Strayed Lights is truly like no other, with its beautiful and vibrant visuals and a rather unique way of storytelling.
Light as a concept can mean many things. Light is warm, it is safe, it is guidance and in terms of storytelling, light often means good, it means purity. But light can be snuffed, and it can be stolen. Strayed Lights is a cinematic action-adventure game that explores this and is developed and published by the developer Embers.
Embers is a rather small studio based in Strasbourg, France. The city itself is rather well known for its rivers and seems to be taken straight out of a storybook. With such beautiful visual sights around you, it’s no wonder why the studio has produced such a visually gorgeous game. That’s right, Strayed Lights is Embers’ first major release and honestly, it shows that the studio holds plenty of potential and that there is a promising future in game development for them.
We begin our story, much as the same with any other story, with a spark that ignites the flame, the flame of life. You begin your story just as our protagonist is born. They are a being made of vibrant, glowing fire, and this is where the game adds in some visual storytelling. You see, there is something wrong with the world they have been brought into.
Everything is cold, desolate and in ruins; there is a raging lightning storm outside; what has happened here? As you seek out answers, you come across a tall reflective crystal mirror, and upon touching it, your protagonist grows, no longer a mere innocent infant but now a strong young adult. But something’s not quite right, your reflection doesn’t have your glow and attacks you and steals and corrupts your newfound flame.
When you face off against your corrupted shadow self, you learn about the game’s rather interesting combat. The game is listed as a soulslike, but that’s only half the truth. In most soulslikes, parrying is a quintessential part of combat, especially if you want to deal damage, however, in Strayed Lights, parrying isn’t just one aspect of the combat, it is the combat itself.
Whenever you successfully parry an attack, an energy bar will fill up. Once this bar is full, you will be able to unleash a powerful and devastating QTE attack. Parrying is also incredibly useful if you want to stay alive, as you will regain health after you successfully parried an attack, that is, if one other condition has been met.
There’s more to the game’s combat than simply parrying oncoming attacks. In Strayed Lights, the game fuses soulslike combat with a color-matching puzzle of all things. You see when our protagonist had gotten corrupted, so did their flame. This allows you to switch between different colored energies, but so can your enemies.
Depending on what color an enemy switches to will also change what type of attack they’re going to do. This also means what color you need to switch to. If you successfully parry an attack and match the corresponding color, then the energy bar that was mentioned earlier will fill up, and you will also restore missing health.
However, if you successfully parry an attack but don’t match the color then you won’t receive any damage, but you will also not receive any rewards such as health. You still need to stay on your toes, though, as certain attacks cannot be parried, meaning that you will need to dash to avoid getting hit by them.
In a way, Strayed Lights is far more forgiving than your typical souls-likes, as yes, you need to make sure your timing is perfect if you want to get the most out of a parry or an attack, but it’s okay to mess up once in a while. Do keep in mind the game won’t hold your hand forever as if you mess up. The same hand that gently guides you can swiftly smack you across the face if you get sloppy.
Strayed Lights is just such a breathtaking experience, particularly in terms of visuals. As mentioned earlier, the game puts a heavy emphasis on light, and everything that light means, and the game conveys this exceptionally well with its visuals. Everything in the game is vibrant and saturated; shadows aren’t actually black and are instead rich shades of midnight blue and various shades of indigo.
The game reserves using true black tones only for the corrupted and everything that gets tainted by them. A good example of this is our shadow self; they are the first visual example of true black, and much like the color itself, they absorb our light and afterward, we are never the same.
Another thing that the game uses excellently is contrast. One of the easiest ways to create contrast is by using either light or color, and as for the case of Strayed Lights, it uses both. To go back to our shadow self and enemies, as mentioned earlier, they are the only true uses of black. This makes them stand out from the environment because nowhere in these environments do we see true black.
The game also uses color theory to make things stand out, such as a bright blue light standing out against a muddy green platform. As for the use of light, the game uses it to bring your attention to something of importance, either to oncoming enemy attacks or to the various upgrades and collectables you can find dotted around each level.
So we’ve established that the game has some excellent visuals, but that is only one aspect that makes the game so breathtaking. One of Strayed Lights most well-utilized features is its sound design. The game doesn’t have the most grandiose of soundtracks; in fact, its soundtrack is rather minimalistic and is mainly composed of wind flutes and atmospheric chimes. This does, however, work in the game’s favor; besides building a gorgeous atmosphere, this also helps make your attacks and abilities sound even more impactful and makes you appreciate the time and effort that was probably spent on them.
Besides creating atmosphere and emphasizing attack sound effects, the game also uses sound to tell its story. In Strayed Lights, there is absolutely no dialogue whatsoever, both written and spoken. There is absolutely nothing said by our main character or other characters in the game’s story.
Now you would think that without any dialogue, we would have a hard time understanding the protagonist or what’s going on in the story. The game tells you its story through both audio cues and character action. These audio cues help us piece the unspoken story and help give context to what is taking place. Well, yes, this can be a bit confusing initially, but you’ll understand the more you play.
Overall, Strayed Lights is a truly beautiful game. While its visuals and audio design are incredibly vibrant and breathtaking, the true beauty of it shines through with how the game uses both. As for the combat, despite it being far more forgiving than other games in the genre, it still provides you with enough of a challenge to keep you engaged and keep coming back for more. Strayed Lights also shows a promising future for developer Embers, and hopefully, we will see more from the French developer.
