Indie Review Extravaganza 2017 (Flood of Light, Emily is Away Too, Hollow Knight)

Greetings, dear readers. At this point, I'm (as usual) behind on my writing, so like last year, I've decided to write shorter reviews of three smaller indie games I played and roll them all up into one large indie review extravaganza. Last year the items were Firewatch, The Guest, and Hyper Light Drifter. This time around, we have a significantly more indie lineup of Flood of Light, Emily is Away Too, and Hollow Knight. Let us begin.

Flood of Light

I've decided to start this indie review extravaganza with the item that is most likely the least well-known, Flood of Light. On the surface, this is a simple puzzle game, but underneath it's a lot more than that. To put it bluntly, it's been a long time since I've seen a puzzle game wherein the sheer effort and level of testing was more evident than it is in Flood of Light. The quality of this game, considering its modest budget, is absolutely astounding. It isn't the kind of game that I can sit down to play for hours, and it isn't perfect, but if you told me that Nintendo did the quality assurance for this game, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Flood of Light takes place in a city that has been devastated by excessive flooding. All humans seem to have disappeared, and friendly robots inhabit the world in their place. At the start of the game, our protagonist (a little girl in a white sweater/dress who can control light) appears seemingly from thin air. From there, she is tasked with traveling to different levels of the city to activate beacons to bring the water level down. That's about all there is in terms of the story. There are bits of backstory in the form of documents that are unlocked as you progress, but the thing is, they are really poorly translated. Developer Irisloft Studio operates out of Beijing, and it would appear that they don't have the best translators. I found it possible to follow along with some of the documents, but the translation is just too bad at times. That is really a shame, because I did want to learn about this world. Sure, the true strength of Flood of Light is in its gameplay, but I wanted to get more invested in the mythos.

The puzzles in this game revolve around the girl's control of light. She can hold multiple "orbs" of light and send them into lanterns, elevator switchboards, several things. When she sends light into something, all the orbs she holds go into it. While light is in a lantern or another object, she can move all but one orb into another nearby object, but range is limited. In puzzle scenarios, you'll have to figure out how to ration your orbs in a way that allows you to light two switchboards or a single switchboard that is massively out of range. This is one area in which the top-notch testing I mentioned comes into play. You will always have enough light to complete your objective, even in cases where your objective spans multiple rooms where you have to sacrifice one orb to switch from one to the other. I failed at some of those puzzles numerous times, but I always was able to switch between rooms freely and start fresh. That is thorough testing, and it shows itself again in the form of new game mechanics. As you progress, some extra abilities and tricks will be made available to you. What really struck me about it was that I realized these new mechanics came into play at the exact point where I started to think that the game was starting to feel same-y. It's as if they ran through this game over and over again to see exactly where a fresh mechanic was needed and added one in accordingly.

I know I haven't shut up about the QA in this game since I started, but I have to bring it up one last time. If you go to Irisloft Studio's website, you'll be able to see the effort they went through to make this game's art style unique and beautiful. In addition, if you play the game, you'll realize that the framerate is 100% consistent and there isn't a bug to be found. An incredibly strong technical package accented by a simple, yet atmospheric soundtrack by composer Xiaofei Ma.
Dear readers, I believe I've made my position on Flood of Light clear by this point. For its low asking price, you're getting one of the single strongest technical packages of this year as well as a darned strong puzzle game that manages to stay fresh for its entire duration. Sure, the story could have been better translated, but Flood of Light is still worth your time and your money.

Let us review:
Poor story translation - 0.3

The final score for Flood of Light is...

9.7/10 - Absolutely Outstanding
You should be proud, Irisloft Studio, you should be proud.

Emily is Away Too

Emily is Away Too is everything that a sequel should be: It revolves around the same basic principle as its predecessor, Emily is Away, but it offers significantly more features and worldbuilding this time around. In this masterful sequel, you play as a high school boy (I make this distinction because it's kind of implied that you are one) talking to his two female friends, Evelyn and the titular Emily, on the AOL Instant Messenger in the late 2000's. I personally never used AOL IM, but I did use Myspace's equivalent at the exact same time that this game takes place during, though I was a little bit younger. If you're like me and you have memories of being an emo kid talking with female friends that you desperately wanted to go out with (and if you're shuddering thinking about that time in your life), then chances are you'll connect with this game as much as I did. Developer Kyle Seeley captures this kind of lifestyle so vividly that another good title for this game would be "You give such good advice :p simulator". With that, we essentially have our story. Our user-named hero talks with these two young women over the course of a few years on his quest to one day make out with one of them in the most visible stairwell in the school building. It sounds like I'm making fun of it, but it's just because I know that's what ended up happening at some point in one of the time jumps that we don't get to see the contents of.

Gameplay once again takes the form of instant messaging (complete with realistically thick keyboard sounds and message tones) through a choose-your-own-adventure story. This time around, however, you have two windows open; one for Emily and one for Evelyn. The most striking difference between Too and its predecessor is that this game has working youtube and Facebook knockoffs. Fully. Functioning. Websites. That's the kind of detail last seen in Grand Theft Auto V, yet it's here in a game developed by one person. There's just so much effort being used in making you feel like you're actually experiencing the story. Characters will send you files that will download to your actual desktop, they'll send you youtube links to music that will open up your web browser to the knockoff site (sometimes the videos will be skipped to a part that the character wants you to see), you can watch the most popular youtube videos from the late 2000's (many of which I recognized) in the background while playing the game, so much detail. In addition, there are several different endings (unlike the original, wherein there was only one ending), so it feels like you're actually influencing the story in some way. This is perhaps the best example of how a sequel should be done that I've ever seen.

That isn't to say Emily is Away Too is perfect. I personally felt like the game repeated itself too often. Evelyn would ask a question, then Emily would ask the exact same question. Evelyn would send me a music link, then Emily would do the same. This process would be repeated in each level, and I couldn't help but feel like it took away from the experience. It didn't destroy the experience for me, but in a game where so much new was added, I was disappointed that the same variety and effort couldn't go into the content of the conversations.
In the end, I will be singing this game's praises for years to come. Kyle Seeley should be incredibly proud of the work he's done here, and I look forward to playing whatever he plans to put out next. If you want to learn more about the work he does or get in touch with him to tell him how great his work is, you can do so by going to his website. I included a link for the previous review, I thought it might be nice to get some traffic to this developer as well.

Let us review:
Repetitive content - 0.5

The final score for Emily is Away Too is...

9.5/10 - Absolutely Outstanding
Excellent work, Mr. Seeley, excellent work. 

Hollow Knight

I must confess that I haven't yet completed Hollow Knight. Despite being an indie title, it's an incredibly long game, and I hear that I still have my work cut out for me. Combine that with the fact that my steam account is shared and with the fact that I simply don't have as much time to dedicate now that I'm a fully functioning member of society, and you have my reasons for going ahead and writing this review anyway. I highly doubt that Hollow Knight is going to get drastically worse or better as it goes on, and I have every intention of continuing to play it, but I wanted to go ahead and get the word out as soon as I can, given how it isn't likely that I'll finish it this year. There's much more to cover in this game than in the previous two, so it's a shame that I'll have to condense it down for the sake of brevity, but hopefully I can get the point across.

Imagine a universe like Redwall. Now imagine this universe being exceedingly dark and inhabited by various insects instead of woodland creatures. You've just imagined the world of Hollow Knight. One of the game's biggest strengths is its worldbuilding. Absolutely everything in the world revolves around insects. Architecture resembles various bug nests, structures in the world just look insectoid, and the entire world appears to be a series of underground tunnels. These tunnels are lit by seemingly bioluminescent fixtures, and despite the overall cute look of the art style, it lends a truly uneasy atmosphere to the universe. In Hollow Knight,  you play as what appears to be some kind of beetle, and you begin a quest to venture into the old crossroads. Beyond that I have absolutely no idea what the story is about. Story is drip-fed to you in a way that justifies the connection people make between this game and Dark Souls. Much like in Dark Souls, though, the lack of a direct story isn't an issue, as the gameplay makes up the meat.

Hollow Knight is a 2D platforming game with timing-based combat similar to Dark Souls, though not quite as well executed. The platforming is a little bit too floaty for my tastes. I found it all too easy to accidentally overshoot and miss a platform, and slight dips in the framerate don't help the situation. So, that aspect of the game just isn't very good. What about the combat? Well, though I definitely enjoyed the combat, aspects of it are pretty annoying. For instance, this is one of those games where you take damage if you touch an enemy. This is unacceptable in any game unless the enemy is made out of something dangerous. Also, when you take damage, you go flying in the opposite direction a-la Super Smash Brothers, and in a game with so much emphasis on platforming, this really becomes an annoyance when there are many enemies on a slim platform over a pit of death. It turns out there are charms you can buy to keep this from happening, but it would have been better game design to just program that in. Thankfully, the combat itself is satisfying. Despite the sort of cute art style, hitting enemies with your sword provides a lot of audiovisual feedback to make it feel like you're actually hitting something. In addition, combat provides plenty of rewards. Firstly, there are what I call "scales," that serve as your currency. You get this every time you kill an enemy (and you lose them all temporarily if you die, adding to the list of things to compare to Dark Souls), and racking up your scales lets you buy maps, charms, plenty of worthwhile investments. Second, there's what I would call "energy." This is one way in which the game differs from Dark Souls. Rather than having experience and currency rolled up in one game mechanic, Hollow Knight has magic and healing in the same package. There's a little meter that shows how much energy you've accrued. This energy can be used to restore some of your health or to power a spell, turning the tide of combat. You add to this pool every time you hit an enemy (not kill, hit). It brings to mind the saying, "You have to spend money to make money" in that in order to be able to heal, you have to be willing to face combat. In addition, some enemies can only be killed with spells. This makes it so that the decision between healing and saving energy is consistently relevant. Going back to Dark Souls, another similarity is that once you die, you lose all your currency. You'll have to go to the spot you died in order to retrieve it, but it differs from Dark Souls in that you'll have to kill a phantom version of yourself. This phantom version ins't very tough, but I still thought it was an unnecessary hassle.

Given the fact that once you compare a game to Dark Souls, you can't stop, let's touch on characters. Much like in Souls you'll come across a handful of characters who are on their own journeys and have their own motivations. As you progress, these characters will turn up at different places on the map, and they may have insight into whatever area you're about to enter. There's no Solaire of Astora in Hollow Knight, but I found the characters to be incredibly endearing. Despite how dark the atmosphere is, some of these characters are just too cute to be believed. For instance, there's a really small character who spends her time in the mines seeking her fortune. Her design is adorable, and she sings the single cutest mining song I've ever heard. Then there's the map mosquito who comes across kind of like the grandfather in Disney's Tarzan, with papers lying around everywhere and an attitude of devotion to adventure. Hollow Knight is a solo affair, but you won't be wanting for company.

I wish I could've spent more time on Hollow Knight before writing this review, but sometimes life happens and you need to move on to other products. Hopefully, after the deluge of releases in October, I'll have the time to dedicate. From what I've played, though, Hollow Knight is a cute-but-dark experience with challenging gameplay and platforming (not always for the right reasons). As a technical package, its only crime is the dips in framerate. I never had the game crash on me, nor did I ever see any proper bugs. So for its indie asking price, you're getting what is truly a quality game with some hiccups. Even with the hiccups, though, you're getting more than your money's worth.

Let us review:
Dips in framerate - 0.3
Good game design included as charms - 0.6
Floaty platforming - 0.5

So, the final score for Hollow Knight is...

8.6/10 - Quite Good

Great work, Team Cherry, great work.

Well folks, that's it for this Indie Extravaganza. See you next time!