"There is no light" is a dark fantasy pixel ARPG. The game sees you take on the role of a hero who's new born has been stolen away by the worshippers of a new god (the hand) to be used as a sacrifice.
While trying to save your child, you are stopped and imprisoned. While you lay mortally wounded, a mysterious and magical entity named Samedi saves you; over the next year Samedi trains you to be a killing machine and instrument of revenge!
Sounds very exciting but unfortunately the gameplay doesn't quite match the hype.
The pixel art is really nice and a lot of care and attention has been put into creating characters and sprawling environments.
Control of your hero and combat is also very well tuned. It's all familiar ARPG fare with regular/heavy attacks and a dash dodge.
Combat probably just falls into the soulslike catagory, with button mashing being swiftly punished with demise. The staple approach of slash, slash dodge is further augmented with the addition of skills that can be interrupted with heavy attacks and the ability to switch between four different weapons with unique attacks mid combat.
For me the game falls flat with it's pacing.
The slow, almost laborious intro, I could forgive it, as this is setting the scene and providing backstory, however it just never really picks up from there.
There is far too much incidental dialogue to check through in case you miss a story beat.
The environments, while well-designed, are extremely large and there's a lot of both pointless and empty traversal.
There's a vignette of gloom around the edge of the screen that makes it sometimes difficult to see where to go and exit/transition points can sometimes difficult to activate; it's generally just unclear at times where to go to progress the story.
Unfortunately all of these negatives amount to the game being too much of a chore to really enjoy, an awful lot of walking and backtracking punctuated by pockets of dynamic combat and interesting plot progression.
I just found it too, "stop... start" to allow me to get into the rhythm of play and immerse myself.
Not a bad game by any means, but better level design and a better balance between exploration and streamlining could have turned this average ARPG into a winner.
There is No Light is now available on Steam for $24.99 USD, €24.99, and £19.49 with a special 15% launch discount.
Comments