Strayed Lights is an Action Fighter and Platformer developed and published by Embers. This game is beautiful in the way it tells its story. While there are many things I like about it, there are aspects of the game that are lacking.
First, Strayed Lights asks you to adjust the brightness of the in-game gamma rays. If you can’t do this, you’ll be asked to adjust the brightness settings on your Switch. I’m sensitive to light, so most of the time I’m playing games with the Switch on the brightest setting.
There are many dark areas in this work, and the battle is bright. I often had to keep toggling the brightness of my Switch just to see what I was doing. So he could only play this game for an hour or so at a time, after which he developed headaches and lightheadedness.
Given that this game is all about light and shadow, it might seem obvious, but it would have been nice to have some kind of flash warning when turning on the game. Or, even better, it’s in the game description.
Now let’s get into the heart of Strayed Lights. As you progress through the game, the story is told quietly. According to the description, you “play as newborn flames torn by shadows.” As the game progresses, the characters become stronger and appear to age. Enemies are friends who have become villains or have been taken over by the dark. Each boss seems to represent a different emotion, such as loneliness, anger, or depression.
To be honest, I don’t quite understand what you’re talking about. The lack of dialogue makes it difficult to interpret what the game wants from you. Of course, that’s also the beauty of it. No player will see this story in the same way. Personally, I found Strait Lights to have themes of growth, mental health, patience, and kindness. It’s a story worth discussing, even if you don’t fully understand it.
The gameplay is a mix of platforming and fighting enemies and bosses. First, let’s talk about the heart of the game: combat. Combat was pretty fun as the characters are in charge of defense. To damage enemies and bosses, you must parry enemy attacks.
The hero can switch between two colors, orange and blue, and the enemies can switch as well. When parrying to damage or drain an enemy’s energy, you must match the enemy’s color. It’s okay if the colors don’t match. Attacks can be blocked, but damage cannot be dealt. Enemies can also turn purple, which is sort of like a rage attack. When that happens, it cannot be parried and must be avoided out of the way. Your character has an attack button, but I rarely used it.
Strayed Lights is primarily about exploring different areas, defeating enemies, finding and fighting bosses. Combat was all the same, except some enemies were faster or slower. The bosses were intriguing, but relatively easy to defeat once you learned the attack patterns.
By defeating bosses and enemies, characters gain power shards to upgrade their skills. For example, parrying for a short time will give you more health and abilities, such as becoming multicolored. You can upgrade your character in the inner world. The inner world also contains portals to various areas.
Here the discussion is brought to platformization. Strayed Lights has many areas to explore that branch out from one area. As soon as you enter each area, a portal from your inner world opens to that area. Completing an area closes the portal and makes it inaccessible.
I liked how the portals appeared and disappeared. This will give you an idea of how much progress you have made. With no map, it was difficult to determine if I was approaching the area. Fortunately, the area is not large. Each can be completed in less than an hour.
Each level is almost the same. Explore, encounter enemies, and eventually reach the boss. The graphics of enemies and characters are great. The background is also beautiful, but it feels a little barren. Unfortunately, platforming wasn’t easy either. I was more likely to die when I missed a jump than in combat.
Dying is a pain in Strait Light. The game autosaves frequently, but there are no lives. So you will be revived in your place. However, it will take several minutes. Loading screens took a very long time to move from one area to another, respawn from death, and even just launching the game. When I timed it once, the loading screen remained for about 1 minute and 10 seconds.
In addition to loading screens, I encountered other performance issues. Autosaving would sometimes freeze the game for a few seconds. Enemies were very slow to fight as the frame rate dropped significantly in some areas.
I really enjoyed my time with Stray Lights. A fun game with a unique combat system that tells a quiet beautiful story. However, performance issues often took away from the fun, and the battles became repetitive over time. Once you get the hang of the gameplay, it’s easy to finish the game within hours. If Strayed Lights piqued your interest, chances are you’ll enjoy this game.
