Written by Coipher
Waking up, not knowing where, and unable to realize what is happening is a very scary thought. Especially when you are awoken by a complete stranger. How to deal with this feeling? Can you stand up, stick with who you are, and follow your destiny? That all remains to be seen. Welcome to Testament: The Order of High Human.
In this game, you will be playing the role of Aran, a recently dethroned king of an immortal race of High Humans. Betrayed by his brother, who succumbed to the Darkness, Aran is forced to travel through the lands of mortals, seek help, and find a way to fight the Darkness back.
The storyline of this game seems quite interesting, But it’s told in a very chaotic way. You are thrown into the game without any kind of backstory, and have to slowly uncover who you are, and why you are here, by finding tiny shards left behind by the immortal Seekers. However even like that, if you do try to follow it up, you get an intriguing fantasy story.
Thanks to the game running on Unreal Engine 4, the game allows you to enjoy some really nice graphics. Even in case you need to run the game on lower settings, the game still looks very good. And all that possible to run up to 4K resolution. I was honestly quite surprised about how good this game looks.
However, the fact that the player is going to face Darkness doesn’t mean the whole game is constantly working with dark places. Sure first few locations would suggest it, but Testament has so much more to offer. Misty forest, open sunny plains, dark caverns, or mysterious ancient chambers.
All of those will challenge you to face many different obstacles and enemies, which are very unique and fit into the environment.
Now speaking of challenges, the game offers a lot of them. Running in first person, you will be expected to show your swordsmanship, prove your archery skills, and show your enemies that the magic you wield is strong enough to make you victorious. To help you stand up to the foes you are facing, there is a skill tree ready to be tackled as you earn your experience levels.
As I said before, the skills are separated into three classes. Archery, sword skills, and magic. The interesting thing is that these skills either give you new combo attacks, and spells or make your bow handling much faster. But they also improve your basic stats such as attack power, health, or mana. I found this system of gaining skills rather than manually improving your stats quite interesting.
But fighting your enemies won’t be your only task. To unlock ancient mysteries, you will be going through several “chambers” which are big puzzle maps. Time your jumps across moving platforms, avoid magical barriers, and find your way in labyrinths. Here in those, you are unable to wield your weapons or use the magic. On the other hand, very specific things for The Chambers are for example using a wall run on specified spots or solving small mirror puzzles that make you focus the light ray to a specific point.
It is a little shame though, that the game isn’t more open. One would expect a game with such specific storytelling to be more free. You will be using several teleports, but they usually just take you to a previous point where your way can split somewhere else. But still no matter the environment, you will feel like walking through a dungeon, with preset paths.
To better accommodate you with the game, your adventures are presented alongside a very nice soundtrack. It does help with the immersion a lot. Not forced, very fitting, and quite charming.
And of course, it wouldn’t work as well if it wasn’t done well audio-wise fully. You can’t expect any big miracles from regular environment sounds, although they do sound good and again make the exploring and adventuring very immersing.
Your enemies make just basic sounds. Set of grunts, roars, and screams. But even those are done so that you can recognize an enemy purely by sounds.
But all of the story, and the main characters of the game are fully voice-acted, which is always a very pleasant addition to me. Especially since it’s made so well it could easily challenge bigger titles on this field.
And to a certain point, it can challenge those bigger titles just as well on the field of playability. At first sight, you would never guess this is actually an indie game made by a small team of developers.
When we come to more technical details, it’s good that you won’t have to get used to some new systems. Controls are very easy, and you won’t even need many keys or buttons to handle the game. Both a keyboard and mouse or a gamepad (standardly an XBOX controller) are quick to get a grasp of.
Didn’t notice many bugs, and if there were any, it was just tiny things, that don’t ruin the gameplay for you.
All in all, the game looks very good, while the gameplay sadly doesn’t stand out that much. But if you are looking for a casual fantasy adventure full of action, magic and brain testing, this is a game worth of trying out.
Pros :
- Visuals
- Action/Puzzle combo
- Easy to handle
Cons :
- Chaotic story
- Feels too linear
Coipher gives Testament: The Order of High Human a Drastik Measure of 6.0 out of 10.0 (60).
- KONOSUBA – God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World! Love for These Clothes of Desire! – PC Review - February 16, 2024
- Testament: The Order of High Human – PC Review - November 28, 2023
- Assassin’s Creed Mirage – PC Review - November 10, 2023
