Developer: Navegante Entertainment
Publisher: Team17
Platform: PC, Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Tested on: Switch
Greak: Memories of Azur – Review
Platformers come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the most popular ones even got their own genre named after them. These genres get names such as Metroidvania for games that remind people of Metroid or Castlevania. Each platformer has its own variety of action, adventure, and platforming, and the offer continues to grow. Greak: Memories of Azur has a lot of components of other games inside of it when looking at it for the first time. This may include some of the hand-drawn looks of other originals such as Hollow Knight.
Story
Greak: Memories of Azur takes place in a torn fantasy land. This land, Azur, is in turmoil. The good and brave Courines need to defend themselves against the evil Urlags. Amidst all this chaos, three unique siblings are trying to find each other. The young Greak is the first you will follow in his journey, as he tries to find his sister Adara and his big brother Raydel. While the story has a big introduction supported by a beautiful animated short, for the rest of the game there’s a lot less story to uncover. The game has some nice unique characters and a couple of lines for each of them, but you will mostly be running around on an adventure without the main characters telling you anything of importance. This way the story feels a bit flat at times, aside from its solid characters and motivation for everybody to do what they are doing. This is, however, compensated by the amazing hand-drawn graphics, which create a proper fairytale-like setting.
Graphics
Where the story lacks depth, the graphics make up for a lot. We’ve seen this before in games such as Hollow Knight, and the work invested in projects such as this to create something unique is always amazing. Nothing truly feels the same while running around, and each rock and plant in the back- or foreground creates a different landscape. This way, the land of Azur truly comes to life. We are still struck with awe by the impressive temples where water flows peacefully amidst ancient ruins. The same goes for the animations of each character, be it friend or foe. All the effort put into the game’s graphics resulted in something impressive. Even when a game doesn’t turn out to be the best game ever, people will still remember the amazing looks of something and respect creators for making a project that shows the developer’s craftmanship.
Sound
We are glad to see the quality of the graphics also followed suit in the sound design. First of all, the music really creates something adventurous; emotional even. The orchestral tunes enhance what seems to be a little fantasy world. It’s definitely comparable to the big melodies of open-world plains, such as those in the Zelda games, or perhaps the same quality as in Kingdom Hearts, which is quite the comparison. Add to that the unique groans and sounds of your characters, and the quality sound effects, and it really sounds like an epic adventure.
Gameplay
With all the praise about the graphics and the sound, it really hurts to say that the gameplay sadly is the weakest part of this action-adventure platformer. To explain where it goes wrong, we have to quickly explain how Greak: Memories of Azur is built up. This game is a classic platformer with action elements, but you gradually control more characters at the same time as you get further in the game. In the beginning, you start out with Greak as your only character. While hitboxes of enemy attacks feel slightly wonky at close range, the platforming and the combat with one character work fine. Adding new skills to your roster is also a fairly pleasant thing to look forward to. When looking at all the characters, no matter if you play as Greak, Adara, or Raydel, the game does feel fairly polished. True, some stats may differ between characters, but it just feels playable and fun.
Here’s the problem though: you don’t just play with one character. As soon as you find a sibling, they get added to your “roster”. Either you select one of the characters with a single push of the button and make each character move separately on the same route, or you hold down a button and select all characters at the same time. Neither of these options feels great. Moving characters separately is often required for puzzles and sometimes even for combat as well. Sadly, this forces you to do the same tasks, individually, while your other characters are just waiting to be grouped up again. The other method, holding down a button and selecting all the characters in the vicinity makes them jump, walk, and fight at the same time. Now, in theory, this could work fine, but in Greak, each character also has its own stats, making even things like jumping different among all the characters. Jumping together is almost guaranteed to feel out of sync because of this, which is not fun for precise jumping puzzles, and definitely not for boss battles.
On top of that, the puzzles that you go through are not really special. Most are simple and repeat themselves every so often without any challenge. Open up a door by standing on a plate with one character, move through with the other, stand on a plate on the other side to get them both in, and done. Sometimes this feels like the game is just slowing you down to artificially lengthen itself. Just like the grouped selection of your characters, it feels like there is something to be gained here with such puzzle challenges as well.
Conclusion
Even though Greak: Memories of Azur puts down a beautifully hand-drawn world with great music, the gameplay is a bit underwhelming and sometimes even annoying. The experimental controls that allow you to control multiple characters at once just don’t feel that good. It’s a shame because all else in this game has a unique set of qualities that many other games could learn from.
Greak: Memories of Azur - Review,
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