AI Limit Scratches That Dark Souls Itch — AI Limit Review
68AI Limit Scratches That Dark Souls Itch — AI Limit review
A code was provided by the publisher for critique purposes
Soulslikes are always such a hard genre of game to review. Miyazaki's work is not only the progenitor of the form but is often seen as a pretty untouchable gold standard. This isn’t a unique problem – it’s true of many other genres, especially the more recent ones like Vampire Survivors like, but souls-like is such a strong vibe, in feel, aesthetic, and tone that many fans kind of just look for an extension of the thing they already like. To be close enough to Dark Souls is often good enough.
However, Dark Souls with guns (Remnant from the ashes) and Dark Souls with mechanical body horror (The Surge) proves there's still some room to move away from what people expect whilst giving a thoroughly good experience. AI Limit, like those previous two, gets a little lost in itself. But it does give just enough to build on what you already love, and serves a pretty strong visual identity in the process. I don't really know if it has the steel to last the test of time but it does manage to make a worthy contender for the same category of soulslike that Mortal Shell, Lies of P, and Steelrising land in. For a souls sicko searching for a supplementary something, this soulslike seems solid. Hope I left my sibilance filter on for that one.
The world was torn apart when the ecosystem died. Natural disasters occurred and fighting began between nations. When the dust settled, only few remained. That's before the Mud popped up and started spreading. With it came the unleashing of monsters upon the land. You awake as a blader, a humanoid lifeform who can return after death thanks to Branches (AI Limit's campfire system). Your goal is to restore Branches and make your way through Havenswell, the final bastion of humanity. When you aren't traversing through sewers, you’re making your way through shantytowns and mighty torn-down monuments. AI Limit’s narrative talks about wealth, shines a spotlight on soldiers profiting from the death of others, yet mostly stops there.
It's a texturally interesting story but also one that feels like it never really commits to the themes it gestures at. You could make the argument for this being deliberate esotericism (that is very soulslike after all),but while it veers into that at times, its lore is actually mostly straightforward. Notes are often a direct description of a feeling, timeline or event. They don't tend to hint at a thing in a language you don't fully speak yet. It doesn't make the assumption that you know, and therefore doesn't tend to talk beyond the surface level too much. This isn't a problem per se, just something to frame how the game functions.
Perhaps one of the biggest departures AI Limit makes from a more traditional soulslike game is its removal of a stamina bar. Like Sekiro, it instead has a form of posture. In AI limit, that posture is what keeps you from being staggered but more importantly, it is both your mana for spells and action points for special moves. Spells are a key part of the combat loop, regardless of if you decided to commit your build to them. Your blader's left hand can not only change from a dedicated shield to a parry button and more, but it's how you cast spells. Powering through the game for the first time with a strength/health build, I still found myself firing a shot off with my left hand to distract a single foe and split apart a group of roaming enemies. It can do serious damage if you commit the points to it and is situationally still rather handy (pun intended) if you don't.
Combo pieces fit together nicely on controller. With the left trigger, you can prompt a small screen at the bottom to change around your left hand into a different combat trick. You can also do your bonus action, which depends on your weapon and costs part of that stagger bar, otherwise known as energy. You don't recover stagger on a successful hit of your special action but you can, in turn, knock your enemy back, leaving them open to yet another attack. This is often one of those big risk big rewards moves that feels great to pull off.