Anew: The Distant Light

There was an alarming amount of negative reviews shortly after early access dropped, mostly focused on enemy density, placement and toughness. One in particular mentioned performance issues with frequent hiccups and animations that had convinced them the game was frozen. I jumped in anyway because the demo from ages ago played well, performed well and hinted at great things. But damn, these reviews were pretty much on the money. The hiccups are all over the place, hitting a rarely seen checkpoint means I can't move for 11 straight seconds and the game looks like it's frozen for three or four of them. After dying the screen seizes up in a way that convinces you the game is about to crash. Poor polish shines throughout the first impressions. A glacial ladder climb encourages you to leap your way up but the game spins your character around to face the opposite direction, despite no wall jump ability on the horizon, before oddly flipping back to face the ladder, only to clip their legs into the floor when completing the climb. Abilities and story beats seems S P A R S E. You'll pick up you're initial gun on the ship, an automatic SMG type weapon with an infinite clip and all the kick of a geriatric grandma as you'll take a decent amount of time to chew through *any* of the enemies encountered immediately on the surface. You will hear this gun's shooting sound ALOT. You'll hear it even more when you die firing the weapon, because it'll keep firing when you die and the screen stops moving while the audio keeps playing. Enemies encounters: They are generally small, but there are many of them. Eventually it becomes clear to see that there's big fleshy nozzles spawning fresh nuisances *relentlessly*, it doesn't matter if you haven't dispatched the first batch yet, they're gonna keep on coming. So what? The plan is obvious remove the spawn point, then mow down the minions surely. It wouldn't be so bad if enemies, spawners AND obstacles didn't respawn once you were roughly 2-3 screens away from them. This will be something you experience as you'll initally get the Slide ability to the right of the map before hitting a dead end and needing to head left again. Congrats, you're greeted with respawned spawning spouts and FRESH STALACTITES???? The lack of polish keeps rearing it's head as spawn nozzles launch crawling enemies *through* platforms and sometimes into the ground, and flying enemies are spotted hanging completely static in the air as the come into the frame before remembering their role. There's even long tongued enemies that S L O W L Y suck you up into their jaws, while unveiling the weak point tongue. It wouldn't be too bad if a) these tongues didn't touch the floor, b) your default weapon actually reached their weak point, but alas it has limited range. The sheer nuisance by numbers of the enemies is amplified by the very few checkpoints available in the demo, the time to dispatch the diminutive minions and the absolute pittance of compensatory energy they'll drop as a result. A lot of enemies in games can be easily avoided but the omnipresence, repeated spawns, non-trivial HP and progression slowly gas spewing nostrils really force the issue. You *will* have to fight (fine), but it;s not an enjoyable experience. Weirdly the Space Money enemies drop magically flows straight towards the player character, but the actual energy THAT YOU'LL NEED just mindlessly floats around la de dah glacially falling downwards, eventually into range. After venturing over to the extreme left and encountering the world's most exploitable mini-boss, The Big Triangle, who can't squeeze between the only platforms provided in the arena, a note appears on the wall saying something to the effect of "Clear all nearby enemies to continue". ? the mini-boss is dead, there's no small enemies nearby or within the arena. There's a proper wall on the left with no apparent door and nothing in the background to insinuate "entrance". Is this future content? Is this a bugged win state? How close is "nearby"? I scale the left side of the maps and find some explosives that break purple rocks. Great! I found some of those purple rocks in the lower left of the map not to long ago. I make my way down and all of a sudden the bomb button produces NOTHING. Was this a limited resource? There's nothing of the screen to suggest so, so I eat a death and warp back to the nearest checkpoint, mercifully not too far in this case. Again, no bombs produced the button (Square(PS)/X(Xbox) on gamepad) and progression has ground to an absolute HALT. I can put up with the plentiful enemies and their progenators, slowly taking the time to eliminate them. Maybe that's just how they're intended to be. Combat isn't exactly 'fun' IRL. Not everything is designed to be smoothly speedrun where you can jump over everything cleanly. But when mechanics vital to progression just seemingly stop functioning for no apparent reason? That's where I draw the line. In my two hours I saw a ship in which every part needed a resource I never came across, a surface that felt largely similar throughout, a meaningless day/night cycle, a minor 30 second detour through an elaborate looking metal interior before realising my Slide ability offered no progression besides passing through. Combat makes up the bulk of these initial moments off the ship and even after adjusting my expectations as I pushed forward, it was still a putrid experience where a out-of-frame spawner could launch a crawler onto to me and leave my dying corpse firing my gun while the game decided to hang on the same frame for 3 seconds.

I don't understand all the negative reviews... Sure there are some rough edges but it's EA. The promise of this game is massive! Tons of content and monsters, tons of places to explore. And the world keeps getting bigger as I've been exploring with all this new places to explore and equipment unlocks. Looking forward to the updates and to watch the game improve over time!

I really like the game so far. It is really beautifully made. Very neat how it is able to tell a story through the environment. The opening scene is just ...wow. I am dying to learn more about the story. Art and sound/SFX are incredible. Gameplay is dope - love the exploration and puzzle solving, and all the upgrades and unlocks. While I agree with other reviewers that the game needs tuning (those damn creatures keep coming at me!) and bug fixing, I have full confidence the devs will address it (this is only an early access after all!)... My vote is YES PLEASE - I want to support this game I just CAN'T WAIT to see this game in its polished state.

After 21hrs of game play, I could not recommend this title. Although there are NUMEROUS positive things about this game, in it's current state it is virtually unplayable. The lag is TERRIBLE. When attempting to perform precise platforming and the game lag-rapes you and you lose all that you collected, and then attempt to return to where you lost everything and the same thing happens again, you permanently lose everything. This title looks amazing. The concept is out of this world. The music is perfect for the well created eerie environment. However, all of the positives aside, this game should NOT be being sold for $24.99 as early access. It seems so incomplete. (I get it. Early Access). Still, The glitchy, respawning waves of enemies are obnoxious and beyond punishing. Unnecessarily convoluted is the best way to describe it. I understand making a game challenging. I appreciate a challenge. But when it involves enemies randomly glitching right on you, and you constantly get lag-raped, it is, simply put, not fun. When did "games" become NOT fun? Is not the entire point of playing a game for enjoyment? After 21 hours of game play, I requested a full refund. I would be more than happy to revisit this title when it is completed, or, at least, a LOT further along than it currently is. I probably would not have requested a full refund had the devs actually responded when reporting bugs and all, (4 or 5 attempts). Not hearing back from anyone makes it seem like the devs don't really care enough to respond, and after paying $24.99 for half a game, (or less), I could not, in good conscience, recommend this title to anyone. It is a shame, because this game looks so promising. Perhaps when it is completed I will purchase it again. Exceeding the two hour refund limit. Guess I'm stuck with it. It seems the last update was Oct 8, 2021. Did the devs abandon this game?

This game is something to really keep an eye on. It's a challenging metroidvania with such a strangely unique, beautiful art style! Unfortunately, I [i]have[/i] encountered a few really annoying bugs in my short playtime. However, I'm still going to view this game in a positive light, because it's in early access: [list] [*]There is a bug-reporting system in-game, and after using it, they've already been addressed in the most recent update. [*]They have a Discord server, and they're very active there - like, they [i]will[/i] answer you promptly and directly. [*]They state that the point for their early access is so they can get feedback - I personally feel like this can be done without a negative review. Negative reviews will deter other players, preventing the developers from getting the most feedback they can get... [/list] Aside from that, as for the gameplay, it was very smooth for me, unlike some of the jankiness that I read other reviews had experienced (maybe the issues were fixed since?) The controls and movement felt good and flows well from one state to another. The environments that I was able to explore were really refreshing and even had some variety every time I respawned, which made dying significantly less frustrating! The fact that a ton of areas aren't even available yet to explore makes me really enticed for future updates. The story thus far was a bit confusing.. but that seems quite standard for a metroidvania, especially considering how much I've played of it. Overall, if you're looking into trying this game out, then of course, don't go into it expecting a flawless, polished game, because you will just be setting yourself up for disappointment. Instead, look at it for what it is - an early access game. It's really clear to me that this game has so much potential. It has a one-of-a-kind charm to it that just tells you that it's something made from passion!

Crash landed on an alien world. Visions interlaced with nightmarish megafauna. The world space is expansive yet each corner has a secret or feature you didn't expect. This is a cool game.

THANKS FOR THE EARLY ACCESS!!!!! I am so excited for new updates and releasing more of the game/map! Makes me think of two of my fav games in the genre of all time Salt & Sanctuary meets Hollow Knight. Of course not the same as SnS and HK, but up there and once it's a finished game who knows!!!! Thanks so much!!!! THE ART IS SO COOL!!!!! Negative Reviews of a game in EA makes ZERO sense! Either give a thumbs up or pass on by creeps, this is a stylistic game, if you hate style go play a AAA title, and get your fix. THIS GAME IS GOLDEN!!! RARE AND AMAZING!

The spawn rate is ridiculous the hanging plant is the most annoying the damage for your weapon is ruff takes 3 seconds to kill most things in the game I am still excited for this game needs more time to cook

A great little indy game reminiscent of old platformers.