Immortals of Aveum Review

Atypical FPS with magic!

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Platform: PS5 Xbox X|S PC

Reviewed on: PC

Developer: Ascendant Studios

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Release: Aug 22, 2023

Time Played: 16 Hours

Genre: First Person Magic Shooter

ESRB: M

This game is fast paced, full of colorful magic thrown around with explosions and chaos everywhere. Immortals of Aveum sells itself as a First-Person Magic Shooter and let me tell you it’s not lying. It definitely feels like a first-person shooter, without guns and the need to find ammunition, with everything coming from the protagonists magical abilities. If you want to check out some gameplay you can find my livestream from a link in the description, but first let me tell you about the game, and place it on one of my shelves in the end.

Where it begins:

For years there has been a war over the control of magic in Aveum, dubbed the everwar, effecting everyone, including Jack, an orphan trying to survive a life in the slums with a few others. One day the war stops right on his doorstep awakening a power within himself and pulling him into the center of the Everwar.

Can the kids watch?:

Graphically the game wasn’t too extreme for the kids to watch, there were a couple scenes with blood, but it didn’t splatter everywhere. The biggest thing to worry about would be the language. The characters are quite mouthy with all the naughty words on deck ready to be used. If that doesn’t worry you, then heck yea, let the kids watch.

Gameplay:

The Magic

Immortals of Aveum has three different magics, Blue, Red, and Green. I thought it was interesting they didn’t connect the different magic types to elements like you’d be used to seeing and the best magic to use on an enemy was usually what they were using. Each color attacked differently and was aligned with a specific ability like a shield or a blink dodge. In order to harness all the different magics Jack would need to utilize a variety of equipment found throughout the game.

Sigils

Sigils were the main powerhouse in combat. An awesome gauntlet that effected how the magic would shoot. Jack would have three equipped at once, one for each color, and can swap between them on the fly. The transition between sigils was very fast and fascinating to watch, sometimes I would just sit there and switch between sigils for a bit. They could almost be compared to different guns in your basic FPS, blue being a semi auto battle rifle, red like a shot gun or grenade launcher, and green being the fully auto smg. That’s what I thought about them anyway.

Totems

Totems were specialized items used to add some helpful moves in combat. Each color has its own totem and ability. You will find different totems throughout the game, but they only affect stats, the abilities will never change. They do have a small cooldown on use so you can’t be too liberal with them in combat, but they can definitely make the difference between life and death when used in the appropriate situations.

Rings & Bracers

The last of Jack’s gear would be rings and bracers. There were a lot of rings to find and only two to equip at once. During my playthrough I didn’t put a whole lot of focus into the rings, they effect how powerful some magics are and sometimes give extra charges to abilities. Bracers are basically the only armor for Jack. Sure some rings could give a little armor, but the majority of it came from bracers, and some other stats here and there. I didn’t think to long about the rings and bracers I found, just quickly equipped what looked good, stat wise.

The Forge

The Forge is where you’ll spend all your hard-earned gold and essences. Every piece of gear found can be upgraded or deconstructed there, or you can even make some new equipment for yourself. In the beginning I was afraid of maybe destroying something important so I kept everything, only to find out later that anything deconstructed can be reconstructed whenever you want, if you have the required materials. Upgrading was very important if you wanted to stay alive in combat.

FP(Magic)S

Fighting in first person with magic was a lot smoother, and faster, than I would have expected. When I think of magic it involves casting and slow decisive movements, but here it’s very fast paced and feels good. Jack can dodge, double jump, and hover while shooting magic at the enemies and I like the fact his right hand can constantly be flinging shots out while he uses his left hand to heal or toss up a shield all at the same time. I was Impressed with how the game was not overwhelming with everything that could be executed at once.

Skill Tree

As you fight your way through the game, you’ll gain experience points to fill up the Ascension bar. Every time it fills up you get one point to spend. The skill tree is broken up into three sections, one for each magic type, with the sections boosting the abilities or power of their given color. There were some points that would cross over a little it pays off to look ahead at all of the options before spending all willy nilly. I’m pretty sure if you worked hard enough you could have the entire thing filled out before the end of the game.

Exploration

Immortals of Aveum was not an open world game, but there was a lot to explore. The world was broken up into different sections to move around and find hidden treasures or fight groups of enemies. There was a fast travel between different portals unlocked, but it was a pain to travel between them if you’re just exploring. You must go to a portal before you could use it with enemies constantly spawning, blocking off the exits of an area until they were all beaten. It would have been better if I could have teleported to any portal from wherever I was.

Shroudfanes

Hidden throughout Aveum were Shroudfanes. Small courses designed to test your abilities. Sometimes they were full of fights, other times you just have to try and get through obstacles without falling. For your efforts you were rewarded with extra health, mana, or a special item. If you really want to see how good you are, there are some special Shroudfanes to sniff out, about six to be exact, they will be the toughest test, and reward some of the best gear.

Puzzles

Yea, Immortals of Aveum has puzzles, and they use that trope I hate where you see a lot of places you can’t go to due to the fact you need to learn a special skill to get through. There were a few different puzzles involving moving parts with specific-colored spells, or colored rocks, that might do something, but using all of the current moves available make nothing happen, so maybe you need to take note of the spot and move on until you learn something new.

High PC Requirements

So, I don’t make it a habit to double check minimum requirements for a game, shame on me, so I was very surprised to see that the minimum ask for this game was a GeForce RTX 2080 super, I’m just rocking a 2060 super. Even so the game still looked amazing with all the settings as low as they could be. I did experience some choppiness in the cut scenes and the audio not lining up, but that could just be missing the required components to run the game or the game itself, I’m not sure. The developers may have gone a little overboard when making the game.

Outro:

Even though I experienced some graphic issues, and one crash, the game was a blast to play. Immortals of Aveum was a refreshing experience with the atypical idea of a mage, the fast-paced combat, and characters to fall in love with. So without waiting any longer, let’s get this rated and put it on a shelf.

As I said before the game looked very good on the lowest settings. The different colors of magic flying around in combat was smooth, I want to give it a five.

The story was unique in some spots, and very cliché in others. Somethings I was able to see coming a mile away, while other times I was generally surprised in the outcome, and I didn’t like some of the forced “humor”, or maybe I didn’t get it, so I’m going with a three.

The gameplay was excellent. Abilities and attacks were easy to understand and use, the game wasn’t too challenging, one of the issues I had was sometimes I couldn’t see what I was aiming at due to the magic flying out of my hands, I’m feeling a four.

I did really enjoy the game, but it does feel like a one and done kind of situation. The only reason I’d playthrough again would be to challenge myself at a higher difficulty, it’s getting a two.

It was very easy to lose track of time while playing the game. It was engaging and never pushed me away at any point. It’s another five.

Giving Immortals of Aveum an average score of 3.8. So close to the top shelf, but ultimately going right there on the mid. I would recommend this game, I don’t know how it runs on console, but you need a higher end pc to get the most out of it, sadly.