hitting, close-ranged attacks similar to a shotgun. Green magic stands for life and death, which will help you move landmarks, opening up more areas to explore as well as shooting small and fast-homing projectiles. Finally, the blue magic represents physical manipulation, allowing you to create shields, interact with objects, alter gravity properties, and shoot projectiles that are powerful and feature a huge range of effectivity.
Each magic type will feature its sigil that you can change as many times as you want mid-battle to adapt yourself to any situation you may encounter. Yyou can also change the spell properties, altering the rate of fire, damage, and other properties. You can even make use of Fury Mana to cast even more powerful spells that are limited to your Mana capacity. To sum up, you will be entertained while shooting your way through enemy hordes and the occasional boss, and will never feel cheated out of the action due to unfair combat situations. It is up to you and you have full control of your magic.
A great first step
Taking all things into account, "Immortals of Aveum", while having some story and gameplay issues, is a very entertaining game that tries to convey a message that will justify the great FPS action, but ultimately misses its grand mark. "Immortals of Aveum" is just the first game released by the AAA independent developer Ascendant Studios, and many would be lucky and privileged to say that they have a game such as this as their first title offering.
No, this game won't change your life, but if you are looking for a very entertaining first-person shooter with great characters and you want to take a break from using fully automatic weapons to deal with enemies, "Immortals of Aveum" will surely make for a very interesting and unique gaming session. We just hope that Ascendant Studios continues to deliver games such as this one and continues building on what they have crafted. Only time will tell, but in the meantime, you have some spell-casting to do, my Triarch Magnus friend.