When the ground you just skated across is suddenly above you, it would only be natural for confusion to set in, but Heart Machine manages to keep track of their levels, so you never feel lost. Some places small spheres reminiscent of Super Mario Galaxy's worlds have even been formed. The opening areas in Solar Ash are relatively straightforward geometrically speaking, but as Rei moves deeper and deeper into The Ultravoid her surroundings become increasingly distorted and fragmented. A quality only magnified by the thick purple and orange light often permeating the world. The different civilisations provide each area with a unique identity, which goes a beyond the somewhat tired tropes we often see in platformers in particular, and the way The Ultravoid has torn everything apart and put it back together adds a considerable surreal quality to the world. The Ultravoid sucks up entire planets and before it reached Rei's, it has apparently swallowed up others, the remains of which are scattered across six large open areas only held together by a bright, fluffy pink substance, which Rei can luckily skate freely on. Solar Ash is set in a black hole, The Ultravoid, but the colour palette is dominated by strong, varied colours. It also has an ace up its sleeve in the gorgeous visuals, which time and time again astounds and amazes. It does borrow heavily from other titles, but it uses those inspirations as stepping stones rather than anklets. Both games feature a masked protagonist arriving alone in a mysterious, desolate place a focus on fast, fluid navigation and a structure which sees you removing corruption from the world in order to lure out a colossal boss, which then has to be defeated to progress to the next area.īut whereas The Pathless - obvious qualities aside - had trouble forging its own identity (a problem developer Giant Squid's first game, Abzu, also suffered from), Solar Ash has no problem carving out a place for itself among the horde of artistically minded indie games. In many ways though, Solar Ash feels more akin to last year's The Pathless. The first game's influence is felt in the extravagant colour palette, which once again makes the end of the world way more beautiful than it has any right to be the fast and precise way you fight and navigate the world, and of course Disasterpiece's simultaneously ominous and melancholy music. In fact, it's one of the most exciting takes on the platform genre in a long time set in a breathtakingly surreal world.Īs implied above, Solar Ash is Heart Machine's sophomore game, the first being the excellent Hyper Light Drifter from 2016. It all adds up to make Solar Ash one of the most stylish games around, but luckily it isn't style over substance. The splashes of red flowing across the screen when you clear the world of corruption the black & white freeze frame explosion signaling the fall of one of the game's excellent bosses, or just the way Rei skates across the world with such speed and grace it would make Sonic proud. Many games are beautiful - so is Solar Ash - but very few positively drips style like Heart Machines effortless follow up to Hyper Light Drifter. That much is apparent from the very first frame, which sees Voidrunner and our protagonist, Rei, staring into the black hole consuming her planet. birds, deer, flowers, the facing direction of any statues, etc.) that make a particular path stand out among the other choices.Solar Ash has style. The Drifter notices that the maze's true path is usually where slight points-of-interest are (e.g. North (N), North-West (NW), West (W), South-West (SW), South (S), South-East (SE), East (E), and North-East (NE) Navigating the Maze The exit points in this area, as well as the subsequent areas of the maze will be referred to in the traditional cardinal directions, i.e. After warping from Central Town, The Drifter finds himself in a large field with eight (8) exits.
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