![]() That facade disappears quickly when you get up close to anything however where the lack of detail in both the modelling and the textures becomes readily apparent. Lost Ember is at its best when you’re playing in the wide open spaces, able to soak in the seemingly endless vistas in front of you. The hallmarks of the Unreal 4 engine are all over Lost Ember from the various particle and lighting effects to just that overall “feel” you get from Unreal games that don’t muck with the underlying engine code too much. What follows is a journey through the memory of the world that you live in and the spirit’s journey to the life hereafter. You’re approached by a wayward spirit who’s become lost on his way to the City of Light and seeks out your help. You are Wolf, a beast of this world who appears to have the uncanny ability to see the spirits of the Inrahsi people and to possess all other animals in this world. For those that stray from the path however they’re cast back down into the world as beasts, forced to roam the world once again. While the plot ponders some tough questions, the game itself asks if you want to be an armadillo or a capybara, and I’m here for it.The people of the Inrahsi believe that those who follow their religion faithfully are rewarded with entry to the City of Life upon their deaths. Best of all, and the reason I backed Lost Ember on Kickstarter to begin with: you get to explore this world as a bunch of different animals, and they’re hella cute. The music is great but there’s not enough of it, controls are occasionally tricky and frame rate isn’t always stable, but any issues are more of a nuisance than a deal-breaker. It’s got an atmospheric and occasionally brilliant art style, a well-written and narrated story, and some genuinely charming gameplay segments. When it works it works beautifully, but there are a few too many gaps in between, where controls feel sluggish or performance issues creep in, and those somewhat spoil the overall effect. These moments build towards the back end of the game, as the plot unfolds and the sensation of reaching the conclusion is hastened by more polished gameplay segments, more wow-factor in the visuals and more depth in the music. There are a handful of stand-out scenes that I’m keen to go back to one day, like leaping over waterfalls and slip-n-sliding into the sunset, or swooping down on a herd of buffalo as they rumble across a desert littered with the wreckage of a ruined aqueduct. The first time you encounter a parrot and soar in company through canyons and waterfalls is wonderful, but you don’t know struggle until you’ve tried to fly up a gentle slope as a duck.Īt times Lost Ember goes all in on creating a feeling of wonder, smoothing a transition from one area to the next by moving you along in harmony with your surroundings. Likewise, the animals you’re able to possess (which range from the humble, default wolf to tropical fish, fireflies, elephants and eagles) are mostly a pleasure to control when in motion, but unwieldy in short bursts and confined spaces. Environments are gorgeous when you’re moving through them but the edges start to fray when you go looking for collectables, or venture too far from the beaten track. The gameplay benefits massively from keeping that momentum too. Lost Ember is a more involved story than Journey’s was, and is much easier to follow if you move swiftly from one beat to the next. This is a mystery with a game built around it, and it becomes apparent fairly quickly that maintaining the natural pace of the story is a far more rewarding experience than dallying to take in your surroundings. ![]() The path you follow is a Journey-esque journey, linear but with occasional freedom to explore, though no major control over the direction of the narrative.
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