Strayed Lights Cinematic Playthrough
0In the face of adversity, the best thing you can do is keep your calm... And feel the rhythm! Stay on your toes and match your foes in this stunning display of light-powered combat and adventure!
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00:00 - First Light
13:31 - Home
17:50 - Fear and Longing
38:30 - Primal Rage
56:32 - Asura's Wrath
1:13:51 - New Light
1:20:43 - Obfuscation
1:40:40 - Sage Advice
1:58:13 - A Short Hike
2:09:55 - Epilogue
Review: 2/5
Sometimes I’ll get into a mood where I want to wander and take in the sights, marvel at the world the developer has created, and just lose myself in a vibe for a little while. When I first saw Strayed Lights, that’s the exact kind of vibe that I saw in it, and I picked it up immediately. Unfortunately, it failed to scratch that itch by a pretty wide margin for me.
I’ll start with the positives before wading into the muck; Strayed Lights looks beautiful: the character designs are charming, there’s tons of vibrant color and scenery, and everything’s lit up and reactive, reminding me somewhat of Pandora’s forests from Avatar. I did find myself constantly flicking the camera around, trying to take in every piece of the world I was dropped in.
Musically as well, this game delivered. The ambience was actually the strongest part, which isn’t something I’d typically say, but it really lent itself well to the more lax traveling throughout the game and there were a few times I caught myself thinking, “Yeah, I’m gonna throw this in my background music strolling playlist.” The music set the tone for every encounter and cutscene super well, and I loved its composition.
Once I started playing the game more than looking at the game however, I found no shortage of flaws. Firstly, when I mentioned flicking my camera around and taking in the sights, I failed to mention that the sights were normally accompanied by a small bit of chugging and I’d lose a handful of frames occasionally. This is far from the most demanding game that my 3060 has seen, so I was pretty disappointed to find it struggling like that.
Also, the game is focused around one thing: you switch your character’s color between red and blue, and hit a parry button when hit with an attack of matching color in order to wear down the enemy’s stamina until you can deliver a finishing blow. This was fun the first couple of times I did it, and honestly for each boss fight, since they had their own movesets and arena, but I found myself dreading every single mob encounter. They were repetitive, boring, obnoxious, and really ruined the flow of the game for me. I think this game would’ve been much better served as a boss-only fighter, so you’re not given a chance to bore yourself with the combat mechanics, and are given a better chance to take in the environment.
Strayed Lights also features a skill tree, though for what purpose, I couldn’t tell you. There were a handful of upgrades and power-ups you could gain, but I can’t say any of them felt overly impactful, (minus one that made you gold and would counter any color attack when you parried; that was useful), but this feels like the type of game where I would’ve rather been given an upgrade or power after each boss fight, like I earned something. I’m not quite sure how to say it, but I was never particularly excited to spend my points.
Finally, the map was less than intuitive. There was a hub level that had several paths branching out from it, each leading to another level or boss, but the hub area looked very similar in most directions, and I found myself retreading more than I should’ve had to. It’s also entirely possible that I simply wasn’t paying enough attention to each path I went down, but then I’d raise the question of why I wasn’t engaged enough to care about my surroundings, since of course it could never be my fault and I played the game perfectly, as I always do.
It really felt like the devs were going for that very atmospheric and beautiful type of game, where the story is told more in vibes than particular plot points and dialogue, but due to a number of obstructing mechanics and enemies, it felt like a bit of a slog to finish, and my playtime came out to just over 2 hours, so that’s impressive. I think with games like these, you’re better off showing the player what you want to show, and do a better job of making them think the way you want them to think. With a few tweaks, I could see this being a great game in the ~ v i b e ~ genre, but as-is, I can’t recommend it.