AI Limit Review – Familiar, Functional, and Forgettable

AI Limit Review

Timing is everything, or at least very important. It’s true in sports, games, and finding the right moment to ask for a raise. A game’s release timing is often an unfortunate part of its potential success or failure. AI Limit is a new Soulslike, releasing within days of another high-profile game in the same genre, The First Berserzker: Khazan. While comparisons are of (pun intended) limited value, consumers only have so much time and money. At least in this aspect, AI Limit comes up short.

We’ve Seen This Movie

AI Limit is an anime Soulslike with a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting. However, it isn’t human civilization that has been wiped clean but a post-human technological world. You play as an android warrior called a Blader, combing through the ruins of a sprawling destroyed city called Havenswel. A mysterious substance called Mud has both corrupted the world and can simultaneously heal the Blader. As stories go, it isn’t even within spitting distance of original. But then, many an excellent game has a disposable narrative.

Although your Blader’s appearance changes throughout the game thanks to new armor and weapon sets, there’s no character creator. As an aside, this seems to be a trend in many recent ARPGs and Soulslikes. There are exceptions, though. Avowed had an excellent character creation tool. In any case, your version of Blader is essentially just like everyone else’s, and she looks and sounds absolutely generic. There’s some sort of spiritual “nature will reclaim and redeem the world” theme at play, I think, but it doesn’t stand out.

A Familiar Setting

Havenswel is a collection of decrepit spaces like dungeon-like sewers, semi-destroyed factories, and outdoor ruins. While environments lack textural detail and richness, some of them have the looping design of traditional Soulslikes. There’s also a lot of verticality built into the design, which is welcome and makes exploration interesting. There are a few environmental puzzles, like negotiating a gauntlet of deadly turrets by dashing from one cover to the next. Overall, Havenswel looks like what it is: a collection of video game levels.

Enemy designs are functional but once again — detect a theme — not surprising. Most of the enemies are literally mindlessly robotic or semi-human monsters similar to those in a dozen other games and fiction. Bosses tend to be bigger or more powerful versions of standard enemies, with a few notable and enjoyable exceptions. Compared to the bosses in The Last Berserker: Khazan or Black Myth: Wuong, however, AI Limit’s bosses are relatively tame and predictable.

In part, that predictability comes from AI Limit’s strict adherence to Soulslike mechanics. Despite them having marginally different appearances and names, there are still healing checkpoints, light and heavy attacks, spells, dodges, and parries. Parries in particular are forgiving and allow players to devastate enemies. AI Limit changes up the Soulslike recipe in a few ways. There’s no stamina, for example. Instead, there’s a multipurpose mechanic called Sync Rate. Sync Rate powers your spells and increases your damage. You drain it by using spells and being hit, but you fill it by aggressively attacking enemies. The push-pull/risk-reward of Sync Rate is definitely AI Limit’s most interesting feature. AI Limit gets better and more interesting as it progresses.

Bug Hunt

All this feeling of familiar predictability is offset — at least somewhat — by generally enjoyable combat and exploration. It’s not that the combat is super-refined or the spaces are inspiring, but that AI Limit plays and feels like a proper Soulslike. AI Limit has that dopamine drip that true Souls fans have come to expect. No one playing the game will have a really bad time, just not a surprising one. Although they may have a buggy one. AI Limit is short on graphical options and in need of a bug fix or two. Crashes and scenery glitches were rare but not entirely absent.

I’d love to tell you that the game’s music and acting were exceptional. The lead character sounds appropriately robotic, that’s for sure. The soundscape is a collection of synth-heavy, non-melodic textures and fairly muted combat effects.

Alternatives Abound

In the absence of other and more impressive Soulslikes, AI Limit could definitely step in and fill a void. It gets the basics right and even iterates in some enjoyable ways. Fans of sci-fi anime and those bored with gothic fantasy will appreciate AI Limit’s setting and theme. While the combat is nothing special, it’s still undeniably fun, if awfully familiar. In a genre absolutely brimming with better choices, it’s hard to recommend AI Limit, but players coming to it with reasonable expectations will have a good time.

***PS5 code provided by the publisher for review***