Ember Souls is no different. It tries to combine parkour with sword fighting, as many other games have done before. Ember Souls, however, does it hit the mark? Ember Souls is a parkour adventure game with puzzles and a focus on platforming. The facts
What’s it about? :
An action-adventure romp through a Persian palace.
(reviewed on Quest 3)Release Date:
Out nowQuestDeveloper:
VirtualAgePrice:
$24.99Platforming is where Ember Souls shines the brightest. You can’t climb every wall, but there is a good balance of surfaces you can ascend slowly and those that need extra caution. You’re shown early on that jumping between points is an important part of Ember Souls platforming. Soon, you will get into the habit of climbing a wall, a column and facing a pole to jump onto, then continuing your journey. Ideally without even stopping, if at all possible.
Screenshot taken on Quest 3As you progress through the 6+ hour campaign, you’ll gain access to new abilities as you obtain new Ember Stones. The Wind Stone allows you to move yourself towards grapple points while also allowing for the pushing and pulling of objects. The Water Stone lets you momentarily freeze running water, which the game makes great use of during puzzle-solving.
Ember Souls is at its best when you can feel yourself ease into the platforming, and level design is generally solid through the experience with only a few exceptions. The controls of the game are most consistently used in parkour, as is the design and Ember Stone capabilities. The “hop” from one hanging point to another didn’t always work as expected. I would often fly past the spot where I had been supposed to be able to grab onto. That would be fairly easy to forgive if that was the only issue I had with the game’s controls.
Screenshot taken on Quest 3
Performance isn’t always an issue but controls are consistently a pain. The platforming is good, but the combat falls somewhere between being too rigid and loose. The menuing is also a bit of a mess. The game’s menuing isn’t very good. Your melee weapon rests at your hips but it doesn’t register your movements well. You can access your inventory from your front hips along with your weapons. The inventory would open as soon as I unsheathed my sword, obstructing my view when I was trying to focus on the combat. It’s possible to move the inventory nearer your body but it requires some fiddling. While it is never a problem during normal combat, the situation becomes a bit more complicated during boss battles. A mid-game battle against a Hydra was a troubling instance. You were supposed to lead it to water pillars, which would then freeze it into place. However, the act of kiting the Hydra while remaining close enough to not eat its fiery breath made it annoying. It’s frustrating that if it freezes in mid-attack animation you cannot even get close to it to begin hacking its head off. The hitbox of its attack is still active even though it’s frozen, so I need to wait several seconds to possibly have a second opportunity to freeze the boss again. Other boss fights are similarly frustrating.
Ember Souls offers a decent selection of comfort options. You can choose between artificial locomotion based on a stick that you can move with your head, or the controller, as well as teleportation and arm-swing locomotion. The player can also disable turning or switch between snapping and smoothing the camera. It’s the little things like these that annoy me. You can dodge attacks by dash, select your dominant hand and calibrate height. Ember Souls offers some interesting and intuitive puzzles, but combat feels as if it is trying to make me play according to its rules even when they don’t make sense. You’re taught early on that throwing knives can deal serious damage. Later, I was right behind an opponent who was wearing a full-face helmet and yet the back of their head was exposed. My knife was aimed at the back of my opponent’s head, but it struck their helmet, forcing me to engage in a fight I had planned to avoid. Had I stabbed my opponent in the back instead with my sword, it would have been no big deal. Some Ember Stones, such as Wind Stone Force Push, are inconsistent. Sometimes activating at the slightest movement of my hands, and other times refusing to budge even with sufficient Energy in my reserves.
With a few small tweaks and some extra polish, it would be much easier to recommend Ember Souls. It’s hard to recommend Ember Souls when so many VR action-adventure titles offer a better experience. Ember Souls is not short on content. Raids, a randomly generated mode, can be used to tackle challenges that aren’t part of the campaign. Sandbox is a great place to test yourself against the waves you choose. While not particularly special, the story is adequate and serves its purpose. Though it’s worth noting that the voice acting was distractingly bad, especially for anyone that wasn’t a main character.
Ember Souls – Final Verdict
There’s a good game hidden somewhere in Ember Souls, even if the current version makes it hard to parse underneath a ton of jank. It’s difficult to recommend Ember Souls in its current state. The game is characterized by a heavy focus on parkour and unique levels centered around Ember Stones. Ember Souls’ heart is in the right place, but the execution is frustrating and promising in equal measure.
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