2-D Brawlers are the absolute best. It depicts a world where balance is created by you and your friends walking around the city streets, looking for crime to kick and punch, and whenever you get tired, just punch open a box and grab some street food. Streets of Rage, Final Fight, Power Rangers, and Ninja Turtles all showed us what a utopia could look like, but we ignored them. Now, with the world on the brink of falling apart, DotEmu has come back for another lesson. While I don’t need to know if Absolum is good or not, based on how bad things are outside, I’m guessing a lot of you losers do. So, with the help of some amazing writers, let’s discover if Absolum is a BeatEmUp or a BeatEmDown.

Review Round-Up:

Led by the high enchantress Uchawa, the rebels fight back as the roguelike formula plays out with a classic side-scrolling beat ’em up style that Dotemu calls “rogue ’em up,” creating a satisfying and addictive loop that I keep coming back to.

The combat in Absolum is genuinely super fun, being simple to play yet deceptively deep, and fully playable in solo or two-player co-op. Each character has basic attacks, a secondary attack, a screen-clearing ultimate ability, and multiple magic Arcana spells that are supplemented by random power-ups you pick up after each area. – Scott Duwe, Destructoid

Absolum may not be a highly technical game, but it is a fairly difficult one. Though it’s easy to rack up big combos, enemies hit hard and health is scarce. Like the runs of Hades that Absolum partly imitates, it feels unpleasant to go into a boss with 40% of your HP. Helpfully, Absolum gives you a lot of control over how punishing the experience is: you can dial down (or up, if you’re nuts) damage received and damage given, a smart way of letting players fine tune difficulty. – Evan Lahti, PC Gamer

Last but certainly not least, if you liked what you’ve read and watched, then, by all means, head on over to the PlayStation Store, Nintendo eShop, or Steam to pick up Absolum. All you need to do is click the image below, and you will be taken to the store of your choosing. Also, I lied. One final, final thing, thank you for checking out the site. If you like this type of content, the Thinks of a Thoughter Games Release Radar will be doing this for every interesting game released this year.