Today, we are taking a look at AI Limit, a Souls-like hack-and-slash set in a post-apocalyptic world. In this despair-filled adventure, players seek to find the origin of a mysterious substance known as Mud, which has taken over all natural life and water sources, leaving humanity on the brink of extinction.
AI Limit puts players in the shoes of Arrisa, an immortal blader looking for a way to save her doomed planet. Players must face massive machines that terrorize any who don’t worship them, while also dealing with a cancerous life form called Necro, which manifests into twisted abominations covered head to toe in sharp blades, who can also wield powerful void energy.
Developer Sense Games’ first-ever release is beyond ambitious, not only due to its genre, as souls-like fans are very specific about what they enjoy, but also due to its release date, which coincided with First Berserker: Khazan. Did this ballsy launch strategy pay off? Is AI Limit a Souls-like worthy of being compared to all-time greats such as Lies of P and Nioh? Read our full review to find out.
AI Limit
Developer: Sense Games
Publisher: CE-Asia
Platforms: PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows (Reviewed)
Release Date: March 27, 2025
Players: 1
Price: $34.99
AI Limit‘s main character has access to four different “stances,” which the player can freely switch between during combat. The two stances found early on are the most important ones, giving the player access to a block and parry, which will be your defensive bread and butter for most of the game
Despite giving the player defensive options early on, AI Limit is not a parry-centric game like Sekiro, instead giving players a Bloodborne-esque dodge that doesn’t cost stamina. The tradeoff is that dodge windows are very tight, and while blocking and parrying are generally safer, they consume a unique resource called sync rate.
The closest that AI Limit has to a stamina or posture system is the sync rate bar, which increases when the player deals damage and decreases when the player gets hit. The sync rate percentage directly affects damage dealt, and running out of sync locks you into a long stun animation. Sync rate can also be used to enhance spells, dealing extra damage on higher percentages.
Another unique mechanic is that AI Limit has no corpse runs, instead permanently taking away a percentage of the player’s crystals on death. This has the potential to be a brutal system, but the game allows players to purchase items with their crystals, which can then be sold again to vendors, creating a distinction between hard and soft currency, like we see with humanity in Dark Souls.
The player also has an infinite-use broken branch, allowing for a free return to the last branch rested in without losing anything. These systems are put in place to make sure the player can always back out during exploration to safely deposit their crystals before continuing, and that’s because AI Limit’s levels have brutal enemy placement at points.
Elite enemies often patrol together, frequently combo-ing players who can’t find a window to deal damage while being overwhelmed by barrages of attacks. Larger enemies are also incredibly threatening, usually dealing some sort of status damage or attacking very fast, so it’s nice that careful exploration is not only possible but also rewarded by the game.
AI Limit‘s levels are straightforward and fun to explore, but there are a couple of problems, especially pertaining to area distribution. It’s quite clear that this is a lower-budget game, so it can’t really do environments like the ones we’d see in a FromSoftware title, but the way it opts to weave the same areas over and over between each other is tiring.
The game is mostly divided between the sewer, sunken city, and outer walls levels, rotating in new parts of these areas for the player to explore one after the other. Constantly going back to the levels you already visited creates a weird sense of negative progression in the game, especially as you keep finding yourself in the same sewer that the game’s tutorial takes place in so many times.
There are a couple of interesting areas sprinkled in, though, like the Hagios Patir, a massive golden palace that could be considered AI Limit‘s Anor Londo. This is the one area where a second visit actually feels rewarding, as we get just a little taste of it halfway through the game and then come back to a much larger version of it for the finale.
As far as leveling up goes, the player has their usual choices between life, strength, technique, and spirit. Due to the game’s combat pacing, it might seem like a good idea to try a technique (dexterity) build, but the ratio between technique and strength weapons is rough in the early game.
Technique builds are not weak, but most weapons the player finds early on will fit either strength or quality builds. It’s really difficult to stick to your plan when you only have a few weapon choices for your build while carrying a full inventory of strength-scaling swords that you can’t use.
Weapon variety starts to get a little better about halfway through, but it makes for a bad first impression considering how stacked the early game is in favor of strength. It feels like the player is constantly being nudged towards a quality build, as weapon stat requirements are usually low and often share similar values for both strength and technique.
While the exploration and combat are generally fine, it’s during boss fights that AI Limit really gets to shine, featuring encounters against overwhelming monsters that constantly test the player’s mechanical understanding and reflexes.
Some of the best designs in the game belong to the necro and mech bosses, although AI Limit also sprinkles in a couple of humanoid fights to keep the player on their toes. They serve as a pretty adequate reward for slogging through the game’s repetitive areas, that is, if you have a Souls-like player’s masochistic understanding of what a reward is.
The boss weapons are also some of the most interesting ones available in the game, usually featuring incredibly good skills and doing great damage. One of the most popular ones seems to be the Pardoner Scythe, which gives players access to a massive spinning throw that hits enemies multiple times while also buffing your weapon with lightning damage for a short time.
Overall, AI Limit is a lukewarm take on the Souls-like formula, unfortunately failing to deliver on anything new while also constantly tripping over some of the basics expected from the genre. The above-average difficulty of its boss fights is one of the few things it has going on, alongside its creative use of an anime aesthetic for both characters and enemies.
The game’s lower budget clearly shows when it comes to its levels, which are tiring to go through after a while. The idea to stretch these areas so much feels like a misguided attempt at emulating the feel of a Metroidvania, but the lack of interesting interconnectivity makes that fall flat.
Players willing to put up with some repetitive exploration and rough enemy placements will be rewarded with fun boss fights and weapons that are exciting to use, but for the most part, AI Limit feels like a chore to play.
AI Limit was reviewed on Microsoft Windows using a game code provided by CE-Asia. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. AI Limit is available on PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows (through Steam).
