Colourful, quirky, and completely chaotic, Above Land: Rhapsody basically takes the three-player co-op carnage of Elden Ring Nightreign and injects it with some hilariously over-the-top weapons and special moves that seem straight out of a Yakuza street brawl. At a recent BiliBili: First Look event in Shanghai, I spent a few hours hacking and slashing away at monsters in a land above the clouds, in this frenetic roguelite that marries breathtaking bursts of action and tower defense elements with a deep sense of combat customisation. Yet what really stood out for me was the creative combination of weaponry at my disposal. I mean, when was the last time you played an action RPG that allowed you to cut down goblins with a giant broadsword in one hand, and perform slam-dunking finishing moves with a basketball dribbled with the other?
Just why do you have access to an eclectic arsenal of weapons that seem to be stripped out of the pages of a tweenager’s sketchbook? Well, that probably has something to do with the fact that in Above Land: Rhapsody you actually play as a young child, at least outside of each battle. Here your downtime is spent wandering through the bowels of a floating vessel dubbed ‘The Invincible Bebe’, trading for special potions with the alchemist, preparing meals with the chef that provide buffs during combat, and visiting the tailor to unlock various aesthetic upgrades like witch’s hats and aviation goggles for your avatar.
The most important NPC to befriend, though, is the Bebe’s blacksmith who provides you with a weapon set that combines a standard suite of high fantasy armaments with what appears to be the most wanted items on a grade schooler’s Christmas wishlist. Of course there are swords, dual-wielded daggers, and a powerful bow to deal damage with, but there’s also a yo-yo, electric guitar, and the aforementioned basketball to add some slapstick to every monster arse you kick. I’m assuming the team at developer Flying Amateurs are WWE fans, too, since you can even choose to wield a folding chair, exactly like the kind typically clattered over the skulls of greased up grapplers ringside at Wrestlemania.
You might say that the developers have employed an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach to designing your character’s arsenal in Above Land: Rhapsody, but since in the early version I played there was only 12 out of the more than 30 weapons set to be available in the finished game, I can’t rule out the possibility that there might actually be a kitchen sink or some other random piece of plumbing to wield when Above Land: Rhapsody eventually comes out. It’s pretty nuts.
Above and Beyond
Once you’re good to go you then shift through the pages of an intricate pop-up book left to the child by his missing mother, which then teleports you into a battle realm composed of floating chunks of shattered landscape and populated with hordes of minions to clash with and countless secret treasures to scour for. In this dimension you transform into a lithe warrior and, either solo or with up to two companions in tow, must survive four waves of increasingly challenging enemy hordes before overcoming an end boss in a gameplay session that basically constitutes about 30 breathless minutes of mayhem.
Each wave of enemies you dispatch drops randomised character modifiers that you can equip on the fly, ranging from simply electrifying your weapons, to a buff that makes the size of your character slowly grow and become more powerful at the cost of your overall movement speed. Apparently in the full game there will be even more absurd modifiers that turn enemies into sheep, or allow you to literally shout your enemies to death using a headset microphone. Finally, a gameplay mechanic purpose built for every shrieking adolescent I’ve ever encountered in Call of Duty.
Even without the novel gameplay twists introduced by these modifiers, which I’m told will be close to a staggering 1,000 in number, the weapons are already an absolute blast to use. In addition to standard attacks, each weapon also has two special skills that operate on a cooldown timer. For example, the broadsword can deploy an automated turret to help thin enemy numbers in your vicinity, while the folding chair can summon a wrestling ring to rope in the enemies around you and prevent them from dodging your chair-swinging attacks.
Each weapon also features its own unique combat mechanics. With the katana I was simply alternating between the two main attack buttons to pull off slashing uppercuts and charged up stabs, but with the electric guitar I fell into a completely different rhythm. Quite literally so, since wielding the axe of the fretted kind brings up a tempo indicator at the bottom of the screen; the better you time each strum of the guitar, the more damage you deal with the musical note projectiles that fire out in all directions, as your character kneeslides and duckwalks around the combat arena like an action roleplaying Angus Young. I must admit that the manic nature of Above Land: Rhapsody’s scraps meant that I didn’t always completely know what was going on, but I was nothing if not entertained at all times.
Above the Rim
It’s worth pointing out that the actual multiplayer component of Above Land: Rhapsody is still very much a work in progress, and many of the features planned for co-operative play were not present in the early build I played. Specifically, the full game is set to allow players to trade items like ability modifiers between them, but perhaps more enticingly, your combat abilities will be far more complementary in a scrap. An example suggested to me by one of the developers, was that if two players each had the basketball equipped, they might be able to pass it back and forth in quick succession in order to create a powerful whirlwind to damage enemies with, before finishing them off with one player lobbing the ball to the other for an alley-oop dunk on the enemy’s head.
To be clear these concepts are only tentative at this stage, but I’m certainly keen to see what kind of tandem takedowns will end up in Above Land: Rhapsody when it launches. Perhaps you could have a trio of guitarists shredding a harmony solo to literally melt enemy faces with, or maybe multiple yo-yo wielders could spin up a web of strings and really rock the cradle with pounding, pendulum-style attacks. There’s certainly scope for some really fun combinations here.
At this early stage in its development, Above Land: Rhapsody is also in desperate need of better onboarding for new players. Although its combat is extremely easy to pick up due to its simple and instantly rewarding design, there are an overwhelming number of systems to interact with during each battle. These include various statues littered around the arena that grant increases to your maximum health or elemental defense, with some requiring the offering of special keys you collect during battle, some with short puzzles to solve, and others demanding the use of another consumable called a G-stone. There’s also the Wobbo, which sounds like an Australian nickname but is actually a companion creature that can either function as an autonomous bodyguard, or even allow the player to transform into a powerful monster for short periods of time.
Needless to say, it was quite a lot to process in between the constant hacking and slashing of hordes, but the developers assure me that they’re working on an expanded tutorial for the full game that will go beyond the basic introduction included in this preview build.
If developer Flying Amateurs can knuckle down and get the basics sorted, then that should really allow the silly side of Above Land: Rhapsody to really shine. This is an action RPG overflowing with energy and playfulness, and I’m certainly keen to see more. With no release window confirmed at this time it could still be quite a while before we get the finished game in our hands, and it’s hard to tell from this short slice just how much story substance will be evident, and what other combat arenas will be included to keep the fighting fresh. But for now, I can say that the potential of Above Land: Rhapsody is certainly sky high.
For more on Above Land: Rhapsody, be sure to check out the full announcement details here.
Tristan Ogilvie is a senior video editor at IGN’s Sydney office. He attended the BiliBili: First Look event in Shanghai as a guest of the organizers.
