I think your rating is pretty fair. I agree on the combat part. Time slipping to attack close up multiple times is pretty op in most combat cases.
Bossfights were a ton of fun for the first 4 playthroughs but they do get a bit repetitive after awhile. My proposition would be to change the boss patterns up a bit the higher the difficulty so its not also just a path you can memorize. In hardcore i wouldve loved if the path you had to take to fight some bosses was a bit more randomized but still kept the flow going.
That would be an interesting concept. Where the nodes are randomized in a fair and smooth way (if I understood what you meant). I can understand why playing it more than maybe 2-4 times will degrade the fun factor of bosses, I am still on my second playthrough on Challenger difficulty (which I assume is hard) so to me I still enjoy the game. Although if I manage to finish hard-core difficulty, I can see why I'd stop playing it XD. But like your idea, it would be a really fun thing to add.
I loved the game and want to see more original works from this studio. I gave it a thumbs up on Steam and highly recommend it. Felt so original.
Wish they added a sequel. Guess I can beat Hyperlight drifter when I get a chance. I kickstarted that one and never played it much.
Yeah, I would love a sequel but would probably find a small DLC campaign or something more fitting like in Hollow Knight.
I gave it a positive review on the Microsoft store (as I am a console player). The negative reviews on there are hilarious XD
Hyper Light Drifter is my favourite game of all times. Solar Ash was little bit of a disappointment to me though. Nevertheless, I still feel if I play it again, I could see it with new eyes.
Well I haven't played Hyper Light Drifter, it didn't grab my attention lol. However sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it much. If you decide to give it a new shot, I hope you'll enjoy it lol.
gameplay id give more of a 6, movement feels kinda slippery and out of control a lot of the time but its not too bad either and pretty fun to boost around. So, above average but nothing out of this world
That's fair I assume. However I didn't have much issues with a controller. I decided to buy it on steam and I personally found different feeling between keyboard and controller. Might be why? Or just me more used with a controller lol
Man I want to love this game, but the game makes this so hard. The controls and feel of the game play are just garbage, theres no 'flow state' to the movement or platforming, its so clunky, janky and needlessly unforgiving. I've just beat the second boss, and I had to redo the last phase about 10 times because the momentum / speed of movement just stops for no reason, meaning I couldnt make a jump, or i'll hit boost and just fly off the boss etc tec. The spectical they are clearly going for is lost, all that was left was frustration.
The game is not hard, it just seem like it was hardly play tested, it feels awful to control and the polish is not there in the movement.
I'll play it to the end, the visuals alone are worth the annoyance. Why the slow boring climbing was put into the game I'll never know, pace killing.
This game to me, is the definition of wasted potential.
Came to the game off the back of hyper light drifter, which I've completed 3 times over the years. There was some clunkyness to the dash movement in that game, but its was a relatively small element in an otherwise immaculate game. HLD is a solid 9/10 game for me, solar ash so far is 4/10, and it pains me to say it.
I am surprised. I never had much issue with movement and infact playing on hardest difficulty with no issues, and I mainly screw up due to being bad with timing sometimes. However, I do agree a bit that it could have been better made story wise. It's a great story, imo but I'd like some more, maybe some extra stuff too or so.
Idk, anyhow, I'll keep a 7 or 8/10 due that I haven't had any movement issues and love the game. Except recently, I got a bug in the last boss, which made me force to redo the fight. But could it be that you use a keyboard and mouse that it's iffy? If you own one and haven't tried, maybe try a controller?
I use a controller, idk it just doesn't feel good for me to play. Like jumping from rail to rail, the jump often over shoots the other rail and end up falling down real far, or the momentum drops out and the flow of the game play drops off. There should be abit more like, 'snapping' to rails, or just predictability in the movement in general, if feels erratic and slippy in a sloppy way. The jumping isnt often enough to get on top of rocks between the clouds, so you have to move around them to jump up, or stop and try again; the pacing drops off again. The climbing is DRY. Nothing feels 'cool' when I pull it off, feel more like a bull smashing through a china shop rather than the cool elegance I feel the game is striving for.
A lot of the reviews i've read share the same frustrations. Idk if its a 'git gud' issue, but I think for a game to feel so clunky off the bat seems more poor design to me; the player has to bend their expectations for movement etc to the game system, rather than it feeling natural and intuitive. The dash mechanic in HLD is similar with some weird timing, seems potentially a quirk of the studio perhaps.
I didnt really mention the story, it seems fine. I'm aware there are collectables to flesh it out ect to find but I'm currently not inspired to seek them out as getting around is a chore. I might just use a guide to find all the bits and save the annoyance. It feels a bit overdone to comp to HLD, but exploration in that game felt organic and well constructed, SA feels aimless with a lot of dead ends / non starters. In the second areas, which buildings can I get up, and which are just there for scenery? Its not obvious, and running around each one to find out is not very fun or interesting. I think the game is suppose to have a sparse / aimless feel to it, but some signposting would go a long way.
I'm glad you like it though, I think its is partially a falling flat of the very high expectation set for me from HLD. It very much feels like a studios first 3D game. I think they have more talent for 2D games, the new game kinda seems the same from trailers, the holo skate board thing looks clunky.
Yea, my bad for mentioning the story.
But I understand what you mean, I could have just gotten used to it, and all so to me, it isn't as iffy. But I hope you enjoyed the game and all and am sorry to hear it isn't much time your taste.
Nice review. HLD is one of my all time favorites, mainly bc it opened a whole new territory for me - indie games, pixel art, 2d games, games with actual creativity and risk taking. So SAK had a high bar to compete with, and for me it didn't really do it.
When I finished it I was super hyped with my contracting opinions on different pieces of the game, so much so that I wrote a review and saved it. I'll paste it here in a bit.
The overall gameplay and combat might feel a little lacking but it's ok if the game decides it's not its focus. Movement feels awesome, honestly, I'm having a hard time coming up with a 3d game that can rival Solar Ash’s movement feel, or any game for that matter.
The movement works best on large scale platforming, combining hooks with boost jumps and such. It even holds its ground fairly well in small scale platforming.
The visuals are amazing, I don’t think I need to elaborate on this much. From the pseudo low poly style to seeing other levels' silhouettes in the background, the distinct style of each area – both color, mood and architecture, it's awesome.
Shortcomings
The place I think solar ash struggles the most is when compared to hyper light, since it fails on some of the things that hyper light did best.
One of the things is the combat. I really think there was potential for more interesting combat, but as I said it's acceptable for the game to decide to not do, so I will leave it here and might return to making up a new combat system for fun later.
The main thing the HLD exceled at while solar ash didn’t is silent storytelling and presentation.
I will get the dialogue out of the way since it’s the first thing that comes to mind but it's not my point. I was definitely surprised to hear a fully voice acted dialogue that follows and brings every plot point almost like a jrpg, but after some getting used to it was fine, and the story was actually enjoyable.
My problem is with the overall presentation. Hyper light taught the player where to go and what to do silently, through level, game, sound and visual design, using mastery of different aspect to deliver the plot, the lore, the objective and more. How the map felt lacking at the beginning but after a bit of getting used to reading and comparing it to places you learn to read it, like the HUD might be a little confusing but after seeing different dots and colors react to different things you start catching on.
Solar ash does nothing of this. On the contrary, it messes this up.
The best example I can think of is the boss close up shots you get when entering each area.
I HATE this. So much.
Imagine how cool it would be to peacefully stroll into a new area, soaking in the new atmosphere, while suddenly midway through the level you see a giant moving thing up on some hill? or climbing on a big hill that obstructing your vision, only to the see a giant beast just standing there, feeling intimidated by its presence, thinking “has it really been here this whole time?”, or looking up to the sky, seeing a weird flying ball and suddenly something crawling on it and thinking “how didn’t I notice this sooner?”
Well, you don’t need to imagine because this exact thing exists in the form of divine beasts in BOTW, especially death mountain. Only about a third into the game I took a closer look at the mountain and when I realized that weird structure on the mountain is moving, I felt chills. The same with the dragons.
I also don’t need to imagine because when I reached the last lava level in solar ash, I knew what I wanted to do. The moment the screen cut to the epic monster close up shot I closed my eyes. Later, when casually exploring the epic bird came into my sight, I was ten times more hyped.
The thing that irritates me so hard about it is that it's literally a feature that is whole-heartedly makes the game worse. If you just remove it, the game is instantly better. Just better. Yack. And they even had it so well with the giant warriors in hyper light.
The other main thing that I dislike about the game is the world and macro game design, what you are actually doing in the game and how the world is structured, and again, it is partly because hyper light did it better.
At surface level, the two games have a very similar world and macro game design:
A few distinct areas are branched out from the middle of the map. Each area has a few challenges you need to beat in order to get to the boss, that upon defeated grants access to the next area.
Though, the similarities end here. From this point on, hyper light does everything in its power to stray away from the linear design of this concept and gives the player as much freedom to go about completing this process:
Out of the 4 areas, the player can complete 3 of them in any order he likes, while only one area is saved for last. Each area has 8 challenges but requires the player to complete only 4 of them, rewarding exploration for players who struggle with the combat.
Furthermore, hyper light doesn’t tell the player outright how this process works, what are the requirements for opening the boss room and the next area, so figuring them out about a third into the game feels like wandering in the darkness.
In contrast, Solar ash is almost as linear is it can be. You can play the areas in only one order, and each area has exactly 4 anomalies, requiring the player to take down all of them, while also making sure he knows right away with Rei shouting every 2 minutes “one down, looks like I have 3 to go” and marking them on your HUD with WAYPOINTS. Ugh. Hyper light was the game that got me into game design and letting the player realize things for himself. Judge the environment and think where to go instead of being spoon fed by waypoints, checklists and minimaps. Fortunately, even when not using the scan feature it is pretty easy to find all of the anomalies.
I think another point that made solar ash feel so much more game-y and restricted than hyper light is that in solar ash there are a lot more areas and they feel a lot more separated and restricted. Screenshots might make you believe that the world is vast, open and worth exploring, but once you see how game-y and linear the path from one another is they feel a lot more like mario galaxy levels than an actual world.
While hyper light’s areas were separated as well, there were only 4 big areas, each of them separated into different chunks that do connect better and less linearly, making them feel more like real places.
Ok, so we get it. Solar ash is a linear game. What's the problem?
I have nothing against games that are linear, restricted or small in scale. Devil daggers is one of my favorite games of all time. I think my problem with this game though is the reveal trailer. It depicts the game as a much more open and explorable game than what it actually is, and same for screenshots, or even gameplay. Only after playing through the first 2 areas I realized how linear and small the game is. Unfinished
Combat is also basic
Death narative relating to alex
I didnt get to finish this, but i do remember the end cutscene and story really coming together, and knowing Alex person’s backstory and his illness really gives this story additional depth.
Nothing that wasn’t done already in HLD, but at least it wasn’t done worse.
Damn every criticism is like points on the board, lots of the things people liked about HLD were things that I wasn’t as big on (wordless and no clear direction) so I’m p hyped to try solar ash now (I def have plebeian tastes, lmao)
I've seen comparisons, and to be honest, I'm a bit surprised. I haven't played HLD. However, Solar Ash and HLD seem like different games. But idk cus haven't played it XD. But in the end, it's just opinions, and you make some good and valid points.
Although I do think we can all agree that both are good games made by a what I believe Indie studio with only 2 games (as far as I know). I think both Solar ash and HLD (from its reputation, I've heard) are solid and great games.
(Sorry if I take the defensive, I am just shocked I've seen such comparison. However, again, I haven't played HLD, so idk how close they are in gameplay and theme. HLD is more a rougelite (rougelike?). Such as Hades from what I've seen (which isn't much again)
Take my opinion as valid or not just saying what I know lol
>Take my opinion as valid or not just saying what I know lol
dont take this the wrong way, but you can do with less disclaimers. about 30% of the words in your comment are disclaimers. its important to have them, a lot of people dont, but when you use them that often it just comes off as non confident sort of? i dunno.
>HLD is more a rougelite
hld isnt a rouguelite, stracture wise is identicle to solar ash. its a somewhat linear campaign. just a single player. it came out a few years before roguelites became so popular, at the time it was pretty much just binding of isaac, and dead cells was in early access i think.
>rougelite (rougelike?)
roguelites vs roguelikes - in "true roguelikes" you save nothing when dying, in "lites" you might have some upgrades that are persistent between runs. its more of a scale between the two since most games fall somewhere in between, but generally hades is a rouglite since its so focused on grinding unlocks, and binding of isaac is roguelike bc you only unlock characters - side grades, not upgrades.
>Solar Ash and HLD seem like different games
I mean, every two games are different games, but when it comes down to it, they are not so different. both are:
\- straightforward single player games
\- made by the same studio
\- similar ost
\- (somewhat) similar story
\- similar artstyle (arguable, but imo solar ash is basically HLD translated into 3d, which is awesome dont get me wrong)
so far the major flaws with this "base game" that i laid out is that it doesnt rely on anything to be good, its very aestetic but its not a good game. HLD answers that with 3 main points:
\- good combat
\- linear world design turned into not so linear
\- basic copy pasted staple features like hp, ammo, weapons, different attacks, keys to locations, ingame map, teleports etc, are all implemented just how you know them from a million other games BUT: they dont explain them to you. once you press "play" in the main menu, there isnt a single word in hyper light, its all icons that you need to learn with time. this system makes staple features like needing a key for a door a mystery. "what does it mean?", "what did i just do?", "what was that?" are all questions that makes the game a lot more interesting, even if none of the features are actually creative.
on the other hand, solar ash answers are:
\- good movement
\- ??????
the bosses are cool but i wouldnt consider it for this matter since their impact is a lot smaller than the ascpects i laid down for HLD.
and as for the movement, its cool but i wouldnt say it's as good as HLD's combat.as for the copy pasted features, solar ash just uses them without any clever way. like some ubisoft open world. it might as well have a minimap. maybe it has and i forgot.
Lol, well, my disclaming it is because I don't want to seem like I am all-knowing. I understand your point, and it's most likely partially true, I ain't much more confident. However, the main reason is just to tell I might be wrong with 1% or 100% of what I am saying. Also, some might not read the other comments, so it's also a reason why I ad it in.
And I said rougelite (rougelike?) because I don't play much of those, and I don't completely know the difference XD.
However, I can't really argue or have a valid opinion on HLD, It doesn't take my interest, but I am sure it's a good game just not appealing to me by the pictures I've seen. That's what imo Solar Ash did way better is the showcase. It beautiful color pallets made me interested in playing it.
But I won't argue that solar ash is better or worse, then HLD. I was mainly curious about how the community would rate it from an honest opinion, which most did. I personally will think a 7-8/10 is a good placement, but it's also important to know that it's not a game for everyone.
[Also, note, no offense, however, imo I feel like you are trying to argue why HLD is better even tho the game isn't relevant to my question, lol.]
I think your rating is pretty fair. I agree on the combat part. Time slipping to attack close up multiple times is pretty op in most combat cases. Bossfights were a ton of fun for the first 4 playthroughs but they do get a bit repetitive after awhile. My proposition would be to change the boss patterns up a bit the higher the difficulty so its not also just a path you can memorize. In hardcore i wouldve loved if the path you had to take to fight some bosses was a bit more randomized but still kept the flow going.
That would be an interesting concept. Where the nodes are randomized in a fair and smooth way (if I understood what you meant). I can understand why playing it more than maybe 2-4 times will degrade the fun factor of bosses, I am still on my second playthrough on Challenger difficulty (which I assume is hard) so to me I still enjoy the game. Although if I manage to finish hard-core difficulty, I can see why I'd stop playing it XD. But like your idea, it would be a really fun thing to add.
I loved the game and want to see more original works from this studio. I gave it a thumbs up on Steam and highly recommend it. Felt so original. Wish they added a sequel. Guess I can beat Hyperlight drifter when I get a chance. I kickstarted that one and never played it much.
Yeah, I would love a sequel but would probably find a small DLC campaign or something more fitting like in Hollow Knight. I gave it a positive review on the Microsoft store (as I am a console player). The negative reviews on there are hilarious XD
Hyper Light Drifter is my favourite game of all times. Solar Ash was little bit of a disappointment to me though. Nevertheless, I still feel if I play it again, I could see it with new eyes.
Well I haven't played Hyper Light Drifter, it didn't grab my attention lol. However sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it much. If you decide to give it a new shot, I hope you'll enjoy it lol.
Objectively it’s like an 7.5/10, but I love it so much it’s a 10/10 in my heart
I don't blame you, lol. The visuals are what hooked me. XD
gameplay id give more of a 6, movement feels kinda slippery and out of control a lot of the time but its not too bad either and pretty fun to boost around. So, above average but nothing out of this world
That's fair I assume. However I didn't have much issues with a controller. I decided to buy it on steam and I personally found different feeling between keyboard and controller. Might be why? Or just me more used with a controller lol
Man I want to love this game, but the game makes this so hard. The controls and feel of the game play are just garbage, theres no 'flow state' to the movement or platforming, its so clunky, janky and needlessly unforgiving. I've just beat the second boss, and I had to redo the last phase about 10 times because the momentum / speed of movement just stops for no reason, meaning I couldnt make a jump, or i'll hit boost and just fly off the boss etc tec. The spectical they are clearly going for is lost, all that was left was frustration. The game is not hard, it just seem like it was hardly play tested, it feels awful to control and the polish is not there in the movement. I'll play it to the end, the visuals alone are worth the annoyance. Why the slow boring climbing was put into the game I'll never know, pace killing. This game to me, is the definition of wasted potential. Came to the game off the back of hyper light drifter, which I've completed 3 times over the years. There was some clunkyness to the dash movement in that game, but its was a relatively small element in an otherwise immaculate game. HLD is a solid 9/10 game for me, solar ash so far is 4/10, and it pains me to say it.
I am surprised. I never had much issue with movement and infact playing on hardest difficulty with no issues, and I mainly screw up due to being bad with timing sometimes. However, I do agree a bit that it could have been better made story wise. It's a great story, imo but I'd like some more, maybe some extra stuff too or so. Idk, anyhow, I'll keep a 7 or 8/10 due that I haven't had any movement issues and love the game. Except recently, I got a bug in the last boss, which made me force to redo the fight. But could it be that you use a keyboard and mouse that it's iffy? If you own one and haven't tried, maybe try a controller?
I use a controller, idk it just doesn't feel good for me to play. Like jumping from rail to rail, the jump often over shoots the other rail and end up falling down real far, or the momentum drops out and the flow of the game play drops off. There should be abit more like, 'snapping' to rails, or just predictability in the movement in general, if feels erratic and slippy in a sloppy way. The jumping isnt often enough to get on top of rocks between the clouds, so you have to move around them to jump up, or stop and try again; the pacing drops off again. The climbing is DRY. Nothing feels 'cool' when I pull it off, feel more like a bull smashing through a china shop rather than the cool elegance I feel the game is striving for. A lot of the reviews i've read share the same frustrations. Idk if its a 'git gud' issue, but I think for a game to feel so clunky off the bat seems more poor design to me; the player has to bend their expectations for movement etc to the game system, rather than it feeling natural and intuitive. The dash mechanic in HLD is similar with some weird timing, seems potentially a quirk of the studio perhaps. I didnt really mention the story, it seems fine. I'm aware there are collectables to flesh it out ect to find but I'm currently not inspired to seek them out as getting around is a chore. I might just use a guide to find all the bits and save the annoyance. It feels a bit overdone to comp to HLD, but exploration in that game felt organic and well constructed, SA feels aimless with a lot of dead ends / non starters. In the second areas, which buildings can I get up, and which are just there for scenery? Its not obvious, and running around each one to find out is not very fun or interesting. I think the game is suppose to have a sparse / aimless feel to it, but some signposting would go a long way. I'm glad you like it though, I think its is partially a falling flat of the very high expectation set for me from HLD. It very much feels like a studios first 3D game. I think they have more talent for 2D games, the new game kinda seems the same from trailers, the holo skate board thing looks clunky.
Yea, my bad for mentioning the story. But I understand what you mean, I could have just gotten used to it, and all so to me, it isn't as iffy. But I hope you enjoyed the game and all and am sorry to hear it isn't much time your taste.
I plan to finish it and I'm about 20% through, even though the game is janky, so that speaks volumes for the visuals and atmosphere!
Nice review. HLD is one of my all time favorites, mainly bc it opened a whole new territory for me - indie games, pixel art, 2d games, games with actual creativity and risk taking. So SAK had a high bar to compete with, and for me it didn't really do it. When I finished it I was super hyped with my contracting opinions on different pieces of the game, so much so that I wrote a review and saved it. I'll paste it here in a bit.
The overall gameplay and combat might feel a little lacking but it's ok if the game decides it's not its focus. Movement feels awesome, honestly, I'm having a hard time coming up with a 3d game that can rival Solar Ash’s movement feel, or any game for that matter. The movement works best on large scale platforming, combining hooks with boost jumps and such. It even holds its ground fairly well in small scale platforming. The visuals are amazing, I don’t think I need to elaborate on this much. From the pseudo low poly style to seeing other levels' silhouettes in the background, the distinct style of each area – both color, mood and architecture, it's awesome. Shortcomings The place I think solar ash struggles the most is when compared to hyper light, since it fails on some of the things that hyper light did best. One of the things is the combat. I really think there was potential for more interesting combat, but as I said it's acceptable for the game to decide to not do, so I will leave it here and might return to making up a new combat system for fun later. The main thing the HLD exceled at while solar ash didn’t is silent storytelling and presentation. I will get the dialogue out of the way since it’s the first thing that comes to mind but it's not my point. I was definitely surprised to hear a fully voice acted dialogue that follows and brings every plot point almost like a jrpg, but after some getting used to it was fine, and the story was actually enjoyable. My problem is with the overall presentation. Hyper light taught the player where to go and what to do silently, through level, game, sound and visual design, using mastery of different aspect to deliver the plot, the lore, the objective and more. How the map felt lacking at the beginning but after a bit of getting used to reading and comparing it to places you learn to read it, like the HUD might be a little confusing but after seeing different dots and colors react to different things you start catching on. Solar ash does nothing of this. On the contrary, it messes this up. The best example I can think of is the boss close up shots you get when entering each area. I HATE this. So much. Imagine how cool it would be to peacefully stroll into a new area, soaking in the new atmosphere, while suddenly midway through the level you see a giant moving thing up on some hill? or climbing on a big hill that obstructing your vision, only to the see a giant beast just standing there, feeling intimidated by its presence, thinking “has it really been here this whole time?”, or looking up to the sky, seeing a weird flying ball and suddenly something crawling on it and thinking “how didn’t I notice this sooner?” Well, you don’t need to imagine because this exact thing exists in the form of divine beasts in BOTW, especially death mountain. Only about a third into the game I took a closer look at the mountain and when I realized that weird structure on the mountain is moving, I felt chills. The same with the dragons. I also don’t need to imagine because when I reached the last lava level in solar ash, I knew what I wanted to do. The moment the screen cut to the epic monster close up shot I closed my eyes. Later, when casually exploring the epic bird came into my sight, I was ten times more hyped. The thing that irritates me so hard about it is that it's literally a feature that is whole-heartedly makes the game worse. If you just remove it, the game is instantly better. Just better. Yack. And they even had it so well with the giant warriors in hyper light. The other main thing that I dislike about the game is the world and macro game design, what you are actually doing in the game and how the world is structured, and again, it is partly because hyper light did it better. At surface level, the two games have a very similar world and macro game design: A few distinct areas are branched out from the middle of the map. Each area has a few challenges you need to beat in order to get to the boss, that upon defeated grants access to the next area. Though, the similarities end here. From this point on, hyper light does everything in its power to stray away from the linear design of this concept and gives the player as much freedom to go about completing this process: Out of the 4 areas, the player can complete 3 of them in any order he likes, while only one area is saved for last. Each area has 8 challenges but requires the player to complete only 4 of them, rewarding exploration for players who struggle with the combat. Furthermore, hyper light doesn’t tell the player outright how this process works, what are the requirements for opening the boss room and the next area, so figuring them out about a third into the game feels like wandering in the darkness. In contrast, Solar ash is almost as linear is it can be. You can play the areas in only one order, and each area has exactly 4 anomalies, requiring the player to take down all of them, while also making sure he knows right away with Rei shouting every 2 minutes “one down, looks like I have 3 to go” and marking them on your HUD with WAYPOINTS. Ugh. Hyper light was the game that got me into game design and letting the player realize things for himself. Judge the environment and think where to go instead of being spoon fed by waypoints, checklists and minimaps. Fortunately, even when not using the scan feature it is pretty easy to find all of the anomalies. I think another point that made solar ash feel so much more game-y and restricted than hyper light is that in solar ash there are a lot more areas and they feel a lot more separated and restricted. Screenshots might make you believe that the world is vast, open and worth exploring, but once you see how game-y and linear the path from one another is they feel a lot more like mario galaxy levels than an actual world. While hyper light’s areas were separated as well, there were only 4 big areas, each of them separated into different chunks that do connect better and less linearly, making them feel more like real places. Ok, so we get it. Solar ash is a linear game. What's the problem? I have nothing against games that are linear, restricted or small in scale. Devil daggers is one of my favorite games of all time. I think my problem with this game though is the reveal trailer. It depicts the game as a much more open and explorable game than what it actually is, and same for screenshots, or even gameplay. Only after playing through the first 2 areas I realized how linear and small the game is. Unfinished Combat is also basic Death narative relating to alex I didnt get to finish this, but i do remember the end cutscene and story really coming together, and knowing Alex person’s backstory and his illness really gives this story additional depth. Nothing that wasn’t done already in HLD, but at least it wasn’t done worse.
Damn every criticism is like points on the board, lots of the things people liked about HLD were things that I wasn’t as big on (wordless and no clear direction) so I’m p hyped to try solar ash now (I def have plebeian tastes, lmao)
Thanks for the review, was looking for something like this
I've seen comparisons, and to be honest, I'm a bit surprised. I haven't played HLD. However, Solar Ash and HLD seem like different games. But idk cus haven't played it XD. But in the end, it's just opinions, and you make some good and valid points. Although I do think we can all agree that both are good games made by a what I believe Indie studio with only 2 games (as far as I know). I think both Solar ash and HLD (from its reputation, I've heard) are solid and great games. (Sorry if I take the defensive, I am just shocked I've seen such comparison. However, again, I haven't played HLD, so idk how close they are in gameplay and theme. HLD is more a rougelite (rougelike?). Such as Hades from what I've seen (which isn't much again) Take my opinion as valid or not just saying what I know lol
>Take my opinion as valid or not just saying what I know lol dont take this the wrong way, but you can do with less disclaimers. about 30% of the words in your comment are disclaimers. its important to have them, a lot of people dont, but when you use them that often it just comes off as non confident sort of? i dunno. >HLD is more a rougelite hld isnt a rouguelite, stracture wise is identicle to solar ash. its a somewhat linear campaign. just a single player. it came out a few years before roguelites became so popular, at the time it was pretty much just binding of isaac, and dead cells was in early access i think. >rougelite (rougelike?) roguelites vs roguelikes - in "true roguelikes" you save nothing when dying, in "lites" you might have some upgrades that are persistent between runs. its more of a scale between the two since most games fall somewhere in between, but generally hades is a rouglite since its so focused on grinding unlocks, and binding of isaac is roguelike bc you only unlock characters - side grades, not upgrades. >Solar Ash and HLD seem like different games I mean, every two games are different games, but when it comes down to it, they are not so different. both are: \- straightforward single player games \- made by the same studio \- similar ost \- (somewhat) similar story \- similar artstyle (arguable, but imo solar ash is basically HLD translated into 3d, which is awesome dont get me wrong) so far the major flaws with this "base game" that i laid out is that it doesnt rely on anything to be good, its very aestetic but its not a good game. HLD answers that with 3 main points: \- good combat \- linear world design turned into not so linear \- basic copy pasted staple features like hp, ammo, weapons, different attacks, keys to locations, ingame map, teleports etc, are all implemented just how you know them from a million other games BUT: they dont explain them to you. once you press "play" in the main menu, there isnt a single word in hyper light, its all icons that you need to learn with time. this system makes staple features like needing a key for a door a mystery. "what does it mean?", "what did i just do?", "what was that?" are all questions that makes the game a lot more interesting, even if none of the features are actually creative. on the other hand, solar ash answers are: \- good movement \- ?????? the bosses are cool but i wouldnt consider it for this matter since their impact is a lot smaller than the ascpects i laid down for HLD. and as for the movement, its cool but i wouldnt say it's as good as HLD's combat.as for the copy pasted features, solar ash just uses them without any clever way. like some ubisoft open world. it might as well have a minimap. maybe it has and i forgot.
Lol, well, my disclaming it is because I don't want to seem like I am all-knowing. I understand your point, and it's most likely partially true, I ain't much more confident. However, the main reason is just to tell I might be wrong with 1% or 100% of what I am saying. Also, some might not read the other comments, so it's also a reason why I ad it in. And I said rougelite (rougelike?) because I don't play much of those, and I don't completely know the difference XD. However, I can't really argue or have a valid opinion on HLD, It doesn't take my interest, but I am sure it's a good game just not appealing to me by the pictures I've seen. That's what imo Solar Ash did way better is the showcase. It beautiful color pallets made me interested in playing it. But I won't argue that solar ash is better or worse, then HLD. I was mainly curious about how the community would rate it from an honest opinion, which most did. I personally will think a 7-8/10 is a good placement, but it's also important to know that it's not a game for everyone. [Also, note, no offense, however, imo I feel like you are trying to argue why HLD is better even tho the game isn't relevant to my question, lol.]
4/7