After Us Reviews
After Us is a beautiful game with a strong story, but unfortunately it also includes some not great action elements and platforming. It doesn't spoil the overall experience too much, though.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
There's a fascinating game hiding in After Us. The melancholy tale of resurrecting a desolate Earth makes for an interesting premise, but it isn't told in a way to make you care much about it. The platforming generates some good moments, but it is also clunky in places due to the physics and lack of explanation in the tutorial. The combat is rather unnecessary and unexciting, but it is functional, while the presentation remains fetching. Patches are still being created to tweak the game, and there is some potential to fix the technical issues experienced in the early portion of this playthrough. For now, it isn't a game that you need to seek out and play if there are other options to tackle.
After Us features a sprawling, desolate world painstakingly crafted to show the destruction wrought by human greed, but its camera controls and level design make the platforming awkward and often frustrating.
A surreal but gorgeous journey through a post-human world
After Us is one of those rare masterpiece level games that need to be experienced, with an incredibly touching story, amazing gameplay and drool-worthy music to go with it all, you might come for one thing but you’ll likely stay for it all or maybe just to see the story through to the end. After Us has nearly endless layers underneath the overall design, but going deeper is what makes every second spent playing the game so much more rewarding.
After Us is a very strong title that is visually beautiful with an amazing atmosphere created by the coordination of each element of the game put together. While some platform elements can be a little frustrating, the combat is a very fun part of the game that allows the size of the playable character to enhance the creepier aspects of the game.
After Us presents a strong message about planet conservation and wildlife preservation. However, weak gameplay and hollow-level design make the game a running simulator rather than an engaging platformer.
Set in a world that died, After Us is a great example of an industrial apocalypse story done correctly - standing strong in its story, visuals, and ambiance that breath new life into the genre.
There are beautiful moments in After Us worth seeing, but they’re buried in poorly directed levels featuring merely adequate gameplay. There’s not enough to consistently grab onto here to really hook most players. After Us has a lot in common with Piccolo Studios’ last narrative platformer but ultimately doesn’t offer the charm or consistently moving story that made that game so memorable.
Piccolo Studio recreates an "author's game"
Review in Spanish | Read full review
After Us had some lofty goals and it shows but sadly, they didn’t quite reach those highs. Incredible art direction and a dope soundtrack sadly don’t make up for the ‘tacked’ on combat and the very floaty platforming controls. The design choice to make it open world is also a head scratcher because the game absolutely does a poor job of telling players where to go next. I’m left wondering what could have been with After Us, had the combat been taken out I think this would have been a much better adventure.
The perfect proof that the Spanish video game industry has a bright future. With excellent art direction and scenarios, the game seeks to give us a wake-up call to take care of our planet and ourselves, although perhaps its formula ends up being a bit repetitive.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
After Us from developer Piccolo is an interesting title. It tries to create a Journey-like inspiring adventure through gigantic worlds and simplistic controls. Most of what it does works well, especially with its narrative, though the mechanics from its gameplay design sometimes fight against story progression and player engagement. The game can create some frustration with the camera and controls but wins more than it loses.
As a game, After Us can sin of being flat, of lacking some of those playable moments difficult to forget or even of having problems such as a distant camera that hinders the most demanding platforming. But on the other hand, its history, the landscapes it proposes and some emotional sequences will make you remember it for a long time.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
All these factors, combined with a stunning soundtrack that ranges between Vangelis and Nobuo Uematsu, make After Us a must-play game in 2023, and deserves a place on any game of the year list–not just one restricted to indies. For all those moments of satisfaction and glee, you’ll also feel uncomfortable, sad, and maybe even helpless–but again, maybe that’s the point. Sometimes you have to suffer to do the right thing.
For better and worse, After Us is yet another beautiful but otherwise boring and overly artistic game that does very little to advance the medium.
This type of game has been done far better before.
After Us is gorgeous and has some important things to say about consumerism, but actually playing it isn't always fantastic.
After Us is a game with beautiful environment. The game is very relaxing, but feels very empty and aimless at times. It's an okay-ish platformer.
Review in Dutch | Read full review