I became a fan of Dotemu due to their extremely polished, retro-style beat ‘em ups. Two big titles that put them on my radar were Streets of Rage 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. There’s also the upcoming, highly anticipated MARVEL Cosmic Invasion, which is only about a month away. They have mastered the art of the modern beat ’em up.

On these titles Dotemu collaborated with other studios — Tribute Games, Lizard Cube, Guard Crush. Something else these three games have in common is that they are all based in existing worlds using established IP (Intellectual Properties). They didn’t invent these worlds, but they got to create their own stories using familiar characters.

Last month Dotemu released their first original game, Absolum. This past week we took down the final boss, and by “we” I mean my partner and myself. Absolum was created in collaboration with Guard Crush Games, who also helped out on Streets of Rage 4. They also joined forces with Supamonks who handled the art direction and animation. Absolum features their modern take on the retro-style beat ‘em up combat with something new — it’s also a roguelike.

After each death in Absolum you return to your home base and prepare to start another run. While you lose your abilities and trinkets each time, there are permanent upgrades that make you stronger for future runs. Dotemu could have easily released another super-polished beat ‘em up. I like that they decided to not only create their own world this time around, but also challenge themselves by making something different with Absolum.

Two Heroes | Online or In-Person

Absolum features four playable heroes (Karl, Galandra, Cider, and Brome), but you can only choose one or two at a time. The game can be played single player or co-op — both online and in-person. I actually enjoyed the two player version most — since we could revive each other when we ran out of lives.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge actually allowed for up to six players at a time — with online co-op. Six players sounds insane. I once played that game with both of my nephews and we all found ourselves looking at the wrong turtle throughout. I’m not sure about how the math adds up, but would six players mean six times the enemy characters on screen?

In Absolum, I mostly played as Karl with a few exceptions. My partner was Galandra 100% of the time. Now that we have defeated Azra, The Sun King (the main boss) with those two heroes, it might be time to return with Brome and Cider. I gave each of them one or two runs.

Part of getting better in Absolum comes from the permanent upgrades, but there’s also the replay element. The first time you face a boss, like Gazorg or the Underking, you are just trying to survive. After repeating these boss fights over and over, you learn their boss fight loop and how to quickly defeat them. Over the years I’ve learned that this is the case with many roguelikes and Metroidvanias.

Video Game Music

Before ever playing Absolum I listened to the full soundtrack on Apple Music — that’s partially why I decided to reach out to Dotemu for a review code. Gareth Coker is the main composer on Absolum. His two Ori game soundtracks were the background to my writing for a long time (Ori & the Blind Forest and Ori & the Will of the Wisps).

Absolum also features something I’ve never noticed before in video game music — guest composers. As if Gareth Coker wasn’t enough. One of my most memorable songs on the album is by a guest musician, Mick Gordon. He composed The Underking, which I loved hearing every time we fought that boss. It’s very hellish and heavy metal tones make sense coming from the composer of many DOOM games. 

There are also songs by Motoi Sakuraba and Yuta Kitamura who both worked on different FromSoftware games (including Dark Souls and Elden Ring). Having these guest composers gives certain areas and boss fights a different feel. Maybe this should become more of a regular thing in video game music.

Music in video games has come a long way over the years. Video game music used to be chiptunes and doing your best with limited sounds. We now see full orchestras recording music for video games. Many video game albums are up there with some of the best film scores. There are also great chiptune and retro video game music being made today — like Lena Raine’s Celeste soundtrack.

One More Thing

Even before Absolum was released, it was announced that an animated series was in the works. This is unheard of for a brand new IP before anyone has even gotten their hands on it. I’m guessing this is due to working with Supamonks. They created the in-game animations, but they are also working on the upcoming series.

It’s a great strategy to have the animation in the works so that the show comes out while the hype is still there for the game and these characters. It won’t be like when the World of Pandora came to Walt Disney World many years after the first Avatar movie and five years before Avatar: The Way of Water came to theaters. Absolum is one game that I did not skip animations in, because they were gorgeous. I can’t wait to see the series that comes out of Absolum.

We had such a great time playing Absolum. My gaming time with my partner is usually reserved for weekends when we have nothing else going on. Absolum is one of the few games we continued to play on week nights until we beat it — it even kept us up late many of those nights.

I could very well be done with this game after beating the main story, but I’m also looking forward to heading back in and trying to unlock new secrets with Cider and Brome — and probably some more time with Karl and Galandra.

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*myVGBC.com was provided an Absolum review code by Dotemu.