Absinthia – Another Knight Bewitched: The beautiful art of RPGMaker

Since the 2000s, there has been RPGMaker, a program that makes it possible to create RPGs through a Game Engine that provides easy access to the tools necessary for this process. That said, here we have “Absinthia”, a turn-based J-RPG created using such a tool by indie developer Team Bewitched.

“Absinthia” is a J-RPG with settings inspired by games from the 90s and 2000s, a history with very current contexts, gameplay focused on dungeon exploration and turn-based combat, and pixel art visuals.

It stars Sera, a warrior who trains to protect her city, Katti Town. Accompanied by their friends Thomas and Jake, they are trained under the tutelage of Freya, an experienced Knight who once saved her city. Together they protect her land from Lilith, who, for unknown reasons, often goes on raids, accompanied by her army of monsters.

Very charismatic and well-written characters

“Absinthia” has a cast of beautifully crafted characters, an essential feature for a captivating J-RPG.

In the game, you will witness the story of four characters:

Sera is a warrior-in-training who has developed a way to protect her allies by focusing on countering her opponents’ attacks. She is very fond of her family, her small town, and her friends.

Thomas is a very intelligent wizard who is always looking to learn more about his great-grandfather’s past, who was a powerful wizard but who apparently died after losing his sanity. In battle, Thomas uses his spells to attack enemy weaknesses and protect his allies.

Jake, a rogue who left his family to explore the world, arrived at the Ambrose Isles and met Katti Town. It was here that, despite not usually caring about people, he met Thomas, his love partner, and his new friend Sera. In battle, Jake focuses on inflicting status ailments on his opponents as well as some magic attacks he learned from Thomas.

Freya, a Knight Errant, once protected Katti Town from Lilith’s attack and thereafter began to train Sera and pass her experience on to Thomas and Jake. In battle, Freya is like a paladin; she draws the attention of enemy attacks and has many magical skills that help her allies.

The chemistry of interaction between the four protagonists is to be admired; they have a well-portrait friendship, with dialogues that are always very interesting and several times very funny. As well as heavy moments, when each one helps the other with their emotional difficulties. Sera sees Freya not only as a teacher but also as an older sister. Jake is a guy who always takes life to the fullest, often not seeming to take things seriously, but it’s just him being honest with his emotions. But Thomas loves him and puts Jake in line when he needs to.

Strong LGBTQIA+ Representation

A very strong point of “Absinthia” is its LGBTQIA+ representation.

Thomas and Jake’s relationship in the narrative is beautiful, always showing their relationship in a natural way. But not only do they represent that: Sera and Freya too.

Sera is aro/ace. She has no desires for anyone, and the way the game touches on this detail is amazing, as we witness scenes where she admires the love between Thomas and Jake, sometimes wanting to feel something equivalent and wondering if she will feel that someday in her life.

Freya is a trans woman who apparently has a romantic partner in the story, as she receives seemingly love letters all the time, but for some unknown reasons she still can’t face this person.

The best part of exploration and combat from the 90s and 2000s

“Absinthia” is heavily inspired by J-RPGs from the 90s and 2000s. Both visually and in gameplay.

In the visual part, the scenarios and ambience are very rich, with a lot of variety of colors, and we find several cities and dungeons with their own characteristics. The World Map, where we walk between these locations, also matches the aesthetics of the game.

The models of the characters, NPCs, and enemies are varied; the protagonists and other most important characters even have their own more detailed art, similar to the Visual Novels of today, but all done in pixel art. The game has a bestiary where you can always see these models and enemy information as well.

The dungeons vary a lot, with simple, well-crafted puzzles that are characteristic of their themes, such as a sewer where you need to activate levers to be able to pass through the ducts, but if you do it in the right order, you get access to some items that help you, which may be equipment or consumables.

Regarding combat, “Absinthia” has turn-based combat, in which you choose all actions before the battle turn, and each one performs in an order that goes according to the speed of each one.

All characters have a fixed amount of mana, which they recover a little each turn or if they use a skill for it. Skill that, in addition to recovering mana, each character performs something to do with their characteristics, such as, for example, Sera, when using the skill Riposte, will recover 40 mana, increase her strength, and have increased chances of counterattacking enemy attacks by the next 3 turns.

Each of the four members of the team has very different functions. With Sera, you can focus on using skills that generate protection for your allies and counterattack enemies. With Thomas, you deal a lot of heavy elemental damage and help allies as well. With Jake, you weaken opponents with negative statuses and take advantage of his speed to perform quick actions. And Freya can attract attention from enemies while increasing her defense, as well as having some elemental attacks and skills to heal allies.

As you progress in the story, you’ll have access to skills combined between the characters, very similar to the classic “Chrono Trigger”. Characters can learn these skills through the main story and by witnessing some optional scenes, such as sleeping in an Inn at a certain point, which causes the characters to talk about their skills and decide to try a new combination. There are different skills. And they are like a “new” version of existing skills; that is, just by having the two necessary team members for them, they will already become the new skill. In the event that a team member is not present or is dead, it reverts to the previous version.

Being a J-RPG, “Absinthia” luckily doesn’t stick to some aspects that have aged badly in the genre; for example, there are no random battles; the game has some obligatory fights, but nothing exaggerated; for the most part, you will fight if you want. You can also speed up the battles, turn off the animations of the skills, and turn off the sound that makes when characters talk (that “beep” sound during the lines, characteristic of the time).

It’s always pretty clear what our next destination is. All we have to do is access the menu, and one of the team members tells us where to go next. And it’s still up to us to find such a location.

And the game contains a lot of secrets that are up to the player to discover, like me, for example, who found Ibuki at the beginning of the game, an Oni (demon of Japanese folklore), a super-powerful optional enemy, and took a beating when trying to face her because I was level 3. I could come back later, with level 8, and face her again. Even though I was beaten a lot, I used items and managed to beat her; my reward was a very good item that helped me a lot later… What was the item? It’s up to you to find her first… hehe.

Absinthia is another great J-RPG for Live Streams

For this review, the PC version was analyzed through Steam.

“Absinthia” is a low-spec game. You can play it on almost any setup and easily live stream it.

It has a very useful feature for live streams: the game is not very big. Its duration can vary greatly between 10 and 20 hours; it will depend a lot on whether you explore all the additional content and whether or not you use the tools that speed up the battles.

The story and characters are very captivating; add to all the great representation it has, and this will certainly add to your audience, in addition to being able to show more games that embrace the LGBTQIA+ community.

As a very limited budget indie game, “Absinthia” has only English localization and unfortunately does not have Brazilian Portuguese subtitles. I am sure that Brazilians would love to play it.

Alexandre Gaara

Anime lover, Specialized Reviewer and Game Platinator