Empyreal Reviews
"Keeps making the journey feel pleasantly curated despite its semi-random elements."
Empyreal is a solid action RPG with soft rogue-like elements that manages to swing above its weight where it counts, but still suffers from some noticeable jank. The game still plays well and offers plenty of replayability, including a secret ending only accessible in a New Game Plus run. At the end of the day, Empyreal is a solid first showing by Silent Games, a team who clearly knows what they want to create. If you live for games where you can maximize the strengths of your playstyle while minimizing the weaknesses, Empyreal is for you. I see a second climb in my near future. Here's to hoping you'll catch some of what I've left behind.
I love the fact they hand-designed the levels, but the overall graphics might have suffered as the game certainly is nothing to write home about in that area.
Empyreal's ambition to do something different is commendable, but it's ultimately the only thing it truly has going for it. While character customization and the Cartogram system are solid enough, the forgettable and generic story and characters, average and clunky combat and the lack of proper multiplayer mechanics make the game a frustrating experience that gets tiring very quickly and one that only the most diehard ARPG fans might briefly appreciate.
Empyreal is quite successful at providing an excellent combat experience, but if you want more to support that, you'll need to look elsewhere.
Empyreal has a great combat system with lots of opportunities to try something new. Hunting for better equipment is exciting, and developing your character is a rewarding feeling. But there's not much else to do, and the shine wears off quickly. This is also a game that demands a good PC, or you might run into problems. It's a great game for fans of varied combat and boss rushes, but not much else.
Despite its flashy looks, Empyreal is a bog-standard ARPG that somehow lacks any of the things that make these games fun and interesting.
Some people enjoy the hard slog of grinding away at combat to progress others like to have a bit of challenge but ultimately be able to progress without feeling like they are just locked in a combat Groundhog day. If you enjoy the tough grind then Empyreal may well be right up your alley. If you believe that the easy setting on a game should mean just that and not seemingly be completely ignored when the game starts perhaps give it a miss.
Empyreal is one of those AA games that come along once in a while. They’re good fun, great to look at and you come away wanting more. From unrelenting combat to ‘one more go’ at another Cartogram, another level and another attempt at getting the best loot, Silent Games didn’t do much wrong.
Empyreal is a testament to Silent Games' ambition, offering an interesting mix of rogue-lite, souls-like combat and action RPG. While it excels in certain areas, such as combat variety and setting, it also has narrative and gameplay problems.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Empyreal offers a rich action-RPG experience with rewarding exploration and progression, but its weak story, lifeless NPCs, and clunky, chaotic combat mechanics make it less enjoyable than it could have been.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
As part of the CompleteXbox Review team I play a lot of games and have a finite amount of storage space. Normally, Empyreal would have been removed from my hard drive and I would be looking for my next contestant. This is the biggest compliment I can give Empyreal. It’s going to earn that disk space on my console and I don’t see it going anywhere else soon. A crushingly difficulty RPG/Soulslike that if you take the time to learn the blocking, dodging and attack patterns, you will spend many hours happily finding your next cartogram to conquer. However, those that dislike the difficulty curve will not find satisfaction here.
Empyreal offers a fun combat if you can understand and manage the progression and gear systems, but other than that, the story, world and character design, and atmosphere feels empty and disconnected from the player and their avatar's perspective and experience.
Empyreal is a solid dungeon crawler with a complex and engaging core gameplay loop. It allows the player to build a character that suits their playstyle and a familiar, visible path for progression. Anyone that enjoys 3rd person ARPGs should really pick this one up. It would be a shame to award it anything less than the Thumb Culture Platinum Award.
Overall, Empyreal has endless potential to be a great game, and it can go quite far. The story does come off as a bit messy at first, but there is a solid plot. The rest of the gameplay could use a bit more work, but a little extra flair can go a long way and would definitely put it out there in a much nicer way.
Empyreal is an interesting take on its genre with a unique focus on everyone’s favorite part of an RPG, dungeons. However, the simplistic combat is poorly balanced, with a difficulty curve that becomes very difficult as early as the game’s second level.
Empyreal makes an undeniably striking debut but suffers from some baffling gameplay choices that turn the experience into an unnecessary frustration. While the lack of a thorough tutorial and a deliberately chaotic narrative can be overlooked, the overly punishing and unbalanced combat system proves much harder to tolerate, often making encounters feel unfairly one-sided. That’s a shame, because the combat mechanics are engaging—despite their derivative nature—and the cartogram and asynchronous multiplayer features are solid ideas. A fascinating game that could have reached greater heights with better balancing. As it stands, Empyreal is best suited for players with plenty of patience.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Empyreal is an ambitious game that struggles to turn its promise into a captivating experience. Its mysterious Monolith holds potential, but weak storytelling, repetitive combat, bland visuals, and frustrating exploration hinder the adventure. While creative character backgrounds and the apparition mechanic offer glimpses of originality, they can’t outshine the game’s flaws. Some may enjoy its setting, but Empyreal struggles to stay engaging beyond its initial intrigue.
Empyreal is fun in short bursts, but offers little to stand out or really pull you into its story and universe.