Greak: Memories of Azur

One good thing I can say about this game is the animation team went hard at it. The game looks gorgeous. Too bad about everything else. I mean the concept in itself isn't too bad, it's a puzzle platformer with some metroidvania elements, but you control multiple characters (up to 3) that you can switch between to solve puzzles, or control all at once to move around easier. It's a good idea, but the execution is lacking. It seemed like whenever I was concentrating on moving one character to get them in position for whatever the puzzle called for, the other inactive character would get attacked by monsters that spawned right next to them. You don't have much HP (4) and healing is rare outside of item use (and your inventory slots are very limited). Boss fights are even worse, where you need to avoid lots of attacks, but you can either only control one character at a time, or control them all where they execute the same movements, but this has a tendency to de-synch, leaving some of your characters as sitting ducks. And if anyone dies in the fight, it's game over for the entire party. Combat also feels off. Something about the hitboxes seems off, and all your special attacks seem to be a bit delayed with a few frames of windup, and this seems to mean that the enemies just will get a free hit on you. So you end up just spaming your basic attacks, leading to repetitive and uninteresting fights. Also there's some unskippable cut scenes before some boss fights, so yeah, you'll probably see those a few times too many. And even moving around the map feels a bit sluggish and off, which is horrible in a platformer. And the last guy you unlock has a hookshot that I found near impossible to use in an effective way. Thankfully, the game is short, I finished it in under 10 hours, but it still felt like a slog. It's a shame such beautiful animation was wasted on such a mediocre game.

Greak: Memories of Azur is a lot of fun to play. The writing is well done and there is different individual npc dialogue for each of the three characters. A lot of polish, love and care has gone into the making of this game. The art, music, world design, mechanics, creatures and npc's are all fantastically done. The accompanying digital artbook (Deluxe Edition) is highly detailed, and an excellent addition to the game. Greak: Memories of Azur ran flawlessly during my two playthroughs (achievement hunting). A worthy addition to anyone's library.

Handrawn graphics, orquestal music, three playable characters, puzzles, platforming, action. Nice package!!

I don't understand why so many devlopers put so much time and effort into polishing every aspect of their games except the actual gameplay. Small frustrations like a recipe system that requires 3 ingredients but only provides 4 inventory slots to carry a dozen-or-so different items to the progress-halting issue of the third character's unique ability being so unreliable it'll cause your death more times in five minutes than in the entire game up until that point will make you wonder if anyone bothered to playtest this game befoe it was released. Greak isn't bad, per se, and until the third character joins your party its fairly enjoyable; but it seems like a missed opportunity to make something that could have been truly outstanding.

This game was a pleasant surprise, it's like a kind of metroidvania but instead of having to powerup to unlock areas and secrets, those are unlocked with puzzles where the other characters are needed. Also the artistic aspect is very nice. It's a simple game with a lot of heart.