I was initially excited to take a look at Empyreal. Based on the initial trailers I watched in preparation, it looked like a pretty fun ARPG—and I’ve been on a bit of an ARPG kick lately, but I’ll get into that a little later. As they say, though, never judge a book by its cover—or a game by its heavily doctored reveal trailers.
It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to stop playing a game as quickly as I started. Empyreal is a bog-standard ARPG that tries to use a modicum of style to wallpaper over its lack of depth and immediately unenjoyable gameplay.
The story of Empyreal is moderately interesting. It follows Morys, who is burdened with the legacy of a failed quest once pursued by both his father and grandfather. The quest? In some remote part of the galaxy lies an ever-shifting, mysterious ziggurat that may contain the secrets of both existence and non-existence. Now an old man and seemingly unable to reach the heart of the Monolith, Morys passes the task to the player—to finish the journey and face what lies within.
It’s a fine enough story that creates a solid narrative justification for the roguelike elements the game is built upon. The way the Monolith is laid out, along with secrets of its creation hidden within both its visual and narrative design, creates an interesting balance between story and gameplay. In addition, there’s a decent cast of characters populating the hub base, all of whom are fully voiced and add a bit of flair to the proceedings.
“Empyreal is a bog-standard ARPG that tries to use a modicum of style to wallpaper over its lack of depth and immediately unenjoyable gameplay.”
However, it wasn’t the story that bounced me off Empyreal, but the gameplay. Right from the outset, I knew it was going to be a problem when the game straight-up lies on its Steam page, claiming: “Experiment with a multitude of Character Creation options OR choose one of the 30 presets.” In reality, the only “customization” offered was selecting a male or female body, a head shape and face (locked behind preset choices), and options for hair, facial hair and scars.
This lack of depth in Empyreal extended to the “character backgrounds,” which appeared to function as classes, since each came with different skills, weapons and armour sets. However, this was purely superficial—amounting to little more than your character’s starting gear and some additional dialogue options based on your chosen background.
This genuinely bothered me as, naturally, I chose the “Morose Rogue” because it seemed like it would give me a character with rogue-like abilities—by which I mean stealth, traps and sneak attacks. However, my character, despite his background, had the same starting abilities as any other character. This not only drains any creativity from the gameplay but also undermines the narrative—because now my “loner character who sticks to the shadows” doesn’t display any of his supposed background in combat.
Not only that, but Empyreal’s whole “RPG” system is based solely around gear. Players don’t level up or gain stat points—something a background could have affected if the developers wanted a more traditional experience—so you can’t even build a character to suit your desired playstyle. It’s not so much an ARPG as it is an action game with light RPG elements.
Not that combat is any fun either. It’s not only that it lacks real depth—since, out of the three main weapon archetypes, players only get a basic attack combo and no heavy attacks to round out their moveset—but, like I said, abilities must either be unlocked through lengthy quests or crafted using materials and loot found in the dungeon. I couldn’t believe it when the Invisibility ability, which also allows players to perform stealth attacks, was locked behind an in-game paywall that required seriously high-end loot.
“It’s amazing to me how a relatively simple ARPG from 2000 had more depth and nuance than an ostentatious game with two decades of hindsight behind it.”
And while Empyreal boasts of having a “skill-based” combat system that requires players to utilize dodges and parrying, alongside a stagger meter that allows for an animated “special” attack, it never really felt like any amount of skill made a difference in the experience. Enemies have a bar that fills to indicate an imminent attack, which makes parrying nearly impossible to mess up when fighting a single enemy—but completely useless when facing four at once, each capable of taking off a quarter of your health.
Certain ranged attacks seem to follow you no matter how well you time your dodges, and particularly at the start of the game, your weapons are so useless and your armour so flimsy that you end up getting obliterated if you fight any variety of enemies. The game constantly puts you up against multiple foes, so despite supposedly being a single-player experience, it feels completely imbalanced.
The visuals are where Empyreal really stands out—but they also highlight a glaring problem. While I can’t deny that the environments look gorgeous and some enemies are uniquely designed, the game has a serious overabundance of bombastic “cinematic” moves, complete with unique animations and dynamic camera angles. Given how bare-bones the standard combat feels, I can’t help but see all this unnecessary flash as a distraction from how little is actually going on.
It’s strange because, like I said at the top, I’ve recently gotten back into Phantasy Star Online: Episode I & II for the GameCube. It’s amazing to me how a relatively simple ARPG from 2000 had more depth and nuance than an ostentatious game with two decades of hindsight behind it. It had character classes that could utilize unique weapons and skills, a stat system that was enhanced by weapons and armour—not reliant on them—and combat that was active but maintained a degree of turn-based simplicity and strategy.
But Empyreal never reached that degree of tension or fun. Its combat is flashy but never satisfying, its character-building is non-existent, and it feels deliberately punishing as a way of manufacturing challenge. I didn’t enjoy any of the multiple hours I spent with this game, and while I’m sure some people may enjoy it, I couldn’t imagine sticking around long enough for the game to decide to be fun.
Also, you can die in the hub area—which was pretty hilarious.
