Afterlove EP was provided by Fellow Traveller for review. Thank you!
Afterlove EP presents us with the last story from Mohammad Fahmi, the creator of Coffee Talk and What Comes After, before his passing in 2022. Unfortunately, that fact may fill you with more emotion than the game's storyline. Although the game affected me at points, it instead seemed to water down certain points more than I would have liked.
The game begins with a short prologue in which our protagonist, Rama, enjoys time with his girlfriend, Cinta, and his bandmates. By the time the prologue ends, Cinta has unexpectedly passed away from a short illness, and the game fast-forwards one year, in which Rama has (or rather, hasn't) been coping with the grief, causing the band to fall apart and Rama to drift away from his friends.
Afterlove EP then follows Rama's life over the next month as he tries to get things back on track by rebuilding his friendships with his bandmates, finding a new love interest, and seeking therapy because he can hear Cinta speaking to him and occasionally see her throughout the game.
While I found the beginning of the story quite compelling and emotional, the game does sort of gradually shift into more of a "dating sim." Afterlove EP has well-written conversations, and the voice actress for Cinta does a great job as she comments on Rama's actions as he struggles through each day, but the game feels kind of... shallow.
The game takes place over a month, and while I get that decision from a gameplay perspective, it minimizes the themes it hopes to explore. You go from not having any contact with your bandmates for a year to being good friends with them again, grieving over your deceased girlfriend, to professing your love for someone else, all in less than a month. By the end of it all, you kind of wonder how much Rama has improved or just shifted into another unhealthy situation.
That's not to say the story is bad; it's just not what I was expecting. Afterlove EP often has a light-hearted feel despite the friction and drama caused by the grief in the friend group. Cinta's voice in Rama's head is often humorous and pokes fun at him, and the game seems to use it for comic relief at times, which is odd considering why Rama can hear Cinta.
While I did enjoy the storyline of Afterlove EP, and it hit some emotional notes for sure, the gameplay side of things was a bit more hit-and-miss. I felt some curious choices were made when interacting with objects in the game world, like certain characters and interactable objects are positioned close together for no reason, meaning you could easily miss a prompt to interact with something in a room.
Navigating the city is cool, and it's great to see all of the art done for the game, but at the same time, it can seem superfluous. A fair chunk of game time is spent trying to find where you're headed to, then getting there, going through 5-10 minutes of dialogue, and then trying to find the next place to go.
This choice can make sense later on, as players can decide how to spend their day, whether to go to therapy to help Rama with his feelings, hang out with his friends, etc. But a lot of the time, you have only one choice in what to do, and it felt a little pointless making the player travel to each location. Most of the filler NPCs you meet have repetitive and uninteresting dialogue, and there aren't any easter eggs or rewards to find except certain places triggering memories of Cinta.
Given the Visual Novel nature of the game, I feel like players should have been presented with choices of who to hang out with that day and then go into a cutscene of traveling there.
I also felt that some conversation choices were a little pointless. The choices you're given are often down the path that the game wants you to follow. If the game wants you to disagree with someone, you must disagree with them, likewise for agreeing. I understand the game is largely about grief and following Rama's story as he copes with it, but why give the player a choice if you've already made that decision for them?
A few times throughout the game, you'll also be playing songs on the guitar in the form of a rhythm game. It's a pretty basic game, but it works well enough, and the songs recorded for the game are also pretty neat.
Afterlove EP does present itself well, with an art style that kind of reminded me of the mid-2000s Flash games, but it is done well. The music is also pretty good and helps convey the atmosphere the game is going for, which you'd hope for a game that's largely based on the subject matter. Sadly, the game flashes up the lyrics to the song as you play the rhythm game mode, and you're too busy watching the notes to hit to be able to read what the song is about.
Is Afterlove EP a bad game? Not at all. It can be emotional, it can be entertaining, and it can make some profound statements on various life situations that will probably hit the mark for the majority of players. But there are some gameplay and pacing issues with the story that I wasn't a huge fan of. The game is reasonably priced, so if you want to dive into a mostly visual-novel dating sim that is a bit different from the norm, you should try it.
As you might imagine, Afterlove EP has fairly basic requirements. The game has full controller support, and despite not listing 1280x800 as a resolution, it does fill the Steam Deck's display.
There are no graphical settings to adjust, and we can easily run the whole game at 90 FPS with a 6W TDP Limit.
The power draw hung around 8W-9W, with temperatures around 55-60C. So expect around 5 hours of battery life from a Steam Deck OLED and 3.5 hours from a Steam Deck LCD.
The only accessibility option in Afterlove EP is to have the game auto-hit the notes in the rhythm sections. All dialogue, including Cinta's voiced dialogue, is subtitled.
Afterlove EP gets some things right with a strong start to the story that will make you feel emotional. However, as the days carry on, Rama seems consumed by finding a new love interest while he's still in a bad way from his previous girlfriend's death, and at times, it feels as though the game is pushing you toward making bad decisions on Rama's behalf. If you don't look too deeply at the overall situation, though, there are still entertaining conversations and relatable points to be made.
You also can't fault how Afterlove EP runs on the Steam Deck, with perfect controls, performance, and a long battery life, meaning the game is perfect to play on your handheld devices.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Afterlove EP is a decent visual novel with some dating sim elements, but pacing issues keep it from being great. It runs perfectly on Steam Deck.
