Strayed Lights Impressions – In this Strayed Light Impressions, we’ll be looking into Embers’ first title, Strayed Lights, in terms of the action-adventure’s story and setting, gameplay, combat, and more! How is the story told? What gameplay features set it apart? How does combat feel like? If you’re curious about these questions and what we think of the game, then this article is for you!

Strayed Lights Impressions – A Luminescent Feat

• Name: Strayed Lights
• Platforms: PC, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch
• Developer: Embers
• Publisher: Embers
• Release Date: April 25th, 2023
• Genre: Action-Adventure

Strayed Lights Impressions – Story & Setting

Strayed Lights takes place in a seemingly inescapable and mysterious realm. The game starts with your birth, a tiny ball of light that gains consciousness to explore a world ripe with adventures. But this is going to be a different experience altogether since the developers have opted to tell a story through the vast use of imagery. There’s no dialogue between the characters, nor is there the usual narrator’s voice to share a certain history of the place you’re in.

Right from the very start, you don’t have a clear sense of what’s going on around you. Aside from having blurry vision, walking feels foreign but once you understand and try it by taking a few steps toward the light, you soon learn to run. It’s a decision that’ll allow you to make your way into this vibrant and colorful world to build your experiences from scratch, just like in real life. Strayed Lights depicts moments of growth from something as crucial as learning how to harness the energies of enemies to something as life-changing as choosing to overcome the shadow that could corrupt your soul.

The theme is centered around drawing a fine line between one’s emotions to maintain balance within. It’s a rather simple idea about making tough choices to live a good life and helping others do the same. But how the story is conveyed throughout the entire game is one that will be ingrained in memory for years to come due to how breathtaking the setting is.

In fact, one of my favorite locations resembles that of a dream – colorful compared to the other backdrops and quite hazy to represent the dream-like state of ambiguity. It’s a fairytale world that’s too good to be true yet you won’t be able to resist it. Every distinct biome is given the same attention to detail and care, thereby encouraging you to explore the world over and over again and be in awe every single time.

Strayed Lights Impressions – Gameplay Features

The Inner World & Energy Affinity

In Strayed Lights, you’re meant to absorb the energies of hostile shadow creatures. Doing so will not only rid them of their corruption but also allow you to reuse these energies to grow and build your character. Inner World is the skill tree in the game with two major branches. The active abilities on top are unlocked by acquiring runes from completing boss fights whereas the ones at the bottom can be accessed upon receiving enough crystals by defeating regular enemies.

At any point in the combat, you can cycle between active abilities, of which there are three to choose from. One example is Balance where you’ll be given a brief time when you won’t need to swap colors to successfully parry attacks. Another is Blast, which will make you lunge at enemies to deal a powerful punch. You also gain passives such as improved health and extra damage. Additionally, you’ll be able to increase the amount of energy you absorb from enemies with Energy Affinity. Energy Affinity is upgraded by collecting sufficient energy orbs via exploration or by searching for Purple Eggs, which may or may not yield valuable information about the fantasy realm.

Exploration

Since words are only reserved for tutorials, it’s up to you to piece things together so anything you see and hear is open for interpretation. This is one of the best features of Strayed Lights because it gives the players the freedom to decide what their understanding of the game is. What helps give meaning to the overall experience is exploration. Even without a map, navigation isn’t difficult. Instead, finding where to go becomes intuitive immediately.

This is where good world design comes into play since leading paths will always point you in the right direction. In some cases though, such as collecting energy orbs, you’re going to have to be more meticulous because there are barely enough signs nearby. So it’s important to search every crevice possible, otherwise, you can easily miss them if you’re not too careful.

However, one glaring aspect of this Strayed Lights Impressions, is it focuses less on the intricacies of character building and more on experiencing the world’s atmospheric beauty and participating in combat, which represents overcoming adversity. As such, players won’t be stifled with scrounging for equipment since there are no weapons and armor to wield and wear.

Combat

The combat of Strayed Lights leans on parrying, which is the way to fight and survive. But it’s not only about defending against incoming attacks since you’ll also need to match the enemy’s colors with that of your own for a successful parry. Inspired by both Sekiro and Ikaruga, Embers is aiming for combat that’s both nerve-wracking and worthwhile, and they deliver. Because of this color-switching mechanic, you’re forced to pay closer attention to the enemy, and therefore to adapt accordingly. Normal attacks are present of course but they’re minimally effective at best.

The two main colors in the game are blue and orange for parrying. When the target’s color changes to purple though, you’ll need to dodge since this type of attack can’t be defended against. Learning enemy patterns and parrying effectively doesn’t take long to understand. In fact, I wouldn’t consider the game to be punishing, unlike traditional Soulslike titles. There’s no Stamina Management to worry about while you’re sprinting, jumping, dodging, or parrying. And, dying has no repercussions either since you don’t lose in-game currency or ‘Souls’ for this matter. Instead, you’re teleported a few feet away from where you fell.

But don’t let these dissuade you from giving Strayed Lights a shot. Its combat encounters are still challenging, especially while you’re trying to figure out the enemy’s movesets and having to correctly switch from one color to the next. Successfully parrying an attack while your color is similar to your enemy’s will restore a sizable chunk of your health. This becomes tough if you’re battling it out against two shadows who consume too much of the space around you. Here, you’ll need to be quick enough to alternate between dodging, color-switching, and parrying because oftentimes, their colors are going to be different from one another.

Perhaps to improve the game’s complexity, I would’ve preferred to cycle between more colors. Doing so would certainly add to the combo of actions you’d need to master and utilize to gain more energy.

The highlight of combat in Strayed Lights is the boss encounters because of their unique moves that you won’t see repeated in another fight. Oftentimes, they take quite a while to defeat since they persist through multiple phases. These battles take the difficulty one to two notches higher due to how domineering and wide the massive creature’s reaches are. It’s definitely not a walk in the park.

Meanwhile, the finisher moves are also wonderful to watch due to their grandiosity and dazzling style – you’ll certainly pat yourself on the back for having triumphed over the shadow you’ve saved. But if there’s one thing I would change, it would probably be the inclusion of additional quick-time events to further involve the player in the last few moments of these encounters.

Audio & Visuals

Strayed Lights provides an ethereal experience by marrying great visuals with outstanding musical scores. In terms of the art style, bright and bold colors distinctly highlight the game’s dreamlike appeal from the claustrophobic greens of the spider’s caverns to the bluish hues of the forest’s twisting branches. Every location is a surprise in and of itself because of how different they look and the emotions they evoke.

But it’s not only the environments that are given great attention, as we’ve noticed in this Strayed Lights Impressions. Both you and your enemies stand out from these visually striking facades as Embers makes use of color palettes that are in stark contrast with the backgrounds. All characters have bright blue, orange, or purple silhouettes, making them clearly pop out. This will even remind you of a lite version of Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ aesthetic but by no means is it a bad thing. Furthermore, a sense of scale is emphasized because of the area’s verticality. In some cases, you see how tall the structures are and the expanding reach of the area. While you won’t be able to literally climb any of the walls or glide toward them, you’ll eventually reach these sights one way or another.

What I do enjoy is witnessing the boss’s visual designs, which make them look like they belong in the environments they live in. One example is going up against the King residing in the jungle, who is an ape-like figure threatened by celestial-looking animals and foreign entities such as yourself.

Audio-wise, there’s no voice acting but the delivery of music and sound effects at every moment is fascinating. You’ll hear a variety of instruments for every boss fight that create unique and haunting tunes. While you’re exploring, a whimsical cacophony of tones will awaken your senses, making you feel grounded in the location you’re in. For example, wildlife sounds such as familiar crickets flying about creating life within the forest. What’s more, is that combat encounters feature punchy and realistic loud effects that showcase how painful your and your enemies’ attacks truly are.

Final Thoughts

If you’re expecting a Soulslike experience, you’ll need to think again. Although the story, gameplay, and combat elements of Strayed Lights aren’t as complex and deep, the title is a labor of love that’s worth a visit. Sure, there are improvements to the gameplay that could be made like adding in more colors and abilities as well as quick-time events toward the end of boss encounters. There are also occasional performance issues or stutters while exploring or fighting enemies that need to be addressed.

But its overall beauty is undeniable from the gorgeous sceneries evoking different kinds of emotions to the gripping hard-fought battles to save kindred souls. This is a one-of-a-kind adventure that’ll surely remain unforgettable. The action-adventure tale also does justice to visual storytelling, even more so due to its calming, exhilarating, and wistful instrumentals. If you’re searching for a wonderful and charming indie title with a narrative you’ll have to piece together, and one that offers some challenge in combat, then Strayed Lights is the game for you. It’s now available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch consoles.

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Is Strayed Lights a game you’d play on the first day of launch? If so, what is its main draw for you? Let us know in the comments below! If you have questions, feel free to drop by our Twitch Channel. If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out our recent content, Jagged Alliance 3 Preview (Turn-Based RPG) and Elder Scrolls Online Necrom Preview – Arcanist Class and More!.