With EchoBlade, City Limits and Feeble Light, we’re checking out three titles that were recently released on consoles. Here are our reviews.
EchoBlade review (PS4)
EchoBlade, developed by Sunset Arctic Games and published by Eastasiasoft, presents an intriguing premise that revolves around echolocation as the primary gameplay mechanic. The game sets the stage for a first-person adventure where players find themselves blind and trapped in a sprawling tower labyrinth, forced to navigate the darkness using sound as their guide. While this unique concept holds much potential, the execution leaves something to be desired.
The game begins with a promising introduction to its core concepts, immersing players in a dungeon setting armed with a sword and a bow. The gatekeeper taunts you, presenting a sense of player agency and the possibility of meaningful choices. However, gameplay quickly devolves into a fairly standard first-person dungeon crawler, lacking the innovation and depth that the premise initially appears to promise.
The visual design, centered around limited visibility and distant glows, manages to intrigue but feels like it could have been better. Players can only see a short distance ahead, with enemies and important objects faintly glowing in the darkness. EchoBlade presents a dimly lit aesthetic that captures the atmosphere of a haunting environment. The use of colors to signify different elements of the environment, such as enemies, room boundaries, or pressure plates, is a nice touch as well. The ability to generate additional sight is tied to firing the crossbow, which unfortunately has limited ammunition. As a result, players are reluctant to use their precious ammo for exploration purposes, leading to a game that feels restricted and fails to fully capitalize on its echolocation mechanic. In a more immersive experience, I would imagine that tapping my sword on the floor or walls would do something, rather than relying on the crossbow.
The combat, progression system, level design, sound quality, and puzzle systems are all serviceable but lack the depth and innovation needed to make the game truly stand out. If you look beyond the promising premise of seeing based on echolocation, the gameplay fails to deliver any memorable gameplay mechanics. In terms of audio, EchoBlade provides an atmospheric soundtrack that complements the gameplay experience, but where we expected 3D audio to play a big part the audio felt underutilized.
In conclusion, EchoBlade had the potential to be a standout game with its unique echolocation premise, but ultimately falls a bit short of the promise it held. While the game has its enjoyable moments and clever touches, players looking for a great game beyond its core gimmick may find EchoBlade to be a disappointment.
City Limits review (PS4)
City Limits, developed by SpaceMyFriend and published on consoles by Jandusoft, is a casual puzzle strategy game with retro graphics. Originally released on Steam, it has now made its way to consoles, offering a relaxing and enjoyable experience for puzzle enthusiasts. Your task is to fill a hexagonal island with buildings strategically to score high points. As you place buildings, you can create combos and score even higher based on the placement and types of buildings developed. The game offers several modes to choose from, including classic mode with four buildings and basic mechanics, advanced mode with twelve buildings and additional mechanics, endless mode for creative freedom, and timed Spike mode that adds strategic challenges with growing spikes.
What we liked about City Limits is how easy it is to learn and start playing – the short tutorial introduces the basics of gameplay and controls, allowing players to quickly grasp the mechanics. The colorful and vibrant retro graphics give the game a charming aesthetic, and a soundtrack of ten chill songs accompany the gameplay, enhancing the overall experience.
But while City Limits offers a relaxing and enjoyable puzzle experience, getting better can be a bit of trial and error, as the game lacks a comprehensive tutorial or reference guide that explains the best building placement combinations. As a result, you’ll have to find out through gameplay, which can be a bit confusing until things start to click – though luckily the controls are easy and intuitive to use.
City Limits, with its relaxing gameplay and retro charm, offers a nice little puzzle experience. It may not be a super long or complex game, but it provides an ideal opportunity to unwind and enjoy short bursts of gameplay. The various game modes, the strategic placement of buildings, and the challenge of navigating the growing spikes add depth to the otherwise simple mechanics. If you’re a fan of puzzle games and seeking a laid-back experience, City Limits is a title worth considering as your next casual puzzler – especially if you’re drawn to city builder-like games.
Feeble Light review (PS4)
Feeble Light, published by Eastasiasoft and developed by Panda Indie Studio, is a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up game that aims to deliver a retro-style experience where you assume the role of a small star combating angry celestial beings in a 3-tone pixel art shoot ’em up. The game features minimalistic presentation, emphasizing precision controls and fluid animation, but isn’t the best we’ve seen from the studio.
The game offers vertical bullet hell gameplay, where you use starlight to fend off enemies, dodge asteroids, evade projectiles, and build up bomb energy for powerful counterattacks. The objective is to master five randomized stages, defeat challenging bosses, and earn new color palettes for customization.
However, we’re played much better games from the same devs, like Project Starship X and Z-Warp. Feeble Light, although it has an interesting light-based mechanic, suffers from poor controls and firing mechanics that make the action feel slow and unresponsive. The quality of the level generation and power-up scheme are also underwhelming, and for some reason (perhaps the randomization factor) there is no scoring system implemented here, drastically reducing replay value.
And while we generally like retro-style visuals, the shortcomings in gameplay make it hard to appreciate them in Feeble Light. Being able to unlock different color palettes is a nice touch, but the large pixel-based sprites and the fact that 60% of the screen is not being used makes for a cluttered look at times. Unless you’re a huge fan of this type of shooter and insist on playing all of them, we’re recommending checking out some of the excellent other games from this developer.
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