From the first bump of playing Angeline Era, I knew I was in for something fantastically weird. Blocky but expressive 3D graphics, terrific writing that reads like a pitch perfect 90s JRPG localization, and most important: bumpslash combat harkening back to the early Ys games. Developer Analgesic Productions is channeling a few periods of games so specifically with Angeline Era, not to mention fueling inspiration from Takeshi’s Castle and Irish folklore, it feels targeted at me personally.
Announced back in 2023, to nail down what Angeline Era is feels like an impossible task. At its core it’s a 3D action game focused on movement and managing multiple enemies at once. However, there are innumerable facets beyond that to not only add depth to the gameplay, but give its characters and world a singular uniqueness. This is a land where Christian angels have fallen to earth and now mythologies mix and bump up against each other in unexpected ways.
I played through Angeline Era entirely on my Steam Deck, a Steam key was provided to me by the publisher.
The game opens with a six-stage boss fight against laser blasting fish, each stage doubling the number culminating in a 32 fish battle where their corpses are left on the field. You don’t press a button to attack, simply bump into an enemy to slash at them with your sword. If you’re bumped by an enemy or they have defenses up such as spikes, you’ll take damage. This allows you to focus on moving around the battlefield, dodging projectiles and navigating pits instead of being concerned with the timing of the sword swing. It almost immediately feels natural, even though I haven’t played Ys in years. It also allows Analgesic Productions to extend the bump action into every other part of the game: bump into an NPC to chat with them, bump into a shop item, beds, lanterns, etc. There’s a cute little animation too on everything.
Stages are usually composed of about a dozen squarish rooms filled with enemies, traps, and tiny puzzles. You can usually zip through a stage in a few minutes, giving the game a nice “just one more level” kind of feel. I also love how the isometric camera often gives you a glimpse of what may be coming later in the level. It’s always locked pointing forward, which coincidentally is the only direction you can shoot your gun: forward. It’s a funny twist to the bumpslash action, but the additional complexity of managing your ammo (it refreshes when bumping an enemy, natch) puts the combat in a sweet spot of fun and challenge. There’s also a red bar that fills as you bump enemies and I literally could never figure out what it did throughout the entire game, I don’t know if this speaks to the mysteriousness surrounding many of its systems or if I’m just an idiot.
When you’re not bumping into action, there’s a clever overworld to explore. As advertised, it is up to you to “search” and discover every single level and town in the game. It’s as simple as holding Y on a square to search, but it’s rewarding to encounter the next dungeon required to proceed. It’s usually obvious where you need to search: dead ends, one square insets into a forest, or in the middle of a larger square, but sometimes treasure or secrets are a bit more elusive. There’s also a tiny bit of platforming required on the overworld, but it’s more about exploration.
Finding a new area for the first time also unlocks a Warioware-esque mini game where you dodge little obstacles and reach the goal before the timer runs out. They get progressively tougher as the game moves on, but never to the point of annoyance: I believe I failed about three of them across dozens of levels.
Completing most levels earns you two rewards: a Scale towards a level up and geographical changes to the overworld that allow you to proceed through the game. I’m sure there’s a critical path to Angeline Era that will be discovered by speedrunners quickly, but I enjoyed hunting down levels and even attempting to sequence break by hopping around the map. Sometimes I became annoyed trying to find the next stage and started searching everywhere, slowing down the pace of the game, but there are enough different maps that I could usually explore somewhere else if I felt stuck.
You level up by heading to bed and entering your dreamspace. I gathered 37 Scales in my time with the game but hit what the game calls its “soft level cap” at 27 collected. At this point level ups only gave me a few extra hit points and possibly no power increase. The developer’s blog makes this sound very intentional as to not make any level in the game trivial at any time, but it did give me far less incentive to explore once I felt I was nearing the end of the main quest.
One neat thing entering the dreamspace does is trigger achievements, a reasonable compromise to including them in the game but not necessarily wanting them to pop during dramatic post-boss cutscenes.
Regarding Angeline Era’s story and setting I teased earlier, it’s obvious the developer pair making up Analgesic Productions had a lot of fun turning their extensive research and knowledge into a world that feels both familiar yet tilted on a few axes. I really love the mixture of Christianity and Irish fae and folklore.
I just finished playing The Séance of Blake Manor (also fantastic, by the way) which takes place in Ireland and is entrenched in mythology including many references to Tír na nÓg, the Celtic Otherworld. Angeline Era may as well take place there (it probably subtextually does), but literal Christian angels have left heaven and are now stuck there, taking their place and shaping society in truly unique ways. I haven’t played many games with long quotes from Martin Luther filling the screen, but it’s never done in a preachy way, just part of the setting.
The main character is Tetsuya Kinoshta, a second generation Japanese immigrant in the United States. The game takes place in “195X”, so you may have an inkling on what some of his past may involve. His backstory isn’t explored much until near the end, and for most of the game he’s just the bump guy with the sword. An angel Arkas befriends him and sets him on his quest to collect the Bicones to eventually… do something. The objective was clear but the purpose: not so much.
There’s cutscenes scattered throughout featuring a third figure, a fae giantess named Niamh. She’s presented as a mysterious antagonist and near the end swoops in and announces how she’s been observing you the whole time, but I really would have loved to see her more involved in the plot. She has major implications in the final few hours, but her motivations were never clear to me.
Spoiler-free speaking of the final few hours, there’s a major gearshift in action and plotting as the game begins concluding. Gone is exploring the overworld and bumping your way through enemies, instead you’re on a plot gauntlet with some bosses mixed in. I hope you were comfortably leveled up enough before triggering the unmarked point-of-no-return, because there’s no way to get any stronger after that. Thankfully dying doesn’t cost you anything except your time, and while the final set of bosses are tough, there’s plenty of breathing room in between them and I think they’re fair.
I found the change in tone at the end a bit jarring, and the “just one more level” feeling was definitely gone. There’s a sequence where you have to do a bit of Metroidvania item collecting in an area, but every time you make any progress you’re brought back to the start just to watch baffling cutscenes and participate in strange “battles”. It didn’t sour me on the game, but the slow-paced climax feels incongruous.
Final bit aside, Angeline Era is a fantastic game that nails every part of its presentation while also upgrading them for players today. The combat appears simplistic on its face, but almost immediately you realize the bumpslash is a blessing as it will leave you the mental space to focus on positioning. I also love this graphical style, their expressive, blocky characters fare well in the isometrically presented world. And while the story feels a bit backloaded, the setting and characters make for a memorable experience.
I spent 15 hours with Angeline Era before finishing it, I collected 37 scales and died 91 times on the normal difficulty. I highly recommend it for anyone who is a 3D action fan looking for their next bump.
