having played hyper light drifter i definitely expected just as much subtlety in delivering an open ended story with gameplay that is so stressful in a good way it really reflects on how desperate you are to get a cure for whatever is killing you. this one isn't subtle, in fact you can figure out most of what's happening pretty quickly, and i guess the inclusion of voice acting can be to blame. i was a little sad that it isn't really a CHALLENGE, but i cant deny that despite that it was very funa nd satisfying to breeze through the bosses. and i cant deny that the artstyle in one of the most inspiring to me ive seen in a while. i just love heart machine's work!
i definitely wanted more than what i got, but what i got wasn't so bad so im not too mad about it
i definitely wanted more than what i got, but what i got wasn't so bad so im not too mad about it
Looks and feels amazing but lacks a strong narrative like Hyper Light Drifter. Bosses could've used more mechanical variety. Writing conflicts with its tone but personally I didn't mind.
I really wanted to be that guy for Solar Ash, the one person who champions a piece of media that received a fairly middling reception. Unfortunately, my feelings for it are much more, well, middling. If you were to take a scan of my brain, and somehow generate a game out of it, Solar Ash wouldn't be very far off. In concept, this game owns, but in practice it needs a lot more work.
The biggest mark against the game is a lack of mechanical progression. I had a moment during the final boss where I wondered whether the platforming I was doing was meaningfully more difficult than the platforming for the first boss. The spectacle has been enhanced, absolutely, but with how the game handles the majority of the steering and pathfinding to compensate for the massive shifting landscape, I don't believe the challenge had been meaningfully heightened.
Solar Ash has many of Hyper Light Drifter's qualities. The visual design is immaculate, same with the soundtrack. The control of your character is fun, responsive, and satisfying. The areas you explore are wonderfully designed, and sized perfectly to encourage exploration, with how fast you move. What Solar Ash lacks in comparison to Hyper Light Drifter, is a solid challenging core. HLD's combat was consistently engaging and challenging, ramped up over the course of the game, and had different ways for the player to express themselves through build options. Solar Ash's platforming doesn't stand up to this standard.
The biggest mark against the game is a lack of mechanical progression. I had a moment during the final boss where I wondered whether the platforming I was doing was meaningfully more difficult than the platforming for the first boss. The spectacle has been enhanced, absolutely, but with how the game handles the majority of the steering and pathfinding to compensate for the massive shifting landscape, I don't believe the challenge had been meaningfully heightened.
Solar Ash has many of Hyper Light Drifter's qualities. The visual design is immaculate, same with the soundtrack. The control of your character is fun, responsive, and satisfying. The areas you explore are wonderfully designed, and sized perfectly to encourage exploration, with how fast you move. What Solar Ash lacks in comparison to Hyper Light Drifter, is a solid challenging core. HLD's combat was consistently engaging and challenging, ramped up over the course of the game, and had different ways for the player to express themselves through build options. Solar Ash's platforming doesn't stand up to this standard.
The closest we'll get to another Shadow the Hedgehog game, Solar Ash is a 3D platformer where you travel across a... black hole I think? defeating creatures in an attempt to save your home. Let's start off with the positives. This game is really pretty. It has a very colorful and unique aesthetic with enough variety in its locales to keep things interesting. This concludes the things I liked about this game. That's not entirely fair, because I nearly like many aspects of this game, but they all ended up falling flat for me. The movement starts off enjoyable, but I found the platforming puzzles very tedious and imprecise. The story concept is interesting, but it isn't very deep and hard to follow. The combat seems quick and fast paced, but has annoying enemy designs and a bizarre health system. Across the board this is a game that I should've really enjoyed but I ended up forcing myself to finish. I'm sure there are some people out there who really enjoy this game, but it's certainly not for me.
Não tenho palavras pra descrever o que eu acabei de jogar.
Pra mim isso aqui é pura perfeição em jogo, as cores, os detalhes, as mecânicas de jogabilidade e a história, tudo é perfeito nesse jogo.
Agora eu entendo o porque de a Annapurna ser tão amada por todos, Solar ash resgatou em mim uma coisa que andei esquecendo a muito tempo, ter calma para jogar e apreciar cada momento da obra.
Eu não posso dizer muito da história se não eu taria dando um spoiler danado aqui, mas o que posso afirmar é que não tem como não gostar dela e a forma que a mesma é contada. Diferente de alguns jogos indies que te jogam no mundo sem saber o que ta rolando e deixa tu por ali assim mesmo sem contar nada, Solar Ash pega na tua mão e te ensina a caminhar lentamente entre as letras desse livro, mas não só caminhar, também aprender sobre cada frase que as letras formam, o que quero dizer é que ele ensina muito bem sobre a história dele e traz conceitos filosóficos interessantes que combinam total com a atmosfera que é implantada nele.
E a trilha sonora.. ahh a trilha sonora eu não posso deixar de citar, todos os momentos bons se tornaram melhores ainda por conta dela, NÃO JOGUE solar ash sem ouvir a trilha sonora, ela é muito boa e da sentimentos de alegria, tristeza e confusão de acordo com o cenário.
Enfim, melhor jogo indie que já joguei esse ano por enquanto TRANQUILAMENTE, um jogo com a dificuldade suave, sem complicações e sem estresse nenhum, só alegria.
Pra mim isso aqui é pura perfeição em jogo, as cores, os detalhes, as mecânicas de jogabilidade e a história, tudo é perfeito nesse jogo.
Agora eu entendo o porque de a Annapurna ser tão amada por todos, Solar ash resgatou em mim uma coisa que andei esquecendo a muito tempo, ter calma para jogar e apreciar cada momento da obra.
Eu não posso dizer muito da história se não eu taria dando um spoiler danado aqui, mas o que posso afirmar é que não tem como não gostar dela e a forma que a mesma é contada. Diferente de alguns jogos indies que te jogam no mundo sem saber o que ta rolando e deixa tu por ali assim mesmo sem contar nada, Solar Ash pega na tua mão e te ensina a caminhar lentamente entre as letras desse livro, mas não só caminhar, também aprender sobre cada frase que as letras formam, o que quero dizer é que ele ensina muito bem sobre a história dele e traz conceitos filosóficos interessantes que combinam total com a atmosfera que é implantada nele.
E a trilha sonora.. ahh a trilha sonora eu não posso deixar de citar, todos os momentos bons se tornaram melhores ainda por conta dela, NÃO JOGUE solar ash sem ouvir a trilha sonora, ela é muito boa e da sentimentos de alegria, tristeza e confusão de acordo com o cenário.
Enfim, melhor jogo indie que já joguei esse ano por enquanto TRANQUILAMENTE, um jogo com a dificuldade suave, sem complicações e sem estresse nenhum, só alegria.
Not dumb enough to be worthy of the Dreamcast.
Hyper light drifter + sonic frontiers + shadow of the colossus = fantastic game
I'm so sad this didn't make much of a splash, this fucking whips. Voice acting is a little clunky but this rules.
really fun to dash around and explore
(warning: kinda revealing on protagonist's role in the story, more implication than explicit, but)
An audio-visual masterpiece. The environments are gorgeous, so layered in scope. It's a pleasure to blast through the world, and even if the combat is a touch rote by the end, you can feel the effort and see the competent hands at work in every frame.
... I don't like the writing very much. I find myself longing for how muted Hyper Light Drifter was. I don't mind all of it. I mostly liked—if not loved—the performances, the secondary characters, the interstitials.
But the scattered storytelling afforded by audio logs you can technically collect in any order is genuinely a baffling choice. It necessitates an oblivious protagonist, at least as it's been executed here, and I had so much trouble connecting with Rei because of it. Her musings and observations are almost entirely divorced from the context of all the other things she's witnessed.
It's real armchair designer shit, but what this means to me is that she's not allowed to doubt her purpose. She's not allowed to sincerely interrogate what she's learning. She's accumulating discrete pieces of information, seemingly helpless to construct the bigger picture. Given the fraught nature of her mission, experiencing serious doubt about what's happening here is not only a sensible reaction, it's a prerequisite for a person to be believable.
I don't think it's a compelling way to frame your main character. I kept wanting Rei to follow a thought. You know? Like how you have a thought, and it establishes a chain of successive thoughts that leads you to something resembling a conclusion? You know, right? It's that thing people do. Even if it's a hassle sometimes, we more or less can't help it. She doesn't do that. Just flailing at an attempt would be enough.
She feels like a victim of the structure, a storyteller's pawn, not a person who makes choices.
And... even if there's an overriding reason for why she hardly ever reaches any conclusions, and she's simply deluding herself, I never got the sense that she's struggling with that delusion. I'd get it. I can understand what's going on, she can ignore the obvious, embroiled in that struggle. But that requires her to struggle.
Despite how overwhelmingly critical that all was, I did enjoy the game. It's worth playing just to see the space they've crafted. It's fantastic.
An audio-visual masterpiece. The environments are gorgeous, so layered in scope. It's a pleasure to blast through the world, and even if the combat is a touch rote by the end, you can feel the effort and see the competent hands at work in every frame.
... I don't like the writing very much. I find myself longing for how muted Hyper Light Drifter was. I don't mind all of it. I mostly liked—if not loved—the performances, the secondary characters, the interstitials.
But the scattered storytelling afforded by audio logs you can technically collect in any order is genuinely a baffling choice. It necessitates an oblivious protagonist, at least as it's been executed here, and I had so much trouble connecting with Rei because of it. Her musings and observations are almost entirely divorced from the context of all the other things she's witnessed.
It's real armchair designer shit, but what this means to me is that she's not allowed to doubt her purpose. She's not allowed to sincerely interrogate what she's learning. She's accumulating discrete pieces of information, seemingly helpless to construct the bigger picture. Given the fraught nature of her mission, experiencing serious doubt about what's happening here is not only a sensible reaction, it's a prerequisite for a person to be believable.
I don't think it's a compelling way to frame your main character. I kept wanting Rei to follow a thought. You know? Like how you have a thought, and it establishes a chain of successive thoughts that leads you to something resembling a conclusion? You know, right? It's that thing people do. Even if it's a hassle sometimes, we more or less can't help it. She doesn't do that. Just flailing at an attempt would be enough.
She feels like a victim of the structure, a storyteller's pawn, not a person who makes choices.
And... even if there's an overriding reason for why she hardly ever reaches any conclusions, and she's simply deluding herself, I never got the sense that she's struggling with that delusion. I'd get it. I can understand what's going on, she can ignore the obvious, embroiled in that struggle. But that requires her to struggle.
Despite how overwhelmingly critical that all was, I did enjoy the game. It's worth playing just to see the space they've crafted. It's fantastic.
Strong movement and world design make it very easy to get into a flow. Very chill, playable game, but a bit samey after time and without standout highlights
Fortement similaire à The Pathless, Solar Ash lui est également supérieur en tous points. Tout le gameplay se base sur le mouvement et des challenges de parcours. On parcours un monde dont les environnements sont variés et condensé, à l'inverse de Pathless les zones sont assez petites mais les centres d'intérêt sont juxtaposés plutôt que d'être séparé par du vide. Les collectables optionnels sont en nombre réduit mais offrent de bonnes récompenses et ils sont assez rapides à trouver dût encore une fois à la taille réduite des différentes zones qu'on parcours. Les deux premiers boss sont clairement moins intéressant comparés aux suivants se qui est dommage. Du combat est présent mais il occupe une place très minime, j'aurait aimé que cet aspect soit un peu plus poussé, cela aurait étoffé l'aventure. Pour finir (Attention spoiler) j'ai trouvé la fin du jeu vraiment super sachant qu'il y a deux fins possibles et que j'ai choisi de détruire la graine d'étoile, lire les caches de Voidrunners disséminés dans le jeu à d'ailleurs grandement contribuer à mon appréciation du lore et de cette fin donc je vous recommande de faire de même et de ne pas ignorer les quêtes de pnj et autres contenu optionnel. Un solide deuxième jeux de la part de Heart Machine, studio dont j'attend avec impatience le prochain jeux : Hyper Light Breaker.
This review contains spoilers
This game's story and art direction are beautiful. I enjoyed the gameplay loop of finding 3 to 5 anomalies and then fighting a boss at the end with 3 stages. Looking for each character's story and then getting an outfit out of it was really cool, my favorite outfit was the one you get at the end!
i knew i'd like this game but i wasn't ever super sold on it, once it came to gamepass i instantly jumped in and man it was so sick. incredibly fun and fluid movement, looks gorgeous, and some fun little lore bits for the lore heads. the gameplay loop is really satisfying and never got old, the bosses were the obvious big highlight and felt super fun and thrilling to defeat. my only minor complaints would be some of the routes are a bit trial and error, part of that was me playing on hard for my first playthrough though. i also ran into a couple restart the game bugs that were pretty furstrating but not a huge deal. otherwise it was just a super solid time that i'm glad i finally got to play!
Heart Machine. Their first game: a breakout indie hit, a breath of fresh air. A game that tells its story without dialogue and one that would earn them a fanbase that would punish them for not making more of the same, as Solar Ash was met with the same response Hyper Light Breakers received on reveal: why isn't this Hyper Light Drifter?
And it's a pity. Solar Ash is a technicolor pastiche, a marvelous bit of tech. Fast, freeflowing, with environments that loop and curl in on themselves, wrapping around seas of clouds and spanning the crumbling remains of worlds. Movement is graceful and intuitive, boss fights are elegant and refined. Your character is all but defined by their freedom to traverse the world of Solar Ash, just as they are bound by its narrative.
But that's the rub. Unlike its predecessor, Solar Ash is written, with actual words and voices to go with them. So, does it earn this departure? Absolutely. The tone is impeccable, relentless, the core theme woven throughout every moment of the game. The voice actors do an incredible job of rising to the challenge, delivering emotional, powerful dialogue, creating very real, very believable characters.
That believability, the emotional resonance inherent in the writing and its delivery, is Solar Ash's greatest strength. It is a game that is, inexorably, about endings and what we do when we are faced with them. For that to work, in a game where the plot itself is thin on the ground, the characters have to be painfully, cripplingly believable. Solar Ash is a fragmented world, filled with fragments of people, in turn bearing fragments of ourselves. A powerful statement, and a reminder that Heart Machine has greater things in store.
And it's a pity. Solar Ash is a technicolor pastiche, a marvelous bit of tech. Fast, freeflowing, with environments that loop and curl in on themselves, wrapping around seas of clouds and spanning the crumbling remains of worlds. Movement is graceful and intuitive, boss fights are elegant and refined. Your character is all but defined by their freedom to traverse the world of Solar Ash, just as they are bound by its narrative.
But that's the rub. Unlike its predecessor, Solar Ash is written, with actual words and voices to go with them. So, does it earn this departure? Absolutely. The tone is impeccable, relentless, the core theme woven throughout every moment of the game. The voice actors do an incredible job of rising to the challenge, delivering emotional, powerful dialogue, creating very real, very believable characters.
That believability, the emotional resonance inherent in the writing and its delivery, is Solar Ash's greatest strength. It is a game that is, inexorably, about endings and what we do when we are faced with them. For that to work, in a game where the plot itself is thin on the ground, the characters have to be painfully, cripplingly believable. Solar Ash is a fragmented world, filled with fragments of people, in turn bearing fragments of ourselves. A powerful statement, and a reminder that Heart Machine has greater things in store.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Solar Ash. The movement was incredibly fun and satisfying; the story and fantastical sci-fi setting is very much up my alley. I personally don't have much to say, the game just clicked with me. It is by no means a masterpiece; the health system is basically worthless and camera has issues when gravity gets funky. Even then, I found myself engrossed and having a great time for its entire runtime. Solar Ash is definitely worth checking out, although the asking price of $40 USD may be a bit steep.
insanely fun, way too short though
This review contains spoilers
I usually tell myself that playing something new with low expectations is usually the best thing to do because it gives rise to new surprises. Many times it has happened to me that I play a pretty bad title and the successor ends up fixing all my problems but unfortunately this didn't happen with Solar Ash.
Hyper Light Drifter, a game from the same creator, is a game that never managed to hook me but manages to be pretty solid. One of my complaints I always had with Hyper Light was that it has no dialogue, only drawings and the only understandable text is in a made up language. Apparently this complaint was quite popular so Solar Ash has a story with written dialogues, and it is here where my biggest problem comes and it is that the main character is not mute in fact she never shuts up and her dialogues are disgustingly repetitive, obvious and unnecessary, making her at the same level as an average marvel protagonist and the npcs also do theirs, they barely take into account what the main character says, only that she is forced to speak after each text box and it is horrible because it takes away the seriousness of the whole game.
A specific case is where there is a kitty who has been looking for her husband for years and doesn't know where he is and the plot twist is that the husband is dead and she has dementia thanks to the effects of the bugs that affect the atmosphere and cause interferences (yeah ok). The thing is that the chick at the end when she realizes it says something like "uuuh yeah.. he's gone uuu" and the main character responds with things like "aww" "poor thing!" "I'm so sorry for you" EVERY SINGLE TIME AND IT'S LIKE HNNGNHN LET HER VENT and it's worse when it happens with important parts like the main story that legit are pure quotes that they saw and said omggg
the foreshadowing and plot twist is super useless too and it's that kind of games that try to be deep and say "noo you are in a shitty world where all your family is dead" but then the main character says things like "wooo this is fun xD !!!!" that break the whole mood like i don't know why you would make a sad story about how accepting the truth hurts but is necessary to not suffer anymore (shitty message btw, totally lacking of empathy) if what is shown in the gameplay is nothing to do
the mechanics and gameplay are fine but they take you too much by the hand when they don't have to and let you free when you need help the most like why the fuck would you move the camera and activate the mechanics I intentionally try not to use mid-bossfight like ???? and it wouldn't be such a problem if bossfights were not timed
The combat is completely unnecessary and boring. I get it with the bosses and the process of waking them up, but putting enemies in for the sake of it is just annoying because most of the time you'll be fine just running from them because they're not a major threat either, it's just that they inflict contact damage like it's the NES.
The movement and level design is super restricted, riddled with invisible walls and places that conveniently have no collision, which becomes incredibly annoying when you try to find the collectibles as the layout of the maps is like a cross + there are 4 directions and the center and it's a constant loop of go to the end point --> go back to the center --> go to another end point and it sucks because the levels, to make the illusion that they are bigger, they change the gravity and camera so you end up walking on the ceilings or walls which while cool, it's not intuitive because the game doesn't have walljump either. I got through it in 6 hours at 98%, 2 and a half hours I'm SURE was because I got stuck because I didn't know the way. While you can press Q to know where to go, it only shows you where your target is, not the entrance. It's like those times where A Hat In Time shows you exactly where the timepiece is instead of the entrance to the place and it becomes an odyssey to try to figure out how to get there, but A Hat In Time has interesting things along the way while Solar Rush has nothing interesting and because of the invisible walls it encourages you to explore at all.
On top of that the collectibles and side quests are probably the worst. Nothing interesting and predictable from the beginning. There are 3 npcs and 4 or 5 log entries from different people. All the characters in the encrypted and semi-destroyed logs, surprisingly are dead and the game doesn't try to hide it from you as many times you grab the loot caches in different order so you end up getting the final one first and then all the others only to realize they don't matter much either as it all boils down to entry 1: "hi I'm [name] I investigate this thing you know it's bad" and the final entry is "uuhhhgh the bad thing killed me.... "which wouldn't be a problem except that they literally don't contribute anything since they don't tell you what they discovered or anything to give you an idea of how dangerous it is, they just say "uuu bad thing scares me bad thing is near uu bad thing gg" DURING 5 AREAS the side quests are just as predictable, "omg this place was destroyed over 200 years ago however I'm still looking for my husband who I saw lately was here" or "hello I belong to a cult and I spend my time praying. What is my ending? well I keep praying lol".
Ngl, after all this I appreciate that Hyperlight has the story told only in pictures because it makes the experience more personal and creates a whole experience based on what you understood, while here they keep bombarding you with how you have to feel when you don't really care because they all say exactly the same thing and you don't need to read more than a minute to realize that you won't miss anything if you skim it and I'll post several screenshots in the comments so you can see what I mean.
Overall, an experience that looks like a gamejam. A game where the strongest is supposed to be the game design is exactly the place where it is weakest.
Hyper Light Drifter, a game from the same creator, is a game that never managed to hook me but manages to be pretty solid. One of my complaints I always had with Hyper Light was that it has no dialogue, only drawings and the only understandable text is in a made up language. Apparently this complaint was quite popular so Solar Ash has a story with written dialogues, and it is here where my biggest problem comes and it is that the main character is not mute in fact she never shuts up and her dialogues are disgustingly repetitive, obvious and unnecessary, making her at the same level as an average marvel protagonist and the npcs also do theirs, they barely take into account what the main character says, only that she is forced to speak after each text box and it is horrible because it takes away the seriousness of the whole game.
A specific case is where there is a kitty who has been looking for her husband for years and doesn't know where he is and the plot twist is that the husband is dead and she has dementia thanks to the effects of the bugs that affect the atmosphere and cause interferences (yeah ok). The thing is that the chick at the end when she realizes it says something like "uuuh yeah.. he's gone uuu" and the main character responds with things like "aww" "poor thing!" "I'm so sorry for you" EVERY SINGLE TIME AND IT'S LIKE HNNGNHN LET HER VENT and it's worse when it happens with important parts like the main story that legit are pure quotes that they saw and said omggg
the foreshadowing and plot twist is super useless too and it's that kind of games that try to be deep and say "noo you are in a shitty world where all your family is dead" but then the main character says things like "wooo this is fun xD !!!!" that break the whole mood like i don't know why you would make a sad story about how accepting the truth hurts but is necessary to not suffer anymore (shitty message btw, totally lacking of empathy) if what is shown in the gameplay is nothing to do
the mechanics and gameplay are fine but they take you too much by the hand when they don't have to and let you free when you need help the most like why the fuck would you move the camera and activate the mechanics I intentionally try not to use mid-bossfight like ???? and it wouldn't be such a problem if bossfights were not timed
The combat is completely unnecessary and boring. I get it with the bosses and the process of waking them up, but putting enemies in for the sake of it is just annoying because most of the time you'll be fine just running from them because they're not a major threat either, it's just that they inflict contact damage like it's the NES.
The movement and level design is super restricted, riddled with invisible walls and places that conveniently have no collision, which becomes incredibly annoying when you try to find the collectibles as the layout of the maps is like a cross + there are 4 directions and the center and it's a constant loop of go to the end point --> go back to the center --> go to another end point and it sucks because the levels, to make the illusion that they are bigger, they change the gravity and camera so you end up walking on the ceilings or walls which while cool, it's not intuitive because the game doesn't have walljump either. I got through it in 6 hours at 98%, 2 and a half hours I'm SURE was because I got stuck because I didn't know the way. While you can press Q to know where to go, it only shows you where your target is, not the entrance. It's like those times where A Hat In Time shows you exactly where the timepiece is instead of the entrance to the place and it becomes an odyssey to try to figure out how to get there, but A Hat In Time has interesting things along the way while Solar Rush has nothing interesting and because of the invisible walls it encourages you to explore at all.
On top of that the collectibles and side quests are probably the worst. Nothing interesting and predictable from the beginning. There are 3 npcs and 4 or 5 log entries from different people. All the characters in the encrypted and semi-destroyed logs, surprisingly are dead and the game doesn't try to hide it from you as many times you grab the loot caches in different order so you end up getting the final one first and then all the others only to realize they don't matter much either as it all boils down to entry 1: "hi I'm [name] I investigate this thing you know it's bad" and the final entry is "uuhhhgh the bad thing killed me.... "which wouldn't be a problem except that they literally don't contribute anything since they don't tell you what they discovered or anything to give you an idea of how dangerous it is, they just say "uuu bad thing scares me bad thing is near uu bad thing gg" DURING 5 AREAS the side quests are just as predictable, "omg this place was destroyed over 200 years ago however I'm still looking for my husband who I saw lately was here" or "hello I belong to a cult and I spend my time praying. What is my ending? well I keep praying lol".
Ngl, after all this I appreciate that Hyperlight has the story told only in pictures because it makes the experience more personal and creates a whole experience based on what you understood, while here they keep bombarding you with how you have to feel when you don't really care because they all say exactly the same thing and you don't need to read more than a minute to realize that you won't miss anything if you skim it and I'll post several screenshots in the comments so you can see what I mean.
Overall, an experience that looks like a gamejam. A game where the strongest is supposed to be the game design is exactly the place where it is weakest.
solar ash at first has a moving mechanic that i loved, my first impressions were great and it went very well until halfway through the game, apart from a few moments that i couldn't figure out what to do. although i find the graphics ugly, the level design was very interesting, using verticality in a pretty nice manner, the idea of scanning to find out your objectives is also a simple but nice mechanic. the problem with this game starts with the no addition of new mechanics, the only fresh things introduced were very meh puzzle elements. the last boss fight was virtually the same as the first one, apart from the cinematic aspect which reminded me a lot of evangelion on the very ending, both because of the story and the environment. the narrative didn't capture me enough to search for the other characters whereabouts on sidequests, even with the decent ending. regardless of all its flaws, solar ash kept me pretty entertained cause i love dynamic moving games.
It’s decent
Stunning visuals, phenomenal gameplay, and an insanely impactful story. It's a crime how little this game is talked about
A great follow-up to Hyper Light Drifter with really fun and simple gameplay. The vibe based storytelling is traded off for more a more direct approach, but I think it's done decently well here. There is certainly still much to be gathered by just the look and feel, but I do miss the hyper light approach
nice movement and solid world structure, but I found its tone to be off-putting. it seems like it wants to be taken seriously but the writing and performances lean towards being humorous, and it just makes for a confusing tone that pulled me out of the experience a fair bit.
Cool
I played this one on release since I was really excited to play Heart Machine's second game after the incredible game that was Hyper Light Drifter. And Solar Ash didn't disappoint.
Amazing visuals and interesting perspective changes due to the world curvature, skating at lightning speed through the colorful world feels great, and combat, while relatively simple, doesn't feel out of place.
The main meat of the game is getting rid of all anomalies, which consist of movement puzzles and, the final one in each "biome", a ginormours boss. Skating on those huge enemies, trying to make your movement between attack points flow, was a fantastic experience.
I strongly recommend playing on Hardcore, as it will force you to really learn how to perfect your movement, and makes the fights more tense and more fun.
Solar Ash could have been a bit longer, included more secrets or more sidequests, especially for its price point, but while short, I enjoyed my time with it a lot.
Amazing visuals and interesting perspective changes due to the world curvature, skating at lightning speed through the colorful world feels great, and combat, while relatively simple, doesn't feel out of place.
The main meat of the game is getting rid of all anomalies, which consist of movement puzzles and, the final one in each "biome", a ginormours boss. Skating on those huge enemies, trying to make your movement between attack points flow, was a fantastic experience.
I strongly recommend playing on Hardcore, as it will force you to really learn how to perfect your movement, and makes the fights more tense and more fun.
Solar Ash could have been a bit longer, included more secrets or more sidequests, especially for its price point, but while short, I enjoyed my time with it a lot.
im sorry but this game just looks a bit ugly to me still, the color schemes are too radiant like my eyes hurt and not in a good way. the water ur skating on also looks so fucking ass. this game feels very rough around the edges, the platforming is not refined, borderline uncontrollable and very trial and error based, doesn't guide the player well in the tutorial section whatsoever and an absolutely horrid first boss fight. i can applaud this game for its combat, it's snappy, fluid and feels like playing merc in ror2, also liked the concept of not being able to recharge ur shield if dying without one had any consequences but i can't see any, it's mostly just annoying. also this seemingly simple game also runs really inconsistently even on decent builds, like this is not a complicated looking game this looks like its a student project. world isn't even interesting nothing here is that interesting it's just all pretty basic stuff, story is basic and i feel like voice acting harms the game bc it's really ass. but i don't hate it, i know a lot of heart is put into this game and i love that, but its style is just not for me, too clean cut.
Um jogo relaxante, porém simples ao extremo e muitas vezes repetitivo. Cenários são pouco memoráveis e, também, desings no geral. Fora isso, houveram alguns bugs durante a minha jogatina. Sejam eles fúteis como meros bugs visuais, ou bugs que realmente comprometeram e me fizeram reiniciar a fase.
Analise em video no canal :
https://youtu.be/eAMZDG1r8ys
Bom, guys, recentemente joguei, zerei e até mesmo pratiquei o recém-chegado ao Game Pass, Solar Ash, um joguinho um tanto quanto diferente que a gente vai conversar e analisar hoje.
Bom, já começando, falando um pouco da nossa história no game, onde nele existe um ser chamado Ultravoid, um buraco negro gigantesco que está devorando tudo pelo caminho na galáxia. Pra tentar dar um jeito nisso, no game, criaram o Starseed, um dispositivo poderoso que promete destruir esse buraco negro. Só que, pra ativar, no game, a gente tem que entrar numa missão super perigosa.
Assim, é montado um time de especialistas chamados de voidrunners, cada um com suas habilidades únicas. Tava tudo indo bem, até que perderam o contato com o grupo. A última esperança agora é a Rei, a destemida voidrunner que decide encarar o Ultravoid pra salvar a galáxia e, no processo, descobrir o que rolou com os parceiros.
Com a Rei no comando, a gente deve explorar o Ultravoid com a ajuda de uma IA dos voidrunners para assim ativar a energia do starseed. Para isso, a gente tem, no game, uma espécie de puzzle que, na minha opinião, é muito diferente se tratando não somente de puzzle em si, como também um teste de velocidade, agilidade e precisão. Existem diversos desafios desse tipo ao longo do jogo e que a gente vai falar um pouco da gameplay agora.
Como dito anteriormente, o que mais me intrigou em Solar Ash foi essa questão do puzzle e da agilidade. Não somente a agilidade da jogabilidade relacionada ao combate, como também na questão da movimentação, onde basicamente a gente no jogo vai sair patinando por aí, literalmente. É muito divertido sair por aí, deslizar, saltar enquanto desliza e, ao mesmo tempo, derrotar inimigos com as mecânicas únicas desse jogo.
A exploração presente no game, com certeza, é sem dúvida uma das coisas mais divertidas que tem no game. Basicamente, os objetivos que você tem para fazer vão ficar marcados no mapa quando você utiliza uma espécie de pulso que funciona como um radar para rastrear seus objetivos naquela área. Isso me intrigou nesse game porque, geralmente, quando a gente tem recursos desse tipo em qualquer jogo, isso tende a facilitar o game em questão. Porém, aqui em Solar Ash, isso funciona de maneira diferente. Afinal, o game te dá o seu objetivo, mas a rota que você vai pegar pra esse caminho fica meio que a critério seu, sendo raramente óbvias, digamos assim.
E quando você está indo ao caminho dos seus objetivos, o cenário do game também se torna um grande destaque. Principalmente pra mim, foi um grande destaque porque, nota-se que são cenários relativamente simples, porém ele é cheio de elementos que vão enriquecer a nossa gameplay, seja pelos seus multicaminhos que você pode seguir para chegar ao seu objetivo ou até mesmo falando das atividades extras espalhadas pelo mapa. Cada área possui seu próprio conceito. Não somente pelo conceito visual em si, mas também falando aí do conceito de gameplay e mecânica únicos que cada cenário vai ter.
Uma coisa que eu achei um ponto negativo nessa parte de cenário e gameplay, que pode ser relativo, e que muita gente pode achar isso um desafio e não se incomodar... Porém, para minha pessoa, achei sem necessidade, que é o fator morte no game. Por ser um game que é frenético em sua gameplay e nos seus puzzles, é muito comum que você, sim, naturalmente morra nesses processos. E quando isso acontece, basicamente você tem que começar literalmente tudo de novo. Tente se por numa situação como se fosse um Guitar Hero, por exemplo, onde se você errar uma nota da sequência de música, você tem que voltar tudo do início sempre... Basicamente, é nesse sentido que acontece no game. Isso não somente acontece com o combate propriamente dito, como também acontece com os saltos e os trechos de plataformas no geral. Nesse caso, até existem certos checkpoints que vão salvar sua localização se caso você cai, porém, eles são bem distantes um do outro, o que por sua vez muitas vezes acaba irritando você.
E falando desse ponto negativo, a gente vai falar agora de um dos pontos que eu sinceramente acho incrível e que para mim é a cereja do bolo, mas em contraparte é um pouco que é muito afetado por essa questão citada anteriormente, que são os chefes.
Quando a gente fala das batalhas de chefes, eles são monstros geralmente gigantescos e todas as batalhas geralmente têm um tom bem cinematográfico e épico, seja pelo combate grande maioria das vezes grandioso ou até mesmo pela trilha incrível e toda a construção visual presente ali nesses momentos. Nesses momentos, entram a questão dos puzzles de agilidades onde vocês devem acertar certos pontos presentes no corpo do chefe em sequência, patinando no corpo do chefe, pulando e etc. Tudo nesses momentos é simplesmente incrível, a não ser, claro, pelo nosso ponto negativo citado anteriormente.
Afinal, trechos como esses são, digamos, difíceis até você pegar o ritmo certo e finalmente terminar a luta do chefe. Começando pelo ponto básico que é a distância dos pontos um do outro com isso é erro praticamente inevitável dos saltos, que, como dito anteriormente, se você errar, volta tudo do início. Outro ponto que não ajuda é o fato de que nesses momentos há diversas mudanças de câmera de maneira brusca, o que acabam confundindo você e, por sua vez, fazendo com que vocês caiam e comece tudo de novo... Obviamente que isso no início até que é tranquilo, porém ao longo do jogo, obviamente e naturalmente, os chefes vão se tornar maiores e, consequentemente, os pontos e objetivos que você tem que fazer, por sua vez, também acabam se tornando maiores, o que por sua vez também o ponto negativo citado anteriormente passam a ser uma dor de cabeça muito maior. Porém, falando num contexto geral, tirando claro o ponto negativo, essa parte das lutas tanto dos chefes quanto o combate puro mesmo são bem legais.
É interessante notar também que Solar Ash tem uma ambientação, tem uma parte gráfica relativamente simples, porém muito bem construído. Em diversos momentos você vai se pegar encantado pelas suas ambientações, pelas suas construções, pelo cenário em si que, apesar de simplório, ele tem um tom que combina muito bem com o jogo, principalmente quando a gente fala da paleta de cores do game que puxa pra um lado verde e rosa que dá um tom legal à identidade visual do game.
Já as trilhas e parte sonora geral do game, ela é bem tímida e minimalista, porém, na minha opinião, cumpre bem a proposta do game.
No geral, Solar Ash é uma baita aventura. As batalhas do jeito que são no game, que é uma espécie de quick time event, são muito legais. Apesar de que eu não esperava me frustrar tanto nesse sentido. apesar disso, esse ponto torna o game bem único. Eu igualmente adorei a exploração presente no game. Porém, a execução de todos esses conjuntos que eu mencionei que eu acho que são positivos, isso obviamente falando de todos os pontos presentes no game, eu acho que essa execução deixou um pouco a desejar pra mim. Principalmente porque o jogo ele não tem um desafio propriamente dito, basicamente tudo se torna uma tentativa e erro no game, o que por sua vez pode tornar ele um pouco enjoado e até mesmo repetitivo. Mas no geral, Solar Ash é sim um bom game, ainda mais disponível no Game Pass agora. Vale sim você pegar e testar ele.
Pontos Positivos:
- Mecânicas de jogo legais
- Exploração e Cenários
- Batalhas contra chefes
- Ambientação
Pontos negativos:
- Puzzles e situações repetitivas
- Câmera problemática
- Momentos de tentativa e
https://youtu.be/eAMZDG1r8ys
Bom, guys, recentemente joguei, zerei e até mesmo pratiquei o recém-chegado ao Game Pass, Solar Ash, um joguinho um tanto quanto diferente que a gente vai conversar e analisar hoje.
Bom, já começando, falando um pouco da nossa história no game, onde nele existe um ser chamado Ultravoid, um buraco negro gigantesco que está devorando tudo pelo caminho na galáxia. Pra tentar dar um jeito nisso, no game, criaram o Starseed, um dispositivo poderoso que promete destruir esse buraco negro. Só que, pra ativar, no game, a gente tem que entrar numa missão super perigosa.
Assim, é montado um time de especialistas chamados de voidrunners, cada um com suas habilidades únicas. Tava tudo indo bem, até que perderam o contato com o grupo. A última esperança agora é a Rei, a destemida voidrunner que decide encarar o Ultravoid pra salvar a galáxia e, no processo, descobrir o que rolou com os parceiros.
Com a Rei no comando, a gente deve explorar o Ultravoid com a ajuda de uma IA dos voidrunners para assim ativar a energia do starseed. Para isso, a gente tem, no game, uma espécie de puzzle que, na minha opinião, é muito diferente se tratando não somente de puzzle em si, como também um teste de velocidade, agilidade e precisão. Existem diversos desafios desse tipo ao longo do jogo e que a gente vai falar um pouco da gameplay agora.
Como dito anteriormente, o que mais me intrigou em Solar Ash foi essa questão do puzzle e da agilidade. Não somente a agilidade da jogabilidade relacionada ao combate, como também na questão da movimentação, onde basicamente a gente no jogo vai sair patinando por aí, literalmente. É muito divertido sair por aí, deslizar, saltar enquanto desliza e, ao mesmo tempo, derrotar inimigos com as mecânicas únicas desse jogo.
A exploração presente no game, com certeza, é sem dúvida uma das coisas mais divertidas que tem no game. Basicamente, os objetivos que você tem para fazer vão ficar marcados no mapa quando você utiliza uma espécie de pulso que funciona como um radar para rastrear seus objetivos naquela área. Isso me intrigou nesse game porque, geralmente, quando a gente tem recursos desse tipo em qualquer jogo, isso tende a facilitar o game em questão. Porém, aqui em Solar Ash, isso funciona de maneira diferente. Afinal, o game te dá o seu objetivo, mas a rota que você vai pegar pra esse caminho fica meio que a critério seu, sendo raramente óbvias, digamos assim.
E quando você está indo ao caminho dos seus objetivos, o cenário do game também se torna um grande destaque. Principalmente pra mim, foi um grande destaque porque, nota-se que são cenários relativamente simples, porém ele é cheio de elementos que vão enriquecer a nossa gameplay, seja pelos seus multicaminhos que você pode seguir para chegar ao seu objetivo ou até mesmo falando das atividades extras espalhadas pelo mapa. Cada área possui seu próprio conceito. Não somente pelo conceito visual em si, mas também falando aí do conceito de gameplay e mecânica únicos que cada cenário vai ter.
Uma coisa que eu achei um ponto negativo nessa parte de cenário e gameplay, que pode ser relativo, e que muita gente pode achar isso um desafio e não se incomodar... Porém, para minha pessoa, achei sem necessidade, que é o fator morte no game. Por ser um game que é frenético em sua gameplay e nos seus puzzles, é muito comum que você, sim, naturalmente morra nesses processos. E quando isso acontece, basicamente você tem que começar literalmente tudo de novo. Tente se por numa situação como se fosse um Guitar Hero, por exemplo, onde se você errar uma nota da sequência de música, você tem que voltar tudo do início sempre... Basicamente, é nesse sentido que acontece no game. Isso não somente acontece com o combate propriamente dito, como também acontece com os saltos e os trechos de plataformas no geral. Nesse caso, até existem certos checkpoints que vão salvar sua localização se caso você cai, porém, eles são bem distantes um do outro, o que por sua vez muitas vezes acaba irritando você.
E falando desse ponto negativo, a gente vai falar agora de um dos pontos que eu sinceramente acho incrível e que para mim é a cereja do bolo, mas em contraparte é um pouco que é muito afetado por essa questão citada anteriormente, que são os chefes.
Quando a gente fala das batalhas de chefes, eles são monstros geralmente gigantescos e todas as batalhas geralmente têm um tom bem cinematográfico e épico, seja pelo combate grande maioria das vezes grandioso ou até mesmo pela trilha incrível e toda a construção visual presente ali nesses momentos. Nesses momentos, entram a questão dos puzzles de agilidades onde vocês devem acertar certos pontos presentes no corpo do chefe em sequência, patinando no corpo do chefe, pulando e etc. Tudo nesses momentos é simplesmente incrível, a não ser, claro, pelo nosso ponto negativo citado anteriormente.
Afinal, trechos como esses são, digamos, difíceis até você pegar o ritmo certo e finalmente terminar a luta do chefe. Começando pelo ponto básico que é a distância dos pontos um do outro com isso é erro praticamente inevitável dos saltos, que, como dito anteriormente, se você errar, volta tudo do início. Outro ponto que não ajuda é o fato de que nesses momentos há diversas mudanças de câmera de maneira brusca, o que acabam confundindo você e, por sua vez, fazendo com que vocês caiam e comece tudo de novo... Obviamente que isso no início até que é tranquilo, porém ao longo do jogo, obviamente e naturalmente, os chefes vão se tornar maiores e, consequentemente, os pontos e objetivos que você tem que fazer, por sua vez, também acabam se tornando maiores, o que por sua vez também o ponto negativo citado anteriormente passam a ser uma dor de cabeça muito maior. Porém, falando num contexto geral, tirando claro o ponto negativo, essa parte das lutas tanto dos chefes quanto o combate puro mesmo são bem legais.
É interessante notar também que Solar Ash tem uma ambientação, tem uma parte gráfica relativamente simples, porém muito bem construído. Em diversos momentos você vai se pegar encantado pelas suas ambientações, pelas suas construções, pelo cenário em si que, apesar de simplório, ele tem um tom que combina muito bem com o jogo, principalmente quando a gente fala da paleta de cores do game que puxa pra um lado verde e rosa que dá um tom legal à identidade visual do game.
Já as trilhas e parte sonora geral do game, ela é bem tímida e minimalista, porém, na minha opinião, cumpre bem a proposta do game.
No geral, Solar Ash é uma baita aventura. As batalhas do jeito que são no game, que é uma espécie de quick time event, são muito legais. Apesar de que eu não esperava me frustrar tanto nesse sentido. apesar disso, esse ponto torna o game bem único. Eu igualmente adorei a exploração presente no game. Porém, a execução de todos esses conjuntos que eu mencionei que eu acho que são positivos, isso obviamente falando de todos os pontos presentes no game, eu acho que essa execução deixou um pouco a desejar pra mim. Principalmente porque o jogo ele não tem um desafio propriamente dito, basicamente tudo se torna uma tentativa e erro no game, o que por sua vez pode tornar ele um pouco enjoado e até mesmo repetitivo. Mas no geral, Solar Ash é sim um bom game, ainda mais disponível no Game Pass agora. Vale sim você pegar e testar ele.
Pontos Positivos:
- Mecânicas de jogo legais
- Exploração e Cenários
- Batalhas contra chefes
- Ambientação
Pontos negativos:
- Puzzles e situações repetitivas
- Câmera problemática
- Momentos de tentativa e
QUE JOGO INCRÍVEL
TL;DR - É um Shadow of The Colossus do Sonic
Solar Ash é sobre velocidade, precisão e exploração. Tudo é construído em volta disso, do simples combate até às Boss Fights. A direção de arte é linda, com animações e efeitos que gritam estilo e velocidade. Os efeitos sonoros e trilha fazem sua parte. A história é ótima, dando margem pra muitas reflexões pro jogador. Os coletáveis deixam ela um pouco menos enigmática.
Não se deixe desistir pelos primeiros minutos, o jogo cresce conforme você domina a movimentação e vai proporcionar algumas sequências de ação incríveis.
TL;DR - É um Shadow of The Colossus do Sonic
Solar Ash é sobre velocidade, precisão e exploração. Tudo é construído em volta disso, do simples combate até às Boss Fights. A direção de arte é linda, com animações e efeitos que gritam estilo e velocidade. Os efeitos sonoros e trilha fazem sua parte. A história é ótima, dando margem pra muitas reflexões pro jogador. Os coletáveis deixam ela um pouco menos enigmática.
Não se deixe desistir pelos primeiros minutos, o jogo cresce conforme você domina a movimentação e vai proporcionar algumas sequências de ação incríveis.
Solar Ash is an odd game, it has the good foundations of a pretty decent (albeit cliche) story and some decent level design and unique area-to-area mechanics, along with some (while repetitive) pretty visually engaging boss fights. However, it doesn't really put Heart Machine on an upward momentum following their preceding title Hyper Light Drifter.
Solar Ash does a few things well, the first and most apparent being the design and visuals. The game is quite pretty and really tries to make some very fun areas that really make me take a step back and just appreciate them, which succeeds a majority of the time. The bosses were also a highlight (in some ways) as they were always great cornerstones of each area, minus probably the final boss of the game.
Solar Ash fails for me in two other very critical areas however, story and gameplay. This game is plagued by a story that, while dark, seems to try to encompass to many light tones to really let me get immersed into the world. I'm not talking Marvel Movie cutting-the-tension bad, but it definitely distracts when Rei is having a great time hopping around to finding something horrific and going "oh no!", it's just really jarring. It works, but it really lessens the impact of the ending and the realization-moments (that were incredibly predictable) that this game drops throughout. The ending is also okay, but has an incredibly bad ending boss that just wasn't it chief.
The gameplay is probably the worst for me. I want to start by making clear I am not a 3D platformer-player, but I have played many (including Odyssey, Galaxy, Pseudoragalia, etc) and Solar Ash's momentum-based movement just really doesn't work for some of the near-perfect maneuvers needing to be made to do some timed puzzles, and it does get a little frustrating at times when it takes 5-6 attempts of a puzzle just to figure out what the game want's me to do. The combat is also loose and not amazing feeling either, and being the bosses are literally "hit thing, parkour, hit thing" it gets really frustrating really quick.
Overall, it's fun on a sale if you need a brainless, short game that really doesn't take too much thought, but Heart Machine has done better and I'm sure they will continue doing so. Overall, it's just fine, but nothing special.
Solar Ash does a few things well, the first and most apparent being the design and visuals. The game is quite pretty and really tries to make some very fun areas that really make me take a step back and just appreciate them, which succeeds a majority of the time. The bosses were also a highlight (in some ways) as they were always great cornerstones of each area, minus probably the final boss of the game.
Solar Ash fails for me in two other very critical areas however, story and gameplay. This game is plagued by a story that, while dark, seems to try to encompass to many light tones to really let me get immersed into the world. I'm not talking Marvel Movie cutting-the-tension bad, but it definitely distracts when Rei is having a great time hopping around to finding something horrific and going "oh no!", it's just really jarring. It works, but it really lessens the impact of the ending and the realization-moments (that were incredibly predictable) that this game drops throughout. The ending is also okay, but has an incredibly bad ending boss that just wasn't it chief.
The gameplay is probably the worst for me. I want to start by making clear I am not a 3D platformer-player, but I have played many (including Odyssey, Galaxy, Pseudoragalia, etc) and Solar Ash's momentum-based movement just really doesn't work for some of the near-perfect maneuvers needing to be made to do some timed puzzles, and it does get a little frustrating at times when it takes 5-6 attempts of a puzzle just to figure out what the game want's me to do. The combat is also loose and not amazing feeling either, and being the bosses are literally "hit thing, parkour, hit thing" it gets really frustrating really quick.
Overall, it's fun on a sale if you need a brainless, short game that really doesn't take too much thought, but Heart Machine has done better and I'm sure they will continue doing so. Overall, it's just fine, but nothing special.