In 2016, the brand new American studio Heart Machine amazed us with Hyper Light Drifter. A superb title, with a high challenge and an extraordinary soundtrack by Disasterpeace. Five years later, Alx Preston and his teams surprise us once again with Solar ash, a 3D action platformer that clashes with their previous production, without however forgetting it.
One might have feared, given the radically different visual direction and gameplay of Hyper Light Drifter and the not-so-engaging trailers, that Solar Ash would be too big a change for Heart Machine, so much so that players would be left out. We couldn't be more wrong and we'll explain why Solar Ash can easily enter your GOTY 2021 list.
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Read the conclusionSolar Ash
- A quality artistic direction
- Super smooth gameplay
- A level design that borders on perfection
- The compositions of Disasterpeace
- The Not So Useful Side Missions
- Audio logs are sometimes too well hidden
- A wobbly Spanish translation at times
Test carried out on PC via a key provided by the publisher. Solar Ash is available on the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.
Black hole and poetry
In Solar Ash, we play as Rei, a void runner who travels through fragmented worlds to fight the Ultravacuum and save her planet from the disastrous fate that countless other worlds in the galaxy have already suffered, by activating the super weapon called Starseed. During the 8 hours that the adventure lasts (count 2 or 3 more if you want to complete the game at 100%), we travel through different open areas, each connected to each other. The scheme is the same each time: explore, find the anomalies in the form of Black Liquid to be removed while respecting a tight timing, destroy their eyes in order to awaken the gigantic boss of the area and defeat it.
Repetitive? Absolutely not. Because Solar Ash, although only offering us a handful of areas to explore, easily manages to renew the experience and the gameplay through each of them. First, visually, each world is superb. The work done on the artistic direction deserves the greatest tributes as Heart Machine has been able to develop its own and original identities to these destroyed worlds. We feel the chaos that reigned there during their destruction and the visual clues that fill them make us understand what life could have been like before. In the style of Hyper Light Drifter, but this time with more spoken dialogue, Solar Ash has an extremely neat environmental narrative imbued with poetry (no really, there are even poems written in the game to find).
On the gameplay side then. If Rei has the same skills throughout the adventure (running and above all sliding, hanging on with a grappling hook), the worlds each offer different ways of using them, but always with one main idea: favoring movement as smooth as possible. Solar Ash, thanks to this gameplay with small onions, then approaches a title cut for the speedrun but accessible to all and it is extremely satisfying.
Shadow of the Evangelion
But where gameplay, ultra ingenious level design in its simplicity (seriously, learn the work done on it in video game schools, it's rare to have master classes like that) and satisfaction are at their peak, c is during boss 'battles'. Yes, quotes to fights, because we do not face in the sense that we hear the gigantic enigmatic creatures called the Vestiges. Very inspired in their approach by Shadow of the Colossus (and by Evangelion in their design), these bosses actually represent a kind of circuit of platforms to be traversed as quickly as possible.
Each phase of the boss asks us to climb on his huge body and go through it by hitting specific places before the end of the timer (which resets to zero with each element hit) until arriving at his weak point which, once destroyed , will result in a new phase. What immense satisfaction to chain without making any error all the course leading to the weak point! In addition, we are helped by a perfectly tuned camera that will always go in the direction of the next blow to strike without making us lose our sense of direction.
Do you want more ? Add in this already very cool packaging electro orchestral compositions by Disasterpeace that will transport you to the intensity of the moment. The composer's work from the games Fez, Hyper Light Drifter and the films It Follows and Under the Silver Lake is once again incredibly accomplished, this time ditching the chiptune style for more ethereal electro melodies for the open and epic areas to explore. for bosses.
A little filler
In Solar Ash, our character, Rei, can take advantage of her wanderings to encounter NPCs lost in the ruins of their world. Each has its own story related to its world, which we can choose to follow if we wish. If this does not bring much and does not help us to finish the game faster, it is always interesting for those who wish, to explore more in depth these stories of Ultravide, great Old ones and cataclysms they have experienced.
JVFR
It is also possible to go in search of her fellow void runners who tried before Rei to activate the Starseed, but of whom our heroine has no further news. But to find their transmitters, you have to sift through every square meter of the areas looking for any hidden openings. And it can take a long time, as these transmitters that deliver audio logs from our colleagues can be well hidden.
If you find the 5 or 6 logbooks per area, then you unlock each time a new combination which can help you, thanks to its unique properties, to navigate the different worlds. Is the game worth the candle? Not really, in the sense that each world can be navigated quite easily simply with Rei's basic outfit. But it's still a good challenge for completionists and allows you to fully explore the game's beautiful levels.
JVFR
Solar Ash : l'avis de JVFR
We are dealing here with only the second title from the Heart Machine studio and its teams have already demonstrated great mastery in the production of a video game. Five years of development will have been necessary to carry out this project, with the help of Annapurna Interactive, and the end result is beyond our expectations.
Solar Ash immerses us in a universe as mysterious as it is captivating, filled with mysteries and rules that we take constant pleasure in discovering. The proposed gameplay loop is the same each time, but we never had a feeling of deja vu as the game manages to diversify in its approaches. Beautiful, rhythmic, fluid to play and with a high quality soundtrack, Solar Ash deserves its place in your toy library and is already making us impatient for Heart Machine's new project. See you in five years?
Solar ash8
Solar Ash will perfectly amaze fans of well-constructed levels, mysterious worlds and fluid gameplay. Beautiful, intelligent and with a successful soundtrack, the game universe of Heart Machine deserves to be discovered.Most
- A quality artistic direction
- Super smooth gameplay
- A level design that borders on perfection
- The compositions of Disasterpeace
The lessers
- The Not So Useful Side Missions
- Audio logs are sometimes too well hidden
- A wobbly Spanish translation at times
