"Quiet and Falling" from Celeste on Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Windows, Google Stadia (2018) Composer: Lena Raine Album: Celeste Original Soundtrack Label: Bandcamp Publisher: Maddy Makes Games Developer: Maddy Makes Games
I do not have a lot of analysis on "Quiet and Falling" as I have only played through Chapter 5: Mirror Temple once. The music throughout the stages progresses through all of "Quiet and Falling" with the first half playing during the first quarter of the stage (depending on how much exploring and how frequently you die) and then transitions into the second half of the song. But this music, or at least the first half of the song really struck me as calming and soothing in a game where the gameplay is nearly the opposite. It is vaguely reminiscent of "Save Haven" from Resident Evil, and maybe that was playing a bit into why I was immediately drawn to this piece. In a game where I die between 70 - 525 times a level, having a nice bit of calming music was exactly what I needed after the stressfulness that was the wind-sweptness of Chapter 4: Golden Ridge and the death chasm that was Chapter 3: Celestial Resort.
Just a calming piece of music that we all sometimes need to keep that feather aloft.
Not having played Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire but knowing that ships are heavily involved in the story, when this song came up while listening to the soundtrack, I literally lol'd. Not out of malice or mean-spiritedness, but because I was not expecting a sea shanty to be parodied/rearranged as well as it is done here. I love the recording quality as if it had been done in the back room of a tavern just before it opens, although the acoustics are slightly better than what you might find among the islands in the Deadfire.
I first heard the original song, "Santianna, " a couple years back when Conklederp first started playing it for The Squire, but the version I had heard was performed by The Longest Johns featuring Justine Galmiche from the group SKÁLD. So hearing a new version of this song sung primarily in English was a little strange, but there are location, person, and ship references scattered all throughout "Aim Spirente," so it is somewhat like its own language. Kinda? I dunno.
I just love a good sea shanty, so don't be surprised if we up and use another song from this album in the coming months.
Beat Saber is a strange beast on top of a rhythm game and trying to write about one particular song can become complicated when you take into account the difficulty level that is being played. On its own "Burning Sands" is a fun song on its own, but playing it in Beat Saber does add a certain level of involvement that I don't feel when listening to the song (similar to the songs in Ragnarock, and probably other rhythm games now that I think about it). Currently, I have progressed skill-wise in Beat Saber to play "Burning Sands" on Expert level difficulty, which I have found is still fun to play and enjoy the song at the same time. This is very important because I have found that the mapping of the beat blocks can emphasize different parts of the song depending on the difficulty and a song that has overly difficult or oddly place beat blocks, even on easier difficulties can taint the song; such was the case with "Burning Sands."
On the Easy and Normal difficulty settings, this was just another techno-esque dance club song that I would play just to clear it on a difficulty setting and to say that I had. Once I played it in multiplayer on Expert though (because songs don't stop in multiplayer like they do in single-player if you miss too many beat blocks) the song really clicked for me. I enjoyed how the beat blocks accompanied the song and how the sound of the beat blocks being swiped both matched the music and acted as an additional accompaniment in different sections.
Like a lot of the songs that I have played and completed on Expert in single-player, I have found that I sometimes just have to turn my brain off and just react while slicing through the beat blocks. If I end up focusing too much on a particular block, as this song has an average of 4.26 notes per second, then you can quickly get lost, miss beat blocks left and right, and quickly lose the stage. Normally I can consistently make it to the two-minute mark, and that is where the difficulty ramps up and I just have to react, otherwise, I end up missing too many beat blocks to continue. What is crazy too is that this section only lasts 30 seconds (or 127.8ish beats) but in-game it feels like more than only 13% of the song. The payoff though is that from 2:30 to 3:00 there is a little bit of a respite but the music has built up to something out of a climactic chase sequence from The (only good) Mummy, and then goes back to the crazy left-arm-under-cut thing that apparently only happens on Expert; I haven't come across that particular move in other songs and it definitely adds to the uniqueness of this song. But then the section at 2:37 in the song (and about 2:45 in my video) comes at you pretty quickly and can knock you out of the game/song just as quickly too.
It's just a really fun song to play, especially on Expert once I was able to get some of the moves down, and I am a bit terrified after watching some of what the Expert+ difficulty stage looks like. Yeesh.
I chose this song from EqqO for two reasons. The first is that upon listening to the entire soundtrack, this was the song that stuck out in my mind as one that I could recall while playing the game. That is not to say that the rest of the music was not memorable, just that the music is so integrated with each stage in the game that it is difficult to think of the game without music. The second is that I love the simplicity of the song as a whole. It is just the composer Nicolas Bredin playing the guitar. That is it. I love the melody, which in my headcanon is Eqqo's Theme, even if there is not specifically an "Eqqo's Theme" titled song.
I do not recall hearing this theme again in the soundtrack and I have not finished the game yet so I do not know if this theme is used again outside of the menu. But I am comforted that every time I have turned the game one, that I am greeted with this serene menu theme, which is a great place to start in this somewhat melancholy yet hopeful tale.
I wanted to have a Game EXP article written and ready for last Friday. Then that date changed to today's Friday. That still is not happening because in Goetia, a game that I thought might take upwards of 6.5 - 8 hours, has currently taken me over 5 hours and I look to be only 40% of the way through, and at times I feel like it might end up taking more than 10 hours. Which is not a bad thing considering my usual slower-than-usual play style.
I am torn. I love the visual aesthetic, I love the referenced source material, I love the story, but playing the game is mentally draining and there have been times when I have consciously not wanted to jump in and play.
Goetia (Go-eh-tee-uh as it is pronounced in Greek where the word originates, as opposed to being pronounced Go-ee-shuh as it is often pronounced in occult circles) is a point-and-click adventure and mystery game developed by Sushee and released on multiple platforms in 2015 and ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2018, which is the system that I played it on. This was one of those games that pulled me in because of the name, the banner in the eShop, and the low (probably around $1) price tag when I bought it. Finding out that it did include artwork and actual sigils from "The Lesser Key of Soloman" was an added bonus.
Goetia is notoriously difficult, possibly made even more difficult by the fact that I have been playing in handheld mode, so noticing visual environmental and puzzle related cues are sometimes lost on me. The number of times that I have missed stairs or a ladder in a house (signaling that there is an upstairs/attic to explore) are somewhat frequent. In the room on the left, the stairs could be easily missed, especially with a lot of the rooms already being very dark and often using environmental lighting. Knowing that there is a little black tick mark on a scale and to place the right combination of objects on said scale without any other clue in a room was definitely lost on me as I thought the puzzle in that room had to do with being able to stack so many oddly shaped objects without them tipping over. I have talked a number of times about how my brain makes puzzles, especially in point-and-click games, a lot more complicated than they actually are, and in Goetia that is definitely true as well.
Then there is the issue that I have with too much of the game being accessible. When you start the game, you are limited to the number of rooms and areas you are able to explore. You are blocked from areas by locked doors and occultist sigils barring you from passing through to other areas of the main mansion. Then, in what seemed like a very quick series of events, more of the house opened up, access to a forest (outside of the mansion) opened up, a village in the opposite direction of the mansion and forest opened up, and I stumbled into a picture (kinda Mary Poppins style) where you could dive into other paintings and pictures, essentially being a new full-on multi-screen area. I was a little overwhelmed with access to all of these new areas and having access to items I still did not have use for. Mental strain abound trying to keep track of all of the rooms I now had access to as well as what objects I could posses
The second issue I take with the game is when you find notes and letters, you see pages with the text printed in books or handwritten letters. In a lot of games that have this visual feature, there is the option to bring a sans-serif text of what is written, partly because reading and processing some handwriting can be difficult, but especially on the Switch's screen, it makes reading a digital font quite the strain on my lil' peepers, and there might even be something about retaining information if you read in a font that is not a serif font.
But despite game feeling like it is a trudge to play at times and difficult to read had written notes and small text, Sushee thankfully integrated the use of the Select Button (is it still called the Select Button or just the "- Button") to bring up little magnifying glasses over objects you can interact with. While there are occasionally are objects on screen that glow and have sparkle-like sparkles coming off of them (signifying that they are items that will end up in your recorded notes inventory), some items blend in perfectly with the rest of the background. While you could just run the cursor over the screen and inevitably find something to interact with, there are times when there are multiple object so close to each other that it would be easy to not realize that the radio and the paper on the desk are selectable.
I am actually enjoying Goetia when I get into the flow of the game, usually when I am exploring a new are and everything is brand new. It is when have been in an area for a while and I have a couple puzzles that I know exist but do not know how to complete that I become exhausted. Even before I boot up the game, knowing that I have left so many puzzles unsolved can be a deterrent to turning the game on and instead playing either Super Mario Bros. 35 or booting up Castlevania again for the umpeetnth time just to play up to the third stage. But I will finish Goetia because I am interested in the story and how it incorporates the "Lesser Key of Soloman" in a way that is usually left to independent and art house movies that most major studios would never go near.
I participated in a brief discussion last week about how listening to music, specifically video game soundtracks, that you are not familiar with can help with focusing and mindfulness; not so much me discussing it as it was someone else and I agreed with their statement. I had this in mind while listening to the music from Warframe, a free-to-play online co-op (optional) loot-shooter developed by Digital Extremes. I started Warframe shortly after it was available on the Switch just to see what it was like, although I have not played past the prologue/introductory/tutorial stage so I have zero context for how "This Is What You Are" plays into the game, and that is why I wanted to feature it in today's article.
To me, the opening of the song evokes the loneliness Jerry Goldsmith's score establishing the universe in Alien, but then once the vocals come in at 0:26, then it takes on a life all of its own. At least for me as nothing comes up as sounding derivative from that point on. There an orchestra, there are drums (as in drums being a featured instrument, a choir, it has the works, which is a great way to start off a soundtrack. Kind of what was being talked about was that this song, for me, hit a lot of figurative notes and I immediately really liked this song, even on the initial listen, without having any nostalgia or in-game context. You know, I should just redownload Warframe and give that game another attempt. It's not like it sounds like it would be a long game to play, right? ~JWfW/JDub/Cooking Crack/Jaconian Instrumental
I played and finished Old Man's Journey last week, although I ended up listening to the soundtrack the day after I started and finished the first area and quickly fell in love with "Into the Water." This song accompanies the second stage in the game, when the Old Man journies away from the hotel, through the countryside, falls down no fewer than four waterfalls, then watches as an old boat is pulled out of the water. That is pretty much the entire level, which could be played during the entirety of the song without it repeating. Then the last section of the song (~3:26) is the music that plays during the end of the level flashback, which then returns to the normal song when the memory is over.
Another thing I love about this song is the instrumentation. That it could be a couple people sitting around a table or in a living room, just jamming on their respective instruments. Maybe reminiscing about the old times? Then the audio quality at the end of the song during the memory section, sounding like it is being played from a slightly warped and scratched record, maybe recently discovered stashed in the back of a cabinet for the last 30 years and newly discovered is a really nice touch.
That's really all I have on this song. It's fun and a nice contrast to the environmental puzzles in Old Man's Journey becoming ever so slightly more difficult as you progress through the game (and panic as the Old Man falls down yet another waterfall and you wonder how he has not yet broken a hip).
It has been a while since I first/last played Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, the 8-bit-ish story involving a lot of the same characters in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. I do love a lot of the music that Michiru Yamane and Ippo Yamada composed for the game and today we are featuring one of the songs composed by Ippo Yamada. "Echoes of Sorrow" occurs during the fourth stage in the game after you have encountered all three of the other characters that Zangetsu meets on his journey. I do not know if potentially having a full party was taken into account when using this music, although if there was this thought, it might have been more of a heroic than the melody actually is That is not to say that the music is less catchy because it does not have a "The Ring Goes South" hook to it, but the melody from 0:23 is when my ears perk up.
That is really all I have for this song. I did not intentionally choose a song that was not composed by Castlevania veteran Michiru Yamane and in the process, I am glad that I have learned the name of Ippo Yamada.
First off, there are going to be story spoilers for Primrose's story, so if you do not want to know anything about her story and how it progresses, just enjoy the music and know that you will hear the song in its context late in the game and you will not be disappointed.
I love this song. It first cropped up for me while finishing Primrose's story during the final boss battle. What was so surprising, was that that, as you can tell, it is not traditional boss battle style music. Something about Primrose's story arch, and how her final confrontation with Simeon turns out, I was just floored by the emotional impact it left me with. The melody is simple, yet effective in conveying the feeling of being determined to finish what you set out to do all those months/years ago. I was then a little saddened when you fight Simeon for what is actually the last and final time and the more traditional boss battle music is used, which to me made this music that played during what turned out to be the penultimate encounter a little less impactful.
That being said, this song does crop up during the 4th chapter for a couple of other characters, but it never reached that level of "holy damn this is amazing" that it did during Primrose's penultimate battle. I really wish that that one battle was the only time that this song was used, but I can understand placing it in a few other sections of the game, especially if you decide to only playthrough one character and do not visit the chapters for any of the other characters. I also think that because when and where I heard it in Primrose's chapter, that that specific moment had a direct impact on this song and how I viewed it. Perhaps if I had first heard it in Cyrus or Alfyn's 4th chapter I might feel differently.
But regardless of how/when you first heard this song in Octopath Traveler, I would be surprised if it did not leave a lasting impression on you as well.
What I love about this song is how quiet and serene it is at the start along with the "ahhing" vapers of voices that take advantage of the stereo audio, similar to how binaural audio is used throughout the game. But then about halfway through the song, you get guttural singing that fits very well within the game. I am pretty sure this song crops up earlier in the narrative, but it wasn't until maybe halfway through the game that this song really struck me. There is the section after you fight your way along the bridge over the River of Knives towards Helheim, you pass through a door and are immediately attacked by one of the larger Northmen, the Keep Guard. When I was playing, this song from 1:24 seemed to come up right at the start of the battle with the Keep Guard and continued through until the Keep Guard was killed, even though the battle continued on against other weaker Northmen. In the song though, the singing starts around 1:04 and really comes to the fore at 1:24, but then stops a fades out about 30 seconds later. I did watch a walkthrough of the PS4 version and the music was not synced up the same way it was when I played through. I do not know if this is something that happens only on the Switch version, or if I happened to do something that made it happen, but whatever the reason, hearing the vocals loop through the entire battle with the Guard Keep was particularly epic, making what could have been another run-of-the-mill battle into something that seemed a lot grander. The other possible but less probable answer is that I was able to defeat the Keep Guard in fewer than 30 seconds. I prefer to think of the more dynamic and epic possibility, because Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice was just that, epic and moving, to say the least. ~JWfW/JDub/Cooking Crack/Jaconian All is Calm
I picked up The Way Remastered by SONKA on the Nintendo Switch back in November of last year, and along with a handful of other games, I finally finished it; finished it quite a while back in fact. The main hold up to finishing the game was one particular puzzle about halfway through the game; I will get to this puzzle a bit later, but I just wanted to bring it up at the start since it was something that nearly kept me from completing the game. If you are not familiar with this game, I recommend you read the First Impressions article I wrote last December to get you up to speed because this ship is 'bout ready to leave the space port!
Maps Are Always a Good Thing. Especially in Unfamiliar Space Ports. That You're Breaking Into.
[I also wanted to note that I ended up taking very few pictures after I finished with the puzzle mentioned below. I think I just ended up being too engrossed in the game itself and not really thinking about what I might need for this article (which is probably another reason why it has taken me so long to write). I ended up stealing/borrowing the last two screen shots from CMD07's walkthrough (with their permission) when needed, since they also played the Switch version.]
So now that you are all caught up-to-date with my trials and tribulations with I. The Abyss, I will say that someone over on Reddit helped by sending screen caps of each solution to the four different mirror puzzles. Then when I decided to pick up the game again, I realized I was on our couch away from my computer and my phone does not have access to Reddit (which is probably a good thing) so I ended up fuddling my way through the puzzle to the solution. And you know, now that I know the solution and really paid attention to how to solve the puzzle, I was quickly (relatively speaking) able to figure out the remaining puzzles. Kinda made me feel like a bit of an idiot.
I. The Abyss
And really, apart from I. The Abyss, the remaining puzzles while not easy, did not cause me as much anxiety or frustration with the precision needed that the Switch controller (or probably really any controller for that matter except maybe the Steam Controller) was not able to muster. There was two other puzzles that I could not initially figure out, one due to the screen/area being very dark (even after turning the brightness all the way up), and only after watching (another) walkthrough on YouTube; the second was not recognizing what I was supposed to be doing was not too clear. That was it really as far as difficulty goes. There were a couple of times I did get turned around and lost, but most of the levels in the game are linear, so after some backtracking I managed to figure out what I was supposed to do in order to continue. I do not recall there being any other issues I had with the game. It was during this, I Need Help phase, that I learned about how the Remastered version differed from the original game. From what I gathered, one of the biggest changes was to the omni-tool you pick up during the second third of the game. In the original, there was an energy bar which was drained with each use, and then would slowly fill back up. In the Remastered version on the Switch, you could use the omni-tool as frequently as possible. This definitely made figuring out puzzles like I. The Abyss a lot easier since I did not have to sit and wait for the tool to fully recharge before attempting the puzzle again. I can understand the reason for the tool to have an energy meter, but eliminating it definitely felt like an improvement. It is also mentioned on the game's eShop page that there were some ". . .level design changes based on players' feedback." It was also pointed out to me that there were some puzzles that were taken out in their entirety due to feedback, which is probably what the level design changes were all about. Speculation though. There was one section in the game that felt like it might have originally been a bit more action oriented (but I was glad that it was not). During this section (as pictured below), your character was being hunted by multiple enemies, but since the game operates closer to a point-and-click adventure game than it is like Mega Man or Metroid, the slow paced events operated more like a 2D side scrolling Portal, were still a lot of fun. I was actually thankful that it was not as action-y as it could have been exceedingly difficult and taken away from the fun that I had with the majority of the game. Coincidentally, this was the same section that I used the music from in the MIDI Week Singles back in February. It was then that I entered into a conversation (via Twitter DMs) with the composer Panu Talus about "Untitled Improvisation 2011" being included in the game instead of the song that was originally written for this section.
Who needs weapons when you have a shield!? (Screen Capture Taken from CMD07's Walkthrough).
And speaking of lack of action in the game, I have read some localized upset voices about how the game ends, in that seemingly out of nowhere the game kind of turned into a bullet-hell-type shooter/avoider. I admit that this style of play did not seem to fit within how the rest of the game operated (almost that traditional game elements were shoehorned into the finished product) but after two or three retries I was able to finish the game. While it was quite different from the rest of the game, I felt that with the right frame of mind, it could fit into the overall story the game was telling. And that really is what the game boiled down to for me, the story. There were times when it felt like all I was doing was going from Point A to Point C by way of Point B. But there were so many moments that came about naturally that reminded the player why the character was on their mission. That being said, there were a couple of areas in the late game that felt like they could have been trimmed a bit. Being so close to what felt like the end of the game, and having to play through platforming elements that were a callback to all that you learned earlier in the game did feel a little bit like padding.
More Platforming Action Which May or May Not Be for Padding (Taken from CMD07's Walkthrough)
In the end, I believe I ended up with the "not-so-great" ending thinking that that was what I might have done in the situation presented at the end of the game. I did save the game right before committing to the decision but when I chose the different of the two options I still ended up with the same ending. I feel like this might either be a glitch or something programmed into the game to prevent what I tried to do because I have seen screenshots of the other ending and it was different. I guess I would need to play through the game all over again? Although composer Panu Talus has suggested that when/if I replay The Way, that I play the PC version that's available on Steam in order to play the game in its original form. Which I may end up doing, but not today. I might need some more time before tackling this emotional journey again*. ~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian Everything's Alright *P.S. I would also not look forward to completing all three of the trials, of which I. The Abyss is a part of all that.
If you are only familiar with Jason Graves from his amazing work on the Dead Space soundtracks, then not only are you missing out on some fantastically serene music here, but like me until semi-recently, you may have unintentionally written him off as someone who primarily scores dramatic music to be played while ripping through a malformed mass of flesh and bone; the track "Sarffog's Domain" does contain some glints of Mr. Grave's past with the Dead Space series though.
Moss is a game that I have not played, but just listening to this soundtrack has made me seriously consider (just casually) picking up an Occulus Quest (because we obviously have $499 just sitting around with nothing else to do with it). I do not even know how "Last Respite" fits into the context of the game, but the title alone is a bit foreboding. And if this is the last time that our little mouse protagonist is able to take a breath before the finale happens, then it this is something that would remind me of the peace a quiet of home. Basically Hobbiton.
There are two primary aspects of this song that first pulled me in. The first was the warmth of the solo flute at the beginning of the song. I can clearly picture a person sitting next to a glowing fireplace in a cabin-type setting playing this melody. Then a [instrument] comes into view , The second is the melody itself, and how the it dips down to the leading tone before it resolving back up to the tonic (the resolution note). I am actually going to stop the explanation there as my music theory is about 21 years rusty.
You know what, I am just going to stop writing alltogether as I feel the more I try to explain this particular piece, the more it will come across like trying to explain a perfectly crafted joke. So listen to the song if you are trying to figure out what I am babbling about. And after that, listen to the rest of the soundtrack.
I do not know if this song crops up anywhere else in Octopath Traveler or if Duskbarrow is the only town/place where My Quiet Forest Home" plays, or maybe I was just in the right mind-space after running away from battle after battle in order to get through a forested region that was full of monsters 5-21 levels higher than my party members. Whatever the reason was, this track hit me like a calming wave of contentment, and despite not actually being able to do or afford or do much in Duskbarrow, I wanted to stay.
Everything about this song is peaceful and serene, with no noticeable undercurrent of impending dread lurking around the corner. From the opening theme-lette on the piano to the what I will call a cello bringing a soulful and heartfelt melody, I love everything about this song. Maybe I am getting too sappy, but when the song loops back to the beginning and the piano is once again playing by itself, to me it is saying, just as the cello starts again, "Remember, this is why you're here." I don't really know why that phrase pops into my head during this one specific section of the song, but it just does, and it makes me happy.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Across an Endless Horizon P.S. Now I need to listen to more of Yasunori Nishki's music to find out why I get massive Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda vibes (unrelated to the fact that Octopath Traveler's visual style is reminiscent of Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger).
First off, I have not played Gris, although it is very much on my radar and a game that I am definitely going to get around to playing. And this track from the soundtrack only cements that desire to play even more so.
From about 1:18 when the synth-sounding instrument comes in and I start getting Blade Runner vibes, to 1:35ish when the organ comes in and the song continues to build and build, I kind of wish that it would continue to build in strength and emotion for another 10 minutes. Maybe akin to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings? But I am willing to guess that the sudden die off around the two minute mark is related to in-game events and letting that build up of emotion hang there in the air, as opposed to cutting the song off so that the loop back to the beginning is less obvious?
The point is, this song is gorgeously beautiful and now I am having to stay myself from just outright buying the game. Maybe next month. And do not be surprised to find another track from Gris featured in our MIDI Week Singles in the coming year.
Fall of Light: Darkest Edition by RuneHeads for the Nintendo Switch is the game that I decided to select as my #DiscoverIndies title for March. Presently, I have put in 6 hours 23 minutes, I have died 35 times (the game keeps track in an interesting manner), and I still have three main artifact-like objects to collect before finishing the game. I purchased the game through Nintendo's eShop on Friday March 1st when it was on sale for $4.99 instead of its standard MSRP of $14.99. While I played the game on the Switch, it is also available through Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
The research I did in the days leading up to Friday March 1st, consisted of scrolling through the eShop while on the Switch and sorted the games by cost, specifically the $0.00 - $9.99 range, mainly because I am not made of cash, and I feel that indie games that are independently published in this price range could possibly use some market share; although you could argue that higher priced indie games need more word of mouth because they are more expensive. Either way, that was how I set my initial search perimeters. I then did searches on YouTube, Metacritic, GameFAQS, Wikipedia, Google, and HowLongToBeat in order to help determine its "under the radar" factor, and after that initial search for Fall of Light, I thought that despite the fewer than 10 ratings on Metacritic, that there might already be enough people out there talking about this game; I was also looking at four other games that I decided against, so it was not just a one game search fest. Then on Friday, being the start of the #DiscoverIndies weekend I looked at what other games people were playing (or at least posting about). I am in no way going to shame anyone for their choice of game as I know there would probably be people shaming me for my choice, but I did see some games that I have seen posted (semi-frequently) about before. Then my brain went right back to Fall of Light and thought that I would still like to play this game for this month's event. So I did.
I knew a bit going into the game, even by the trailer, that Fall of Light felt like an isometric Dark Souls, which was something that I was perfectly okay with. The developers, RuneHeads, readily admit that Fall of Light was inspired by Dark Souls and ICO(although I was not familiar with the PlayStation 3 game before writing this article, although the name is vaguely familiar) and thankfully they do so because if they did not, then this game flies way over homage and into the realm of sad hilarity. This is not to say that game comes across as a parody or attempting to steal assets from either ICO or Dark Souls, but there are a fair amount of similarities even if the games themselves are fairly different. Everything from a cryptic lore-laden introduction that leaves a lot of unanswered questions, to tflaming text on the ground giving in-game help about kindling bonfires as safe places. RuneHeads seems very aware of their target audience, but while the game is heavily speckled with references and homages to Dark Souls, the player is not expected or required to have any of that knowledge going into the game.
Hokay, so all of that aside, let me briefly talk about the game, what I have played, what I like, and what I do not.
As mentioned above, I have played for 6 hours and 23 minutes and have, at present, died 35 times. What I like about the way the game keeps track of your deaths is through cycles; the screenshot to the left was when I died for a fourth time. What really intrigues me is the choice of wording here. What exactly do cycles have to do with the overarching mythology and lore of this world? Am I thinking too hard into the wording here? Will something happen when I hit Cycle 50, or Cycle 100. I am a little afraid that if I do hit either of those milestones, and having played Dark Souls I can say that this is a real possibility, that I may have to start over from the beginning, although there is no hint that that will be the case.
Lock-On Targeting is not required for the crossbow, but it certainly helps,
but it does reduce range.
One mechanic of the game that I do like, although it first took me by surprise and now I appreciate. When you start the game, you find a standard long sword and a round shield. As the game progresses, you do find other weapons to equip yourself, but that was when I found out that you only have two weapon slots in your inventory. So by the point in the game when I found a dagger that glowed red presumably with a poison ability, I already had the beginning long sword, and a crossbow. I told myself that I liked the reach of the long sword coupled with the defensiveness of the shield (which could also be used with the dagger), and I loved the ranged option of the crossbow. So I left the dagger on the ground. Then a few hours later, I found a two handed bastard sword. At this point, I told myself that unless I switched my weapon, I would be relegating myself to what essentially was the starter set. At the moment I have now moved on from the bastard sword and taken up the halberd (thinking again about my Dark Souls character using the Black Knight Halberd. I am very excited to see what other weapons the game offers.
One interesting mechanic (interesting if you are not familiar with ICO like me), is that you can take the hand of your daughter to lead her through the areas. At first I did not see the benefit of this since she follows you anyway, and whenever there is a battle, she hunkers down in the fetal position and, for the most part, is mostly safe. Then I came to an area that included traps, and hand holding all of a sudden made sense. But, it did not immediately click because as I avoided the shooting dart trap, the daughter was hit. Thankfully though, her ashes/spirit (see below) respawned outside of the area of effect for the trap so I did not have to time the trap along with the animation in order to still be safe. I also thought it was pretty cool that when you sprint while holding her hand, she will eventually lose her grip on your hand and fall, so constantly sprinting away from danger is not always an option. Lastly, the game makes great use of particle effects, used most of the time when you go to resurrect your daughter after she is killed. And the clip below is from the very beginning of the game, so there are not any spoilers here, other than the advice that you can fall off cliffs and die.
At the moment, I cannot think of anything about the game that I specifically do not like. Sure, the game does get pretty pixely when there is a lot going on on screen, and you can notice in the above clip that the text does appear pretty blurry, but not so much that it is illegible. I have also noticed some frame-rate drops, which could either be from me playing in hand-held mode (which means I should probably give docked-mode a try before I write the Game EXP article), but neither of those two factors make the game feel unplayable. Maybe it is a result of Digerati's porting to the Switch? The area I am currently in is pretty big and I am a little afraid of getting lost/confused/turned around, but that will just end up being more familiar with the area/world. So for the most part, I have been very happy with my selection and will find the time to complete it, hopefully before the end of the month.
