Platform(s): PC (version reviewed)
Genre: Role-Playing Game, Indie, Abstract

The past few years of gaming have proven the legitimacy of indie-style role-playing games, be it the ones influenced by the Ultimas of old to the console Final Fantasy-style entries and Earthbound/Mother look-a-likes that try to add a spin to things. The latest in this special breed of games? A Malaysian-made turn-based eye candy affair called Artis Impact.

It’s The End Of The World As We Know It, And We Feel Fine

Made by a single developer named Mas for four years, it’s clear to anyone with eyes and wit that Artis Impact is a beauty to behold. It’s pixel art with a mix of simple-yet-effective illustrations that paint a melancholy picture of a post-apocalypse filled with people with hope. You play as a girl named Akane who works as an agent who deals with rogue robot AIs roaming and invading the land. She is accompanied by Bot, a black square with a single red dot on its face and acts as the voice of reason to Akane’s aloofness and supposed naivete. If anything, our main heroine is a beacon of hope from start to finish, brightening lives around her and doing the best she can with her robot-killing abilities.

The whole narrative of Artis Impact has a few revelations about her past, but overall it’s a day-to-day slice of life-style portrait that dips into a few serious bits here and there. One could argue that the whole plot just feels like Yoko Taro post-apocalypse fan fiction, but there are worse places to draw inspiration from. While not portraying the most original plot post-Nier Automata, the game’s style, atmosphere, music, and “drip” does stand out in the best of ways, especially when framing key moments with comic book-esque narrative pop-ins.

Gameplay too is kept simple yet pretty fun and customizable. All fights in Artis Impact are turn-based; Akane brandishes her long-as-hell sword and Bot acts as her support. Akane has a regular attack, Special Moves that uses mana, and a Guard button that lets her block oncoming attacks and recoup her strength.

How you choose to play the game and deal with foes is up to you, as Artis Impact offers a good amount of customizability for a 6-or-so hour game. Akane can add new materials to her sword, giving it to-hit status effects to debuff foes with defense-lowering and damage-over-time effects. Bot can be equipped with either support abilities like Healing or special attacks accumulated from dead bosses or random loot drops. You can equip Akane with a ton of rings that give her a good amount of passive abilities that usually keep her alive in later and tougher fights. You can also complete side quests and odd jobs (like sweeping the floor of a convenience store) to get the money you need for equipment and skill books.

Powering Akane up throughout the course of the story revolves around her favourite pastime: eating. Going to the town hub’s side stores and restaurants gives her opportunities to sample delights for permanent stat buffs. Some of Akane’s side duties give her Meal Tickets that she can cash in for offensive or defensive buffs free of charge. Like I said: these simple concepts help add up to a meaty and customizable experience as you go through Akane’s adventure in the bleak-yet-melancholy-filled Earth. Both its presentation, aesthetic, and gameplay mechanics combine well to dish out a lovely indie RPGing experience; one with its own slice-of-life-like story to tell mixed in with wild sentient robots turn-based slice-and-dicing.

Having said that, it won’t take long for learned JRPG players to break the game once they’ve figured out the optimal setups for Akane and Bot. That’s the nature of the genre; you will eventually get to a point where you can kill gods. This being a 6+ hour game, you’ll get there quicker than anticipated. The latter half of the narrative can get a bit too abstract and vague for its own good, but playing through the title’s New Game+ mode to find out additional outcomes and playing through more sidequests (and garnering more street cred; yes, that’s a commodity in Artis Impact) can fill in the blanks. That is, if you’re willing to be diligent about it.

Black Beauty

Even with those slight flaws, you cannot help but be astounded by the atmosphere and beauty presented by this indie offering. This is the kind of title that would make not just its country of origin proud, but the indie gaming landscape as a whole. With just a few tweaks to its story and challenge level (at least from a variety standpoint), developer Mas’ work would be on par with the likes of Undertale or even the first four chapters of Deltarune. Alas, it is just a step or two short of greatness.

That’s still high praise for the developer’s hard work, who is definitely going places with his next project or so. Artis Impact is but a sizeable taste of what pure game-making talent and love can achieve in the field of small-scale JRPGs.

Final Score: 80/100

Review copy provided by publisher.