Afterlove EP - Switch Review

Life is a precious thing; unfortunately, it is something we take for granted until we lose someone we love. The death of a loved one affects people in different ways, and sadly, not everyone takes it well. In Afterlove EP, you play as Rama, the frontman for an up-and-coming indie band in the middle of making their first EP, when tragedy strikes as his girlfriend Cinta suddenly passes away. Her death hits him hard as he shuts himself away from the world and his bandmates for an entire year. After thinking he’s ready to get back to living his life again, he begins to hear Cinta’s voice in his head, making his attempt at recovering significantly harder.

The Good

Afterlove EP has a very charming art style that compliments the game’s themes of hope after tragedy very well, making it very easy on the eye and easily immersive. The art style reminds me of a mix between the kind of art you see for children’s books that help kids understand more complex topics and character-driven webcomics.

Being a game about getting a band back together, it is no surprise that Afterlove EP’s soundtrack is one of its strong points. The game consists of a lot of indie rock that changes overtime as Rama experiments with new styles, which mirror his mental health and his changing point of view throughout the story. It really helps flesh out the world and makes you truly connect with Rama and his bandmates.

TL;DR

• Charming art style
• Fantastic blend of music and storytelling

The Bad

Now, I am a believer in games as an artform, but a personal pet peeve of mine is when a dev team gets too caught up working on what they want their game to convey that it ends up leaving the gameplay feeling neglected. Gameplay is just as important, if not more important, to conveying a game’s feelings or message as it is what the player is using to physically connect your work. Afterlove EP falls into this trapping very hard. The majority of the gameplay is walking around town and talking to people with a very basic rhythm game section thrown in every hour or so. 

When I received the review code for Afterlove EP, I was told to wait a few weeks before booting the game up to start the review as other reviewers were reporting back with issues, so they wanted me to start after they were addressed. Well, unfortunately, even after these issues were supposedly solved, I did encounter many soft locks that completely halted my progress, one of them being so bad I had to restart the game from the beginning. This may be fixed by release, but I have to report what I experienced and my general experience was not great.

TL;DR

• Gameplay feels neglected
• Frequent soft locks

Final Score: 6/10

Despite my grievances, Afterlove EP sets out to do what it does and does it extraordinarily well; it's just that the entire time I was playing, I just kept thinking it would’ve been better suited as a movie or a short TV series. But with all that being said, I wish to give my condolences to the development team, as the lead director passed away mid-development. It must’ve been hard having that happen in the middle of making a game, especially one about recovering from the death of a loved one.

Thank you for checking out our Afterlove EP Switch review, thank you to Fellow Traveller for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

• Andrew Caluzzi (Inca Studios / Camped Out)
• Bel Cubitt
• Bobby Jack
• Jack Caven
• NintenVania Podcast
• RedHero