Have you noticed when you have a perfect walk? You are going somewhere (take your kids to school, go to town, go to the local store), and when you arrive, you realize that you have traffic. You never stop moving. You don’t have to stop and wait for traffic to cross the road. Children who do not ride bicycles force you into the bushes. There is no need to take evasive action against people who apparently did not receive a memorandum about Covid. This is a seamless, silky smooth walk. In the best case, Solar Ash is the way to walk. It’s a shame that in the end it feels like you have done the same walk too many times.
Solar Ash is the follow-up effort of Heart Machine, the developer of Hyper Light Drifter. In terms of appearance and gameplay, this is a very complete departure. It is a complete 3D action platform game, not a classic Zelda-style action adventure game. The world is completely exploreable and it is best to follow the rhythm. Your character Rei can slide like ice skating, double jumping, sprinting, slow speed and grappling. The moves you learn at the beginning of the game will be your moves throughout the journey, and this has its ups and downs.
Traveling around the world is quite leisurely, at least initially, there are only a few symbolic enemies to fight, but at the end of each area you will see you facing a huge creature. You use the same actions on these skeleton enemies, and because of the speed you need to perform, it’s easy to trip early on with different button commands. However, you will get better, so in the end you will become a professional player-this is not surprising, because you always use the same moves in the game.
I found that the game peaked near the midpoint. I have let go of control, I know what my character can do and how to best move fast in the world and on the back of giant creatures. I am a king. I found flow and fell in love with it. It’s like I’m playing one of those cool GIFs you see on Twitter, but you are never fun enough. Solar Ash makes you a GIF, which is really cool when you are in it. But the game went on, and then went on some more, and it didn’t change enough.
It’s not that “Gray of the Sun” is a particularly long game, but I find that as I get closer and closer to the end, the excitement of the gameplay gradually weakens. This is a pity, because you will eventually have to face a bigger and more difficult game. Impressive enemy. New mechanisms and obstacles have been introduced, such as dangerous water, various grinding rail variants, and suits with different abilities (this is not required, and many people will not get it), but the core cycle is always the same.
You enter an area (by the way, it looks beautiful-the game has won in this respect, a destroyed view that you often want to stare at), find the NPC that unlocks the location on the map, and scan the area that you are interested in area. Then, you must complete the mini-challenge, hitting a series of nodes in sequence while there is a time limit to get closer to the boss encounter. These node challenges, like boss battles, are where you can do some of the best platform acrobatics, but the fun will diminish after a while.
There are many story elements in the adventure, some are optional, but I find the character more interesting than the first task: Rei, a voidwalker, trying to save the world from Ultravoid. It just hangs there to give you a reason for what you are doing, but despite some reliable sound work, I am not that dedicated. Coupled with the general feeling of deja vu and the fairly simple battles, I feel that I am preparing for the last third of the game.
Solar Ash’s world design, smoothness of movement at its best, and the sense of scale displayed are all worthy of support, so it’s a bit painful to indulge in it like me. It’s not far from the kind of independent gem that everyone must play, but unfortunately it doesn’t exist completely. There is still a lot of fun here, the distance between you and the mechanic may be better, but for me, Solar Ash is very focused on providing traffic, it forgets that you don’t want to walk the same way every day.
Disclaimer: Tested on PS5. The game is provided by the publisher. It can also be used on PS4 and PC.
