Testament: The Order of High-Human Preview

Testament: The Order of High-Human tells the story of Aran, the immortal king of the High Humans, however, the world of Tessara is plunged into darkness after Aran’s brother, Arva, betrayed the High Humans and embraced the power of Darkness. Robbing him of his powers and sending him into the land of mortals, Aran must regain his powers and fight his way back to reclaim his throne and save the land of Tessara. The story does its duty well while not breaking much new ground, the world and characters give enough of a necessary hook, and the backstory behind the “Seekers” (a godlike race who opposed the darkness) was all thoroughly enjoyably and well told so far.

The game is fully voice-acted, which is impressive for a relatively small team, however, this is where I first noticed some issues. Some parts of the voice acting were a little flat, although not at all harmful enough to ruin the story segments of the game.

The visuals were marvellous, the world felt well realised, and while not a stylistic divergence from other fantasy titles, it managed to keep a consistent look. This was especially apparent near the start of the game; candlelight in the shack Aran wakes up in was very cosy and warm, along with the torches outside being a nice contrast to the dark and rainy forest just beyond. So far, I was primarily impressed by the Chamber of Radiance, a Seeker stronghold, which showed a nice variation in the visuals of Testament. Despite all this, I was somewhat letdown with certain animations; stealth kills were incredibly lacking, certain boss and enemy attack telegraphs were also very misleading, but not without any room for improvement, which I hope they work on in the future.

The combat was where I had the most issues, particularly the swordplay. I found a vast lack of defensive options: throughout the demo, I only had access to a singular dash, with a single charge. This caused an immense issue with multi-enemy fights, as I would have to dodge certain attacks, only to get hit by another as I physically had no other options to defend. Enemy difficulty and variety were a big issue early on, too; it has a lot of room for improvement, as basic enemies were simply given too much health and damage. Hopefully, this will be improved in the future, as I feel there is much potential to change in the future. The skill tree does have some unique and interesting abilities later on, providing interesting combinations between magic and swordplay.

I only played one boss fight in the build I played, which seems to have the same struggles as the rest of the combat system, however, future boss fights have much potential to be improved compared to the one I had access to in the demo. Ideally, it will be improved by Fairyship Games by its launch. Attacks were incredibly slow and over-telegraphed, didn’t do all that much damage, and the boss only had three different attacks, two basic projectiles (which were too accurate, especially due to the lack of dodges), and a multi-hitting combo. This boss fight also took a little longer than was necessary for a boss with such minimal tools, making the boss feel unnecessarily spongy.

I had the most fun with the Chamber of Radiance section, a portion purely focused on puzzles and platforming. The puzzles were straightforward, but it was so early on in the game I expected them to increase in difficulty later on; they were fun nonetheless. The platforming also was a lot of fun, the level design was interesting, and the movement mechanics all flowed well and were perfectly responsive.

Overall, I had an incredibly mixed experience with this build of Testament: the combat leaves much to be desired; however, it has lots of potential to improve in the latter portions of the game. Platforming and exploration may be this game's greatest benefit, with a very visually appealing world and strong level design.