Testament: The Order of High Human is a promising first-person action-adventure game that immediately hooks you within the first few minutes of starting you’re adventure. The folks over at Fairyship Games know a thing or two about storytelling. You are thrust into the world of Tessara, a world in which it is apparent you do not belong.
An eye-catching grotesque ent-looking Nature Father has you captive from your apparent fall. Your first quest, escape! Off you stumble into the wilds of Tessara as the High Human Aran. Mere hours ago you were the ruler of your kingdom but were cast out by your conniving evil brother Arva. This game is dense and rich with story and consistently drip-feeds you all the right story beats. Your journal is also rife with exposition on the world of Tessara. Speaking of your journal, the tutorial for Testament is a breeze, with easily accessible tutorial videos.
The Order of the Bow, Sword, and Spell
As your story takes you across Tessara, you must fight your way through countless enemies using 3 distinct playstyles; sword, spells or bow. Each has its own feel, advantages and disadvantages. There are some … cute interactions between each of these playstyles, but in most enemy encounters I found myself sticking to one. The combat here is varied and feels quite clunky at times, especially in the beginning. The best way to describe the combat would be unrhythmic.
The blocking is also very frustrating and unforgiving not in a fun kind of way I can assure you! Magical powers and archery found in the game are pretty fun to play with but nothing revolutionary. However, I wouldn’t exactly call the magic gameplay exciting, just fine which is a shame. I especially enjoyed the insight power, a magical detective vision that shows you key areas and the weak points of enemies. It ended up being a hard crutch for most of my playthrough, but it can’t be used during combat which means I don’t spend my entire playthrough with insight on.
The Last Will and Testament
My one anchor throughout my entire time in Tessara was the Arva & Aran story developing as I progressed. Throughout Tessara, you’ll also find some well-designed puzzle levels. The 3D chess you have to play to wall jump and rotate platforms is very fun. Unfortunately, there isn’t much else to write home about for Testament which is unfortunate as the basic foundations are there, it just needs a lot of fine-tuning.
Additionally, the voice acting found here is just all over the place. In my first 10 minutes of play, I had these off-putting moments in the tutorial zone where Aran would be explaining something to me but would whisper it so loudly into my headphones. He would also yell “God Damnit” every time I didn’t land a stealth shot, which at first was also off-putting, but I came to find it a little amusing. Your damage output is also severely low in the first few hours, making the first boss such a drag. The only way to speed things along is stealth archery, which isn’t always an option.
Testament: The Order of High Human promises much with its story, but ultimately falls short of an epic story due to lacking mechanics in gameplay and some unfortunately placed voice lines.
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