Testament: The Order of High-Human looks stunning but feels a decade old.
Testament: The Order of High-Human at first appears to be Fairyship Games’ debut title. However, diving into their Steam page and website seems to indicate that the studio is instead a rebranding of Revenant Games. That team recently made the horror game Shame Legacy, released just last May. It is unclear how the developers differ, if at all. However, it does at least imply that they are experienced with Unreal Engine 4, first-person puzzles, and fast action sequences.
Fairyship Games seems to have intended Testament: The Order of High-Human to be played with a controller. Despite there being a mouse cursor on the title screen, it doesn’t function at all when in the default full-screen mode. Players will need to navigate with just the keyboard (or plug in a controller) and set the video settings to either windowed or borderless windowed mode for the mouse to work. The options menu also doesn’t have the standard 20 or 30 test revert, meaning one can fully make Testament: The Order of High-Human unplayable by toggling the wrong setting.
The current demo build of Testament: The Order of High-Human showcases the first two or so hours of the game. Players take control of Aran, the ruling god of the High Humans. He was cast out of the realm by his brother Arva, who embraced the darkness that the High Humans had fought long against. Aran finds himself stranded in the Highlands, powerless and injured. He is nursed to health by the enigmatic Nature Father. However, Nature Father is ultra-possessive and becomes enraged once Aran plans to continue his quest to stop Arva.
None of these story beats are shown as cutscenes; instead, players are thrown into the action right away. What results is Aran giving long monologues as he walks around and interacts with objects. Context is rarely given, with Aran and other characters speaking with perfect knowledge – even if players are left clueless about what anything is. What can help is diving into the game’s Journal, which goes on to explain character backgrounds and other lore. Hopefully, this will be adjusted in the retail version.
The first 15 to 20 minutes serve as a tutorial for the controls. It is a standard first-person movement with WASD for walking and the mouse for looking around. Players dash with the shift key, jump with the space bar, and crouch with the left control. Aran can also scale short cliffs and even wall runs. The strangest choice is rope climbing, which needs to be jumped into and off rather than an interaction button. As the game is in first person, this sometimes means turning away from a platform and jumping backward.
With the sword, light swings are performed with the left mouse button and heavy attacks with the right mouse button. When using a bow, the right mouse aims down the sight while the left mouse draws and fires an arrow. There is no stamina use, so players can hold an arrow in place and easily cancel by letting go of the right mouse button without losing ammunition.
The mouse is also used to cast magic spells. The first spell learned is a continual beam of light that shoots forward and slowly damages the foes it touches. Players can also learn a life steal spell, damage reduction shielding, and a lightning trap. In the demo, one will only gain enough experience points for a single spell slot, but up to four slots are teased for high-level players of the main game.
Rather than money, players receive a crafting material dubbed “Shards of Creation”. For now, they can be used to gain buffs, like higher defense. It is possible this will be expanded in the full Testament: The Order of High-Human to include various options.
Encounters are typically set up to covertly execute one or two weaker enemies before a larger brawl ensues. Enemies are marked with different color shields to indicate how much stronger or weaker they are compared to Aran, with the main strategy to kill the fodder before defeating tough enemies. Aran has no form of direct parry and either interrupt enemy combos or uses a series of dodges to avoid being hit at all.
The enemy’s AI is fairly shoddy and uses telegraphed attacks. This can make it extremely easy to get in a few blows. The enemy also seems to be clueless on how to defend against any form of ranged attack, preferring to get in close and use their slowest heavy move. This typically turns several fights into a first-person bow shooter.
That doesn’t mean players will come out unscathed, as Fairyship Games has loaded maps with an oddly high number of enemies. Oftentimes, a Halfling or Mutt enemy will get a swipe in just by volume or attacking from behind. What makes this frustrating is how little feedback hits have – there is neither a loud of enough sound or recoil from the injured – instead, players need to rely on red flashes that appear on the screen. This overall floaty combat feels like an encounter from the decade-old The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – high reliance on channeled magic and repeatedly whacking targets that hardly flinch.
What makes traversing Testament: The Order of High-Human so disorientating is the spread out head up display. Aran’s health bar is not only small but tucked into the upper left corner. A large amount of the screen’s real estate is dedicated to just the experience bar, while an equally too large of the upper right is just to show what weapon is equipped – when it can be easily seen in Aran’s own hands. The HUD needs to be condensed to have key information in one place; otherwise, a player’s eyes will have to dart around to process what is joined on.
Around a third of the Testament: The Order of High-Human demo has no fights at all, instead focusing on puzzles. The main puzzle presented is the classic multiple lights bouncing off mirrors to reach a single target. This is intermixed with jumping to various platforms. Some of these moves, left and right, rotate, or disappear and reappear like in a Mega Man title. Holding down the run button is needed to get enough momentum to make the jumps. Falling into a pit causes damage but quickly sends Aran back to the previous ledge.
Testament: The Order of High-Human is fully voice-acted, though not many characters appear in the demo. Nature Father is gruff sounding and does easily come off unhinged and dangerous. Arva is presented as more of a Saturday morning cartoon villain, goading Aran and reviling in chaos. Aran himself is the main weak point, having a strange accent somehow mixing together tones of Jean-Claude Van Damme and Tommy Wiseau – vaguely Eastern European attempting dramatic English.
The demo of Testament: The Order of High-Human is rather rough, with unsatisfying combat, an odd HUD, and some initial bugs. With a looming release date of July 13, it seems unclear if the full game will be substantially different. You can download the demo from Steam and see if the negatives are outweighed by impressive graphics and engaging world-building.
