Developed and published by Fairyship Games, Testament: The Order of High Human is an action-adventure game set in the fantasy world of Tessara. Blended with a mix of RPG and Metroidvania elements, you’ll experience various game mechanics, from first-person combat using physical combos and magic to navigating and platforming through puzzles.

Playing as the main protagonist, Aran, the once immortal king of High Humans, you’re now without any kind of power due to a devastating betrayal of your brother, Arva. You set out on your journey through the realm which madness has descended upon to regain what was once yours. Facing many challenges, foes, and much more that might try and stop you while exploring this ancient civilization.

There’s a great mix of storytelling, puzzles, platforming, and a vast and semi-linear world to discover. Most paths you’ll travel in the world are quite straightforward, but there are still some parts open to exploration, not only following the main quest, but some side quests you find along the way, learning more about the lore of Testament and earning some more XP to boot.

Starting with practically nothing, you soon find yourself a sword, the first weapon in your arsenal. Straight combat is simple enough with this weapon, slashing your way through enemies with light and heavy attacks, or sneaking around to take them out quietly.

This variation in gameplay is always good, but be mindful that by going in swinging, you can easily become overwhelmed. Luckily, progressing and levelling up opens the path for more survivability and ways of fighting, and your sword won’t be the only weapon for defending yourself.

Soon after, you acquire a bow and magic, and these come with an array of upgrades on their own, adding to how you might approach combat. Each weapon also has its own skill tree, allowing you to spend the skill points you earn as you level up by picking between the different abilities, with more becoming available as you spend more points, and these choices will also influence your character stats. Unfortunately, you can’t wield any of these simultaneously, but you can quickly swap between them, and this takes no time at all, which leads to some devastating combos.

The fun doesn’t stop there. There is also a heap of consumables to find and craft once you’ve obtained them at least once. Ranging from a simple damage increase and resource restoration to applying fire damage to your weapons and having unlimited dash. The possibilities feel endless, and to top it off, you can have as many as you like active, keeping in mind these don’t last long, so use them wisely.

Playing through, the controls were mostly fluid while in combat, traversing the world, and navigating the menus. Traversing the world, I definitely got a bit more than I expected, with a small amount of parkour via wall-running and platforming that was mostly used in puzzles, these were quite enjoyable on their own.

The only thing I had a small amount of trouble with was dodge timing, as I couldn’t seem to dodge when in an attack animation. This was something I had to get used to, and it would have been nice having the option to block instead, but this isn’t an option.

Tessara is a world of many wonders and much to see. I was quite enthralled by the amount of variation in the areas you explore and traverse through, starting with a simple forest and some temple ruins, and later being brought into caverns, mountains, and small settlements. Although not graphically outstanding, the story the world tells is great and still quite pretty.

Voice acting throughout was both hit and miss for me. I enjoyed the accent of the main character and several of the antagonists, however, some of it seemed a little forced and lacked some emotion, feeling a little bland at times, and I found that some lines being randomly shouted during combat were very startling and a little blown out, but overall, the rest of the game sounds come together nicely.

I enjoyed my experience playing Testament: The Order of High Human with its variety of weapons and combos, even if I was not very good at dodging. Luckily I had plenty of consumables to aid me. Navigating through the world was great, especially the puzzles and platforming, which I always enjoy trying to figure out, and although the story was interesting, I felt it missed the bar a little with some of the emotion in the voice acting.

Written by: MrVibeAU