Shaun Munro reviews Solar Ash…
Though there’s only one Shadow of the Colossus, countless indie actioners have tried to prove otherwise in recent years, taking Team Ico’s deliciously singular schematic – kill a series of epic bosses in a beautiful, mysterious land – and offering up their own twists.
The latest is Solar Ash from Hyper Light Drifter developers Heart Machine, which matches its intoxicating presentation at all turns with patience-testing gameplay that serves to contradict the breezy action-platformer vibe it clearly wants to evoke.
Solar Ash takes place in a world-eating black hole known as the Ultravoid, which Voidrunner protagonist Rei is desperately charged with stopping. Rei’s key to progress lies in tracking down the Ultravoid’s gigantic guardians known as Remnants, for each one she slays brings her closer to learning the truth at the Ultravoid’s epicenter.
To that end, the game’s loop largely involves defeating the boss Remnants spread across the various diverse hub worlds. The Remnants are unlocked by first completing a number of traversal mini-games in each world, typically involving slashing your way through a sequence of cosmic protrusions in order before a timer runs out. Similarly, the bosses each consist of three stages with similar slash-the-pole mini-games, albeit with an added vertiginous twist.
With its lush, inviting world and mammoth bosses which must be scaled to be defeated, it’s difficult not to see the similarities to Shadow of the Colossus, even if there are obviously stark differences too. Unfortunately, though, Solar Ash’s gameplay lacks the same compulsive tension, excitement, and intrigue; this is more a game that kinda-works in spite of how frustrating it can be.
Given that Solar Ash is centered almost entirely around traversal, it’s vitally important that it feels fluid in the moment-to-moment movement, which sadly isn’t the case. There’s an irritating looseness to Rei’s movements throughout which makes even basic platforming annoyingly fiddly.
Flying between platforms should be breathlessly enjoyable, but instead I found myself constantly fretting about compensating for the unresponsive controls, and when you throw in a timer for basically all of the story progression elements – both mini-games and boss fights – it isn’t long before resentment sets in.
Compounding these issues is the fact that Solar Ash is also heavily reliant on trial-and-error gameplay, whereby you’ll find yourself repeating skate-and-slash sequences numerous times until you finally nail them. And while most of these sequences aren’t inherently that difficult, the clumsy controls and often ill-placed camera may leave you failing and feeling that it’s more the game’s fault than your own.
This also transpires through to the game’s combat, which is more functional than inspired. Though Rei has the ability to slow down time temporarily, and there are plentiful checkpoints to ensure you’re rarely thrown far away from your death site, I found myself often dying due to the controls’ lack of responsiveness or a crowded camera not giving me a fair shot.
On top of this there’s a disappointing transparency to just how repetitive the central gameplay loop is; complete a few mini-games, fight the boss, watch a brief story scene, and get spat back out to repeat it in the next hub. Given the dev team’s pedigree it’s a little underwhelming, even low-effort, to so blatantly comprise almost the entire game of the same not-terribly-interesting, mechanical series of interactions.
Also, if we’re continuing the Shadow of the Colossus comparisons, Solar Ash sorely wants for that game’s enigmatic mystery, opting instead for a verbose vomit of noun-soup from almost its very first moments. Though the voice acting is generally very good throughout, the story itself is fairly formulaic for the genre and told here largely through expository info-dumps.
It’s a shame that the narrative can’t live up to a world that’s teeming with so much personality. Though there are logs and other accoutrements players can find to flesh it all out, ultimately the storytelling feels more a half-baked fringe; an arbitrary accompaniment to the gameplay. Yet with the gameplay itself also suffering from major structural flaws, it’s tough to enthusiastically recommend Solar Ash even as a purely gameplay-driven affair.
It is, again, a visual stunner, though; in every single moment there are so many lush details to drink in. It’s undeniable that Love Machine put a heroic amount of effort into ensuring this world is a joy to reside within, even accepting the game’s many flaws. The so-good-you-could-eat-it visuals are also accompanied by a moody, ethereal musical score throughout.
By the end of my six-ish hours with this game, I was so incredibly divided; in awe of its eye-wateringly impressive 4K visuals, but crestfallen that its clumsy gameplay simply couldn’t measure up. As maddening as it is beautiful, Solar Ash’s gorgeous aesthetic is thoroughly undermined by traversal mechanics that are neither fun nor intuitive.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t play the game, but that anyone hoping for a relaxing trip to an alien world should prepare for more blood pressure-raising frustration than expected.
Pros:
+ Fantastic art style and presentation.
+ Atmospheric musical score.
+ Solid voice acting.
Cons:
– Traversal is fiddly and clunky.
– Trial-and-error gameplay is frustrating.
– Central gameplay loop is extremely repetitive.
– Mostly forgettable story and characters.
Rating: 6/10
Reviewed on PS5 (also available for PS4 and PC).
A review code was provided by the publisher.
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more video game rambling, or e-mail me here.
