Strayed Lights Reviews
Strayed Lights is a truly beautiful game. While its visuals and audio design are incredibly vibrant and breathtaking, the true beauty of it shines through with how the game uses both. As for the combat, despite it being far more forgiving than other games in the genre, it still provides you with enough of a challenge to keep you engaged and keep coming back for more.
Strayed Lights offers players a profound journey of self-discovery in a visually stunning world without any dialogue, transcending language barriers. While I occasionally struggled to remain fully engaged during quiet moments, the exceptional combat system quickly drew me back in. Despite being a short game, Strayed Lights is a captivating and unforgettable adventure that is worth experiencing.
Strayed Lights is a fantastic game that deserves a whole lot of love, and the positives of the experience massively outweigh the negatives. It isn’t all that long at about 5-6 hours, but it’s exactly as long as it needs to be. So, check out Strayed Lights if you want a not-too-tough soulslike game that also happens to do a few new things along the way.
A short but sweet experiential title, Strayed Lights shines bright above its station to deliver an atmospheric tale of self-discovery, rewarding combat and a fantastic graphical and audio treat. This light may not burn long, but it’ll leave quite the impression despite the odd minor issue.
Strayed Lights is short, sweet and especially a highlight in the experience it offers to players. Its unique block/parry combat system brings something new to the table, and I loved almost every instance of it, especially in the big boss battles spread throughout the journey.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Strayed Lights is a special game. Learning attack patterns and taking on fierce foes is an absolute joy. Bosses are intimidating and offer memorable battles with cinematic flair. The world is mesmerizing and its mystery is amplified through the epic score. Even with the vague narrative, the game manages to deliver an unforgettable experience that will keep you engaged throughout.
A brief, focused experience, Strayed Lights offers solid combat, a beautiful world, and a compelling narrative. Never before has a game with so much parrying been so wholesome.
Strayed Lights surprised me into liking it, though the action/combat genre isn't regularly my jam. The interesting mechanics kept me coming back - sometimes against my better judgement - and the beautiful visuals went a long way towards keeping me engaged. The combat in the game is deceptively straightforward, but the ways you are forced to use it continuously ramp up the difficulty in an enjoyable way. This game might feel simple for some, but it was difficult enough for me that I felt pretty proud when I would down one of the bigger baddies. Recommended.
At its core, Strayed Lights revolves around a simple, intuitive, and unique combat system, and with this strong base in place, it’s no wonder the game shines as bright as it does.
Strayed Lights is both a cosy, relaxing experience and an extremely well-crafted Souls-lite adventure game – and honestly, it’s a combination we didn’t even know we wanted. With a lavish world, beautiful soundtrack and addictive combat loop, this is a unique title that's easy to recommend.
It’s not out to shake up the indie video game space, but thanks to a uniquely engaging combat system and a consistent stream of wonderous sights and sounds, Strayed Lights is a worthwhile little journey that makes for a great lazy afternoon play. It’s unfortunate that the user experience has suffered an oversight or two, especially in areas of accessibility, but mainly because it’s a quiet gem of a game that absolutely deserves to be played.
Strayed Lights is a challenge with enemies and with controls. Depending on what type of gamer you might be, this could be a positive or a negative. For me, it was small doses of progression and motivation to see the story progress that kept me playing.
As someone who loves to see smaller studios try their own interpretation at character action using their confined limitations, it's good to see Strayed Lights succeed at what it does while coaxing you with lovely aesthetics and a masterfully-composed Austin Wintory soundtrack.
Despite the short adventure, I highly enjoyed my time with Strayed Lights. Its atmospheric music and unique art style wonderfully set the game’s mysterious tone from the get-go. The game’s well-executed combat and boss fights remained engaging and satisfying throughout my playthrough. Despite some minor animation hiccups and repetitive enemy design, Strayed Lights is a wonderful journey from start to finish.
Still, for Embers' first game, this is an especially impressive showing. Strayed Lights is a visually pleasing game with epic bosses and intense combat that any fan of action-adventure platforming games should check out, even if it's over before it really manages to create something unmissable.
Strayed Lights definitely ended up surprising me, with an entertaining gameplay loop that finds the perfect sweet spot between "too easy" and "nail-bitingly hard". Surely a Souls-like veteran might find it a little basic, but if you find yourself struggling with other games in the genre, Strayed Lights could be a great entry point. The art is also gorgeous with vibrant colours and lively animations, so there is plenty to look forward to with each new area and even though the story isn't super deep, it's still easy to get invested and want to meet more characters and help them on their journeys. If you are looking for an action-adventure game that provides a light, yet satisfying challenge, Strayed Lights might be perfect for you.
Though we're still in May, I can already say Strayed Lights is one of the great surprises of 2023. The beautiful and enchanting visuals contrast perfectly to the intense, addicting combat, turning the exploration and action experience memorable. It ends up lacking in a few areas but it's more about wanting more of it. Maybe a future update, expansion and/or continuation could take this good concept to the level it deserves.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Strayed Lights is a prime example that budget doesn’t make the game. The love of their craft and the feelings invested into the project by the developers is what sets the game aside from many other titles. Awesome stylization, unique soundtrack and a majestic mixture of colors immediately highlight its true beauty that was somewhat dampened by the game's technical side.
Strayed Lights is a solid debut title from Embers that delivers atmosphere in droves.
Strayed Lights is a simple game that had one novel idea and the will to turn it into a sensorial experience. Despite the fact that the combat feels like it’s been inspired by From Software’s games, Strayed Lights lack that challenge of a soulslike title.