Early Access Examination: Alterium Shift

By Manuel

Players: 1
Platform: PC

Alterium Shift is a retro-inspired JRPG that features 2.5D graphics and three unique branching routes to explore. It's currently in Early Access on Steam, and this means that the game is not exactly close to complete but close enough that I was able to get a review code for it. After spending the better part of the past week playing through it, I have a lot to say about it. The developers, Drattzy Games, is a small two-member team that have put together an RPG that wears its SNES-era JRPG inspirations on its sleeve, and serves up a world that has more than a few surprises for those who take the plunge. With that said, let's examine that very plunge and dive into Alterium Shift!

First off, this isn't going to be a review in the proper sense. It's more of a look at the game as it exists at the time of writing, with some discussion regarding what I felt worked well and what didn't. This game is very new to Early Access so there will undoubtedly be updates that make parts of this article pretty much obsolete, so I'll try to give a more general overview of the game rather than dive into its minutiae. Alterium Shift features a world that well... shifts in a way that reminds one of A Link to the Past and its Light World/Dark World mechanic. You take on the role of one of three characters: Pyra, Sage, or Atlas. Pyra is a warrior and the de facto leader, Sage is the magic user who has a lot of skill and a big mouth, and Atlas is the youngest of the bunch and a skilled archer. The game opens with the trio ending their training in the use of Alterium Essence under their teacher Dolion. Alterium Essence is a mysterious power that helped end a war against an invading army of Dark Elves before the game's start. Of course we end up meeting with these Dark Elves through the course of our adventure, but we'll get to that later on, first let's talk about some technical aspects of the game.

I actually think I prefer Sage.

The fishing minigame needs work.

Visually, Alterium Shift has an art style that is very reminiscent of the Mana series, specifically Secret of Mana. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but it was all I could think about when I first started playing. Of course the Mana series are pretty much all Action RPGs, and Alterium Shift is features standard turn-based combat, but the comparison still stands. What's really hard to describe unless you play it is that it even has the same sort of weird floatiness, complete with some odd collision detection that comes to mind when I recall playing Secret of Mana back in the day on the SNES. It even has similar run animations. Since we're doing comparisons here, I also felt that the facial expressions of the characters in-game reminded me a lot of those found in Final Fantasy VI (or III if you played the SNES original), with Sage even giving off a bit of Kefka vibes in more ways than one. There's also some really cool 3D bosses that really impressed me whenever they showed up, mainly since they were such a departure from the regular art style and seem less directly inspired as other aspects of the game's visuals. While the game does look really cool, and even the portraits are well-done, I couldn't help but feel that the monster designs needed a bit more originality. There isn't a lot of variation, and the game makes use of palette swaps by the end. Also, while there is most definitely lots to the world we have yet to see, the overall areas you explore could be a bit livelier in general as most come off as bland or empty as they stand now.

Can't even use a bridge in Alteria anymore...

Oh, the game needs a minimap.

Sound is where I feel that Alterium Shift shines the brightest, well, when it comes to music at least. We'll tackle the parts I didn't like first. The sound effects in the game felt weak and many times I think they didn't play at all. I'm not sure if this was a fault of mine, but I played a small section of the game with no music to test it, and there was some clipping here and there with the sound effects; as if sounds were fighting to be properly synced with the action on-screen. Also, there's no voice acting at all. This isn't a complaint of mine actually, and the argument can definitely be made that it might have ruined the game's aesthetic, but it should be mentioned just in case someone comes in expecting it. Also, I feel that we could get a few quips here and there, especially for our lovely chocobo stand-ins. Now for the music. Simply put, I found the music practically perfect. I was actually shocked that I enjoyed the music as much as I did, but it was a pleasant surprise. There aren't any weak tracks at all here. The battle themes, the overworld themes, and even the happy town themes all had great, memorable melodies that I looked forward to listening to. The tracks felt like they'd come out of a lost 16/32-bit JRPG that has gone undiscovered all this time. I'm curious what the full soundtrack sounds like, and if it will be available on its own once the game gets a full release. I noticed that the music seems to be done by someone outside the two-man team, and I'll probably have to look up their work to see if they've provided music for other games.

The 3D bosses are quite impressive.

Random griffons are random.

Gameplay is where it's at in an RPG and Alterium Shift's Early Access form offers a mixed bag. Every town you go to offers a few side quests or two, and these are all the literal definition of busy work. I love that at one point in Pyra's story they even make it clear that you're being given pointless tasks. Adding insult to injury, these pointless fetch quests and monster exterminations usually come with very paltry rewards; usually healing items or a random amount of gold. Gold is odd as early on I found it hard to afford everything I needed/wanted, but as the game progressed I found very little to spend it on. As a matter of fact I thought I was sequence-breaking the game going to a town that wasn't necessary for my current quest (it turned out that town is for another character's route) and I found that the town offered the last chance to upgrade equipment before the game abruptly cuts off. Oh, and before I forget to mention it, you only get maybe 4-5 hours of gameplay on each route. Maybe more if you take your time. Anyhow, I found it hard to simply SPEND my gold for most of the game, and the aforementioned purchases didn't exactly help my gameplay experience; if anything they probably destroyed any sort of challenge the game had up to this point.

Combat is far too easy in Alterium Shift and there's definitely some issues when it comes to game balance in general. Now the game does start out somewhat challenging as each character spends the opening portion of the game alone. This means that you'll struggle a bit in your first few forays into the wild, though you'll soon realize that combat can be few and far between anyway. There are no random battles and all enemies spawn in the same places on the map each time you enter. Get to close and they'll move in for the attack. Though, like I just said, they rarely offer a challenge past the opening section. There comes a point where monsters will pretty much not be able to damage you at all unless they get a critical hit in. This is exasperated by the fact that some skills/spells are broken and have too low of an AE (this game's version of Spell/Ability Points) cost to cast. Once you assemble any sort of party you can win just about every battle by casting the same low-cost skills/spell over and over; basically destroying the game's difficulty. You'll even find yourself leveling up as you go, usually right before you're about to run out of AE, and that heals your character up completely and allows the cycle to continue non-stop. Even if this strategy somehow fails you, you can always use that giant pile of gold to buy a bunch of potions that refill both HP and AE. Even boss encounters offer little challenge as you pretty much only have to hold out until you're able to use your Burst Skills (sort of like Limit Breaks from the Final Fantasy series), and those make quick work of those battles too.

Not desert-ready.

A Giant Enemy Crab.

Easiness aside, let's talk combat a bit more in-depth. It's a turn based system that has your party all attack in succession, followed by the enemies. Spells like haste can get you an extra action per turn. The next round begins once everyone has performed some sort of action. You can attack, use skills/spells, defend, use items, and run. There’s nothing too surprising here, but there are a few quirks I think are worth mentioning. The magic users all have their top action being magic (which replaces the "skills" option by the way) instead of attack. Also, Atlas has "Evade" instead of defend for some reason and The Hermit has "Alchemy" instead of spells. This might seem like a useful switch, or a touch of flavor, but it's an odd choice since I can't think of any other game that does something like this. Also, as I mentioned earlier, skills and spells are eventually all you're really going to use, to the point that normal attacking feels like it might as well not even be there. Oh, and I mentioned Haste earlier, but there is no real reason to bother with the game's few buff and debuff spells. Seeing as the game is very easy, and AE could be better used spamming the usual spells/skills, there's just no point in bothering with things like Haste. I only witnessed Haste, Berserk, and other buffs by watching the enemy do them. Basically overall gameplay, especially the combat, was where the game needs the most work. The thing is I'm not really sure if these things can be fixed without a major overhaul to the entire game, so I guess we'll have to wait and see what future updates bring. Oh, and real fast, the game also has a fishing mechanic that I hope to see both better balanced, as well as more fleshed out.

Shai-Hulud is in this game.

Did I mention that there's a Water Temple?

Since Alterium Shift is in Early Access a certain level of incomplete-ness is to be expected. The state of the game rarely shocked me, even when it occasionally crashed, but what did shock me was how active the dev team was. I played the game over the course of a few days and I made several notes regarding bugs I found. Not really for any reason beyond I thought that I'd mention a few of the more standout ones in this article, but just about every single one of them was fixed by the time it came to actual writing. I'd take a break from the game a bit, and by the time I picked it back up there'd be a new update. Out of curiosity I'd check out the patch notes and I'd see half my list in there marked as fixed. This happened two or three times, and eventually made my list pretty pointless. I hope that the dev team keeps up this level of activity past this initial Early Access launch period as the game really needs it, especially when it comes to adding more gameplay content. I've seen countless Early Access games just languish on Steam, forever unfinished, and this level of dev activity gives me hope that Alterium Shift will rise above that trope. Fingers crossed that things stay this way.

I've refrained from talking story up to now, and there's a reason why. I feel that story is where Alterium Shift has a lot of potential, and is also where the game shows most of its flaws. I've mentioned already that the game has three completely unique routes, that each tell variations on the same overall story. The problem is that I think this was a huge mistake for a game of this scale. Focusing on a single, strong story would most assuredly have provided for a better game overall, and this focus would also give the developers a more finite vision. This isn't helped by the fact that each of the routes hit most of the same beats, but with different missions, bosses, and skills thrown in here and there. There might even be a full game of content just at this early point if this were structured into one long experience as opposed to three short ones. You wouldn't even have to sacrifice any character building as each route pretty much ends up with you recruiting the others anyway, and each character could just have certain sections where the plot focuses on them. Now, I don't want to say that there's anything wrong with telling a story this way, it just makes me feel that rather than working on one really great game, the dev team has set themselves up for having to split their energy creating three lesser ones. This is definitely not something I can see changing in any future update since the game revolves around this mechanic, so I guess it'll just chalk this up to a missed opportunity.

I hate Clay, but this was a funny line.

My favorite character indeed.

As for the story itself, it definitely has a lot of points I thought worked, and more that just felt extremely unfinished. Alteria is the world you start in, and the other world (called Notimmus I think?) is the one inhabited by the previously mentioned Dark Elves. Not all is as it seems though as the Dark Elves don't really resemble the murderous force described in Alteria's history books. Actually, let me stop there for a second and mention that I'm still a bit confused as to the placement of this game in its own universe. The war with the Dark Elves is treated like it is a historical event, but it also involves Dolion, who is the teacher for the main trio. This all confused me a lot as Dolion himself doesn't really mention the entire Dark Elf thing at all. This is a fine showcase of the poorly implemented story, and made me wish that everything was more properly outlined overall. This isn't unique to Dolion though as just about every quest has the same incomplete feel to it, and are similarly poorly defined. More than once I found myself thinking: "Why am I going to this Temple?" or "Where am I supposed to be going next?" Sometimes the map has markers that show your next destination, but there isn't any sort of Quest Log to show you what you're currently doing. This isn't helped by the fact that the writing just feels... thinner as the game nears the end. I say the "end", but once again this is a short 5-ish hour experience so it's a bit awkward that things start to fall apart narratively so quickly.

Dusty Rhodes?

Bookshelf got books.

I can't even give you much regarding the character's motivation after they first arrive in the alternate Alteria. I know that at first there was simply a need to return to Alteria and Dolion, but the back and forth continues on even after you find a portal back. Also, now's a good time to mention that the game moves in one linear path. There isn't much backtracking you can do once you cross into a new part of the world(s) and even though it's an RPG, the world feels like it's separated into various "levels". I hope that this is something that changes in the final release, but I'm willing to bet that this was done so as to not have to create more dialogue for the areas you've already completed. Speaking of dialogue, while the writing leaves a lot to be desired, there’s charm and humor to much of the in-game script. I found myself chuckling at a bunch of jokes, and there were a lot of references that made me feel that the developers (or at least the one doing the writing) had a great taste in games and media. If only this level of attention was paid to the rest of the writing we'd be on track for a great RPG.

I have some other things regarding the writing to get off my chest before we close this out. I did my first run as Pyra, and it didn't take long for me to hate just about every NPC in the starting town of Sumiton. Everyone seemed weirdly mean to Pyra for reasons I couldn't understand, and even Dolion came off like a jerk. This didn't help when I played as Sage next and some of the NPCs were just as mean to him. Of course everyone is nice to Atlas though, and it was only then that I realized that everyone being mean to Pyra was intentional. I saw a bit of a discussion regarding this on Steam between other players and one of the developers, but I'm still confused what exactly they're going for story-wise with Pyra. It doesn't help that she's sort of pegged as the true "main" character in the traditional sense of a JRPG, and I'm probably not the only one who started their game on her route for that very reason. I don't know if this tonal whiplash can be changed through future updates, but I hope that there's a major rewrite soon on the list of fixes for the next update. That's probably wishful thinking though.

This is how Pyra's story ends.

I was shocked when these started to scroll.

I could go on more about the game, but this was supposed to be something of a first look, so I think this is enough for now. I don't think the point of this article is to recommend the game or not, but I have some thoughts on that nonetheless. As it currently exists, I don't think the game is worth its price. It doesn't feel much more than a demo at the moment, and I'd have to suggest waiting to see if the developers deliver more story content down the road. The fact that I can't in good faith give it a full recommendation right now does bother me a bit as Alterium Shift really does shine in several spots, and it has charm and potential in spades. I'm just always a bit wary of games that drop into Early Access without a clear release schedule outlined, even though the dev team has been working hard these past few weeks. Anyway, I'm sure that I'll be taking a look at this game again at some point, and I hope that I get a chance to come back sooner rather than later. Until then, let me know if you find that Master Roshi in-game reference like I did!

For More Information on Alterium Shift:
https://alteriumshift.com/

Alterium Shift Steam Page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1586990/Alterium_Shift/

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​Pros:
+ Great graphics & music that give off the perfect retro RPG feel.
+ The three characters each have their own unique routes and play styles.
+ While not yet fully realized, the story and world do have the potential to draw in players.
+ The retro aesthetic, the funny dialogue and references, and the overall FEEL of the game makes one want to support its eventual full release.
+ The dev team is very active in releasing new updates.

+/- Three unique routes may be interesting, but the game might have benefitted from a single, well-written route.

Cons:
- The game is very much an early access title and each route ends in a cliffhanger.
- There's an overall imbalance to several gameplay elements like enemy difficulty, equipment, and skills that seem like they'd be difficult to balance.
- While the developers are fixing bugs regularly, the current experience can be pretty shaky and inconsistent in various ways.
- It's unclear exactly how far off the true "complete" version of Alterium Shift is.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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It's Master Roshi!