Testament: The Order of High Human is a very attractive-looking game, and to be fair to the developers looks much better than many similarly priced indie games.
That being said, visuals are only part of what makes a good game, and unfortunately, Testament: The Order of High Human falls flat in almost every other aspect with subpar acting, dialogue, and, most importantly, combat, possibly the weakest part of the game.
While there are ample opportunities for players to bloody their swords, the majority of said encounters involve little more than spamming the same two attacks over and over while clumsily dodging the enemy’s equally unimaginative onslaught.
While first-person sword combat is a nice idea, it is only a nice idea when done correctly, something that just is not the case with Testament: The Order of High Human, and opting for a third-person combat system with a wider selection of offensive and defensive abilities would have made combat far less repetitive and therefore much more enjoyable.
Image credit Testament: The Order of High Human - Published and developed by Fairyship Games.
While Testament: The Order of High Human has a fair amount of puzzles, and they are much better than those found in Biomutant, they are rather generic and are unlikely to do more than frustrate RPG fans while failing to captivate fans of puzzle games.
Image credit Testament: The Order of High Human - Published and developed by Fairyship Games.
While Testament: The Order of High Human offers three difficult settings, they can best be described as so “easy the game isn’t fun”, “so hard the game isn’t fun”, and “are you a sadist?”, ensuring that everyone, no matter their skill level will not have a good time while playing Testament: The Order of High Human.
The protagonist suffers from the duel blow of having a passionless voice actor, and terrible dialogue, which may explain why the voice actor sounded bored and confused most of the time.
To add insult to injury, the protagonist is used to teach players the basics of the game and the lore of the world, resulting in unrealistic and often laughably bad dialogue such as “I have just found a common sword” or multiple scenes where the protagonist recites the history of the world to himself in the most bizarre and expository way.
Fictional Example (To Avoid Spoilers).
Many characters in Testament: The Order of High Humans speak as if they have never even heard English spoken before, and those who speak English well have the same passion and intonation as Napoleon Dynamite.
During a climatic scene that saw Aran face off against his brother Arva, I could not keep a straight face as the two brothers exchanged statements that often barely meshed together and were spoken in the most monotone manner possible, all in all, a dreadful experience for someone like me, who often enjoys the narratives in indie games, even if they lack the polish of AAA titles.
Testament: The Order of High Human is one of the most boring games I have ever played, and almost nothing about it (apart from its visuals) interests me in the slightest, and I am not alone in feeling like this, with many Steam reviews commenting how Testament: The Order of High Human is “very boring” and “one of the most boring games they have ever played”.
While I would not go that far, I will say there are very few games I have reviewed in the past six years that have interested me less, and once I finish this review, I will be uninstalling Testament: The Order of High Human, never to touch it again.
Image credit Testament: The Order of High Human - Published and developed by Fairyship Games.
After failing to sell more than a few hundred copies at launch, the developers drastically slashed the price of Testament: The Order of High Human to make it more appealing; however, this has also failed to attract buyers, with Testament: The Order of High Human currently having 0 players online, with a 24-hour peak of just six players, ensuring that whatever needs fixing is unlikely to be fixed due to the developers lacking the funding to do so.
The protagonist looks like Nicolas Cage, which, while not affecting anything meaningful, is worth mentioning.
Who doesn’t want to spend 40+ hours playing a character who looks like Nicolas Cage and sounds like Napoleon Dynamite? Gosh!
Image credit Testament: The Order of High Human - Published and developed by Fairyship Games.
Testament: The Order of High Human is a action video game developed and published by Fairyship Games, it was released on 13 July 2023 and retails for $19.99.
Testament: The Order of High Human is available exclusively on PC.
On average Testament: The Order of High Human takes between 40 and 50 hours to complete.
Estimated completion times are derived from various sources and may vary based on the skill level of each player.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Testament: The Order of High Human is unrated and contains the following:
While Testament: The Order of High Human looks great for an indie title, and despite the horrendous voice acting has decent lore and world-building, I cannot recommend it with so many better and often cheaper alternatives on the market such as Witcher 3 and Skyrim which can often be purchased for less than $10 multiple times a year.
