Action-adventure games come in a variety of styles and Embers Studio is delivering a new game that brings new aesthetic take on Souls-like gameplay. Their game Strayed Lights fulfills the genre it claims by being a title that will have the player dodging more than they are actively fighting. Having a chance to play an exclusive preview of the game, I have to say that they don’t just do this in a standard way but moreso in a beautifully colorful way.

Gameplay

Starting off with some basic movement controls, the game will have you traverse an initial area that shows off an initial sense of the environment and aesthetic. Once you reach the first big guy, this is where you will get the tutorial of the combat. Learn to parry and change colors to match the enemies attack, plus the unblockable attack colors to look out for.

After the tutorial area is done, you earn your first point to use in the skill tree. While you won’t always have something in-game to trigger this skill tree, they did have a sort of light orb that opens the tree when you touch it. From there, you’ll find a portal to the next area, although it isn’t placed in front of you or make any noise so check around you after a boss fight.

This next area acts like a whole level where you fight against multiple different enemies, each with their own color and attack styles. After you make your way through this level, collecting what look like light seeds, you will begin to master the combat system. In fact, something that isn’t shown in the tutorial area is a basic attack combo. You are able to do some basic attacks, which is handy since other than the basic attack combo, all your damage dealing was in a properly timed response to an enemy’s falter from being parried.

Other than basic attacks, you will also get to use a sort of power system. This is where your skill tree comes in as you can unlock different powers. In the preview, there were three different powers for me to cycle through and they cost energy to use. Energy is regained fairly easily though, so don’t hesitate to use your powers to gain the advantage over standard enemies. The trick is, don’t let the powers and parries go to your head, and be sure to dodge as much as you need to in each combat situation as well.

Expectations

I would say the tutorial still needs a bit more work. The powers and basic attacks weren’t even really explained, but rather figured out. You can see in my gameplay video, which wasn’t edited, that I took a moment when I figured things out that weren’t explained to play with it a bit. If they had been explained, it would have felt smoother.

The combat system turns out to be a bit straightforward so I hope they manage to keep things interesting with a variety of enemies with their own attack styles and maybe even a kind of “super-color” power that lets us have unblockable attacks ourselves for a burst of time.

While I did enjoy the environment of the level I was in, I look forward to saying a large variety of environments in this game that each has its own beauty to it. Even with blue and red being the primary colors of the game, I hope to see some contrasting colors and even threatening ones fill an area.

Verdict

Strayed Lights is as entertaining as it is colorful! This short preview just left me wanting to keep going and now I can’t wait for April to come around so I can dive back in. They did a great job making the enemy look bad and made it easy for me, as the player, to want to stop it from doing what it was doing. Having a silent protagonist can sometimes be hard, but it seems we are going into a silent world and so being able to deliver a purpose to the player is usually difficult in this way, but they seem to be able to pull it off easily enough.

Strayed Lights is set to launch on April 25th on PC via Steam, GOG, and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. Check out the official gameplay trailer below and our first look video above to check out the game in action.