Artis Impact – Review
From one wasteland to another. We’ve only just taken a look at Turbo Kid, and we’re back with another review where humanity struggles to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. The subject of today’s review, Artis Impact, may have a similar setting to Turbo Kid, but in terms of gameplay, the two games couldn’t be more different. Does Artis Impact’s unique gameplay blend stick the landing, or is it a waste of time?
Story
In Artis Impact, the world has been ravaged by a war between humanity and artificial intelligence gone rogue. This post-apocalyptic future provides the backdrop for the story of Akane, a sharp-tongued but kindhearted warrior, who works for the Lith organization alongside her sarcastic AI companion, Bot. At the behest of Lith, Akane takes on missions to protect human settlements and investigate AI threats. Artis Impact’s story doesn’t follow a clear-cut narrative structure. Instead, it is about Akane’s day-to-day life and is framed around slice-of-life segments, like taking on jobs, helping other characters, and building relationships. Gradually, you’ll uncover details about Akane’s mysterious past, but even then, you’ll need to play through Artis Impact multiple times to get the full picture of the story, as parts are missable, and there are branching endings, each offering new pieces of an overarching narrative puzzle. Some story paths aren’t even accessible until you unlock Artis Impact’s New Game+.
Graphics
Rather than sticking with a single visual style, Artis Impact combines pixel art with retro comic book panels, monochrome manga cutscenes, and even animated slideshows. On paper, this stylistic mish-mash may sound like a recipe for disaster, but somehow, it works in practice. Artis Impact takes advantage of its mix of aesthetics to enhance character expressions and emotional impact. The game is further characterized by strong environmental storytelling, with the detail-filled locations making the world feel alive. The game’s performance doesn’t always live up to its strong art direction, however. Artis Impact’s gameplay flow is held back by frequent lag in certain areas, like the Mosswood Foothills caves. The game’s performance issues are tied to specific locations rather than widespread, so this is likely an issue of poor optimization. Hopefully, a patch can remedy this down the line.
Sound
While Artis Impact’s soundscape sticks to the same design principles as the game’s art direction, it isn’t as impactful. The audio gets a lot of things right, with the ambient soundtrack in particular strengthening the game’s narrative themes of emotional resilience, routine, and melancholic beauty. In contrast, the game’s combat music is more energetic. The same juxtaposition is present in the sound effects, with quiet, almost understated ambience in the streets and dramatic, exaggerated combat sounds. There are, however, two key areas where Artis Impact drops the ball: there are instances where the music doesn’t match the tone of the on-screen events, with somber music playing during cheerful moments, for example. The other offender is Artis Impact’s complete lack of voice acting, which feels like a huge miss in a game that has this much emotional depth. A lot of the impact of that depth is lost because we can’t hear the characters. Even something as simple as short voice blurbs or grunts would’ve elevated the soundscape to the next level.
Gameplay
It’s hard to accurately describe Artis Impact from a pure gameplay perspective. Just like with its eclectic visuals, the game blends together vastly different mechanics. At its core, it could be described as a cosy life sim, despite the bleak, post-apocalyptic setting. The game then layers JRPG elements, including turn-based combat, and a healthy dose of exploration on top of that core. Much of your time in Artis Impact is spent taking on part-time jobs, like delivering pizzas or working a shift at the local supermarket, or simply exploring the town and talking to NPCs. That might not sound too exciting on paper, but in practice, the life sim aspect is where Artis Impact truly shines. These seemingly simple interactions, like helping an elderly lady or petting a cat, often lead to deeper rewards, like unique cutscenes, character arcs, and even stat boosts for Akane. Having Akane’s growth tied to everyday actions like eating meals, decorating her humble abode, and helping out NPCs adds to the game’s feeling of immersion. There are stat caps to prevent grinding abuse here, but there is still enough flexibility here to allow for a sense of progress from these simple tasks.
When it comes to Artis Impact’s combat, it’s a different story altogether. The turn-based battles are functional, but the game’s combat mechanics lack depth. In battle, you take control of Akane herself, who can use basic attacks or special skills that consume MP. She can also guard against incoming attacks or use items. Accompanying here is Bot, who can be equipped with different abilities, including status attacks or healing effects. Bot acts autonomously in combat and cannot be directly controlled by the player. While these mechanics could form the basis for an interesting turn-based system, in practice, it’s clear that combat isn’t the game’s focus. Battles can feel shallow and dragged out as you’re repeating the same one or two actions while enemies apply debuffs. Combat is intrinsically tied to certain missions and quests, and a pacifist run of Artis Impact isn’t possible. We found that the best way to deal with it is to simply max out Akane’s stats through other means, making battles trivial and allowing you to continue focusing on the more interesting aspects of the game.
Our first playthrough of Artis Impact took around 10 hours, but we instantly wanted to return to the game to sniff out things we missed the first time around. The world of Artis Impact is compact but dense, and there are tons of secrets, side stories, and events that you *will* miss in a single run. Not only that, but the choices Akane makes have a meaningful impact on relationships and will lead to alternate endings for the NPC character arcs. Artis Impact has a very high replay value as a result. While that initial playthrough may give the impression that this is a short game, you can easily pour dozens of hours into Artis Impact before you’ve seen everything.
Conclusion
Shallow combat aside, Artis Impact offers a unique blend of a cosy life sim and a post-apocalyptic RPG. The game is a diamond in the rough, as there are admittedly several shortcomings present, but if you can overlook them, you’ll find a wonderful little game that you’ll want to return to over and over as you uncover new secrets and stories that flesh out Akane’s mysterious past. The game isn’t afraid to do things differently. Its non-linear, untraditional approach to game design isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but if you’re looking for a title with a deep emotional impact that’s going to linger with you for a while, then Artis Impact is going to be right up your alley.
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