



My biggest problem with the game stems from the addition of voice acting. Instead Solar Ash's story is like navigating its world sometimes full of dead ends. Anyone who's done any skating in real life, especially on ice, will appreciate how much it captures that particular exhilaration, even if it's far more easily earned.Ĭoming from Hyper Light Drifter I expected a setting equally absorbing. In those moments Solar Ash captures a roller coaster energy, letting you barrel across alien landscapes with confidence. Picking up speed to throw yourself over the crest of a hill or round a corner, lashing out at enemies on the go, lets the game come alive. Chain the skates with rail grinds and eventually you can build some serious momentum. If the world feels 'wet' then so too does movement, with inertia carrying you through slips and slides as you skate. It's a palpable mood, enhanced by sheer scale and verticality, a world of massive planetoids suspended in space, clinging to each other via clouds or thin rails. The world feels ephemeral, doomed to be washed away. Even the collectibles, plasma, are rendered as blobs of liquid. It's delightfully tactile, Rei landing in candy floss-like hills and pulling sticky mass behind her as she jumps. Inside this black hole is a dreamlike landscape rendered in soft clouds and goopy surfaces, all of it in bold colours. You play as Rei, a voidrunner who plunges herself into a blackhole to activate a macguffin-the Starseed-which we're told can save her planet, currently caught in the singularity's grasp.
