Artis Impact makes quite the impression right off the bat, with handcrafted pixel art that moves with exceptional fluidity, and a heroine clad in black wielding a long sword with utmost elegance. A painstakingly-built project by a solo developer from Malaysia, Artis Impact exudes a single-minded character in its environments, style, and art. It’s refreshing, and also, for better and for worse, quite unbridled.
The game falls somewhere between cozy adventure game and Japanese-style RPG, and that’s exactly where it stays to the end. You play as the stunning protagonist Akane, who embodies the rule of cool in her design, but is unafraid to dive headfirst into chibi-styled hijinks and eccentric humor. Her adventure takes her through locales of a post-apocalyptic world, both the ruins and the surprisingly well-built-up areas.
The story? Well, I’ve finished the game and frankly I’ve little idea what the story was about. Akane is part of a mercenary peacekeeper force of sorts, called the Lith Club, which defends what remains of civilization from invading AI robots. Her mohawked boss dispatches her on missions to acquire ‘osmium’ and take out prime AI targets, but the game is really blasé about what’s going on and what the stakes are. It’s almost slice-of-life, just with killing robots involved.
A good part of the game’s charm, apart from its smooth visuals and striking comic panels, is the banter between Akane and her cube-shaped AI companion ‘Bot’. They have real sibling energy, frequently teasing each other and at other times, working together against threats. As the game progressed, I found the two endearing, and wishing I could spend a lot more time with the rakish yet stolid Bot, and the frequently silly, nice-to-a-fault Akane.
What I could skip, however, was the writing for other characters in the game, especially almost all the male characters, who can’t help but ogle at Akane, hit on her, objectify her, or be misogynistic toward her. It’s just weird.
Confusingly, developer Mas enabled what was virtually a god-mode in the pre-release period of the game, which is when we evaluated the game. This meant that the max-levelled Akane in my playthrough of the game steamrolled every enemy and boss from start to finish, leaving me completely befuddled as to what any of the combat stats and abilities mean. Arsenic poisoning, blade augmentation, bot modification, the game presented me mechanics and concepts that went completely to waste.
That accounts for the RPG pole of this axis – the other pole being adventure game. Artis Impact surprised me by how interactive its world was, even if superficially so – you can flip lights on and off, open and close doors, turn faucets to get water flowing (or not), cook things, and even work part-time in shops and restaurants.
The breadth of possibilities might seem exciting to fans of cosy slice-of-life games, and perhaps it is! It did nothing for me though, after my initial admiration for the game’s interactivity, as I struggled to understand why I should even bother earning money when there was nothing worthwhile to buy, or why I should cook buff and healing food when the game was so easy, I didn’t even understand how healing works through the end of it.
It’s prickly to be so down on what is obviously one person’s passion project for four years, especially one that looks as spectacular as Artis Impact does. However, for the interested buyer, I can’t recommend this one for anything more than its offbeat sense of humor and character banter. As for the developer Mas, we will be watching their career with great interest.
Developer: Mas
Country of Origin: Malaysia
Publisher: Feuxon
Release Date: August 7, 2025 (PC)
The PC version of the game was played for this review of Artis Impact (official website, Steam).
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