I have a great appreciation of Scotland, a lot of connection to it but it always feels distant.
Scottish friends, Scottish family, but miles between us although on the same island.
I’ve never roamed the highlands and I’m not sure I ever will but I can fit so much of it together in my mind, between stories I’ve read, tales that have been told to me and my own time living by heathland - I can respect and imagine the glory of it all.
A Highland Song captures the idea of journeying across these paths well, not following roads but paths by others, innovating ways across where nature has returned to block your way.
In a way the game could be seen as a 2D walking simulator, but due to the scale of the walk it very much has platforming elements too.
A brilliant edition is how the game replicates the idea of running through a long stretch of clearer land, hopping over stones and other tripping hazards but never needing to stop and climb. The wind flowing through Moira, the protagonist’s hair as she is inspired by the deer and wildlife. Rather than just holding left or right the B button initiates a sprint which becomes a rhythm game backed by beautiful classical Scottish music, plenty of flutes, that simply involve presses of X and Y where Moira needs to hop.
When the paths aren’t so clear, Moira is climbing, finding items, sheltering in overhangs, caves and preferably buildings from the typically wet weather as the game leads into Spring.
The climbing is simple, there is no stamina gauge you can see, but Moira will sound out of breath, she will eventually need to stop to get it back and when night falls not only will it be nearly impossible to see, even with a torch, but she’ll need somewhere safe to shelter or risk losing health that typically only drops if she’s managed to bump herself on a fall.
During all this climbing and running, your aim is to find peaks, get up high to survey the rest of the land in your grand journey to the sea - a lighthouse in the distant background that guides your way.
As you progress Moira will either have notes she has bought or maps and things she has found to help her journey from one peak to another. It gives the journey a back and forth feel as you may find a new guide but need to get back to the peak to see where this shortcut will be.
Occasionally there will be other things, even people that may help guide the way but a large element of this game is discovery and I don’t want to completely ruin that.
All in this game looks fantastic, the art is lovely, the sights for the peaks are wondrous and there is plenty of colour and emotion conveyed throughout every sight.
The voice acting is brilliant, I have some bias because I have been known to watch the protagonist’s VA on Twitch. In general it is so nice to hear actual Scottish voice actors using Scottish dialect, it adds authenticity to the story and helps you believe in the characters and their tales - I just wish more of it was voice acted than it is.
With my connection with Scotland, minor connection with this game and love for everything it is trying to do, A Highland Song had massive potential to sneak in as a Game of the Year for me.
Unfortunately though there were times where this song for me, was less a beautiful ballad and more similar to hold music with a company you don’t want to be speaking to.
Many elements of the game gave me minor annoyances. The rhythm game at first seemed exciting but when it first introduced a second button the icons were less clear and felt more of a gotcha than an increase in difficulty. This game made me feel incredibly stupid because it never gave me the prompt or tutorial of how to hop down from background to foreground and, not the only time, I felt I was stuck with no way to progress.
Progression can feel irritating. The idea of finding notes, picking out what is being highlighted while on a peak, to then find a shortcut or an item to lead you further down a treasure hunt is, on paper, great. When it works it is genuinely quite fun but the issue is finding these clues, these breadcrumbs as it were in the first place.
They are highlighted in classic video game shiny spot form but if you’re rushing you can easily miss these pop up and more often than not there is nothing else visually to show you there is something of interest to stop at.
Too often the maps lead you back to places you have already been and more often than it should the reason Moira didn’t notice the path when there the first time is extremely contrived.
Throughout this treasure trail are little items, these can be used to progress certain places or as offerings when you are at the peaks. Sadly I am reminded of older, less-good point and clicks too often with these - sometimes there is obvious logic of what you can use or what you need but too often you can just be clicking each option until something works.
The game itself encourages multiple playthroughs, the item finding leans into this as, for example - one time I discovered a stone with a hole in that looked towards the lighthouse but could not use it, on another run I had the correct item to combine and it gave me a short scene and only then did Moira see a path to go forwards.
This sounds like typical game logic, finding the blue door but without the blue key, but because it can be obtuse and backtracking isn’t encouraged as the game is leading you to make this journey in a set amount of time this “blue door” feels like a wall and often then just has you running in circles to either find that key or another exit.
Going around the same peak twice feels fine but beyond that it becomes tedious which is further exacerbated if you are aiming for a quicker time, more peaks found etc. on other playthroughs as the movement is good but not exciting enough to want to do the same thing over and over.
I spoke about moving from the background to foreground and this is another reason that traversal can also be an irritation. Sometimes the painterly art doesn’t make things clear, not being 3D also makes judging distances in a third direction hard to judge and this leads to experimentation which can go wrong, hurt the character, slow you down and once again lead to repetition.
There are other minor things, bits I didn’t love and after my second session with this game, I started to believe I might even hate it but in the end it was more that I was just disappointed.
I wanted to love this game, its art - audibly and visually is fantastic. Its ideas and innovations are great but the actual act of playing the game never felt amazing and the idea of repeating it for just a few drops of more goodness are not enticing to me at all.
It is strange, because when I see others praising something I didn’t enjoy I tend to believe that they must have gotten something out of it that I could not - but A Highland Song ticked so many boxes, I wouldn’t say it was ever like it was designed for me but it definitely falls into my interests and sadly that just made it a bitter pill to swallow.
Scottish friends, Scottish family, but miles between us although on the same island.
I’ve never roamed the highlands and I’m not sure I ever will but I can fit so much of it together in my mind, between stories I’ve read, tales that have been told to me and my own time living by heathland - I can respect and imagine the glory of it all.
A Highland Song captures the idea of journeying across these paths well, not following roads but paths by others, innovating ways across where nature has returned to block your way.
In a way the game could be seen as a 2D walking simulator, but due to the scale of the walk it very much has platforming elements too.
A brilliant edition is how the game replicates the idea of running through a long stretch of clearer land, hopping over stones and other tripping hazards but never needing to stop and climb. The wind flowing through Moira, the protagonist’s hair as she is inspired by the deer and wildlife. Rather than just holding left or right the B button initiates a sprint which becomes a rhythm game backed by beautiful classical Scottish music, plenty of flutes, that simply involve presses of X and Y where Moira needs to hop.
When the paths aren’t so clear, Moira is climbing, finding items, sheltering in overhangs, caves and preferably buildings from the typically wet weather as the game leads into Spring.
The climbing is simple, there is no stamina gauge you can see, but Moira will sound out of breath, she will eventually need to stop to get it back and when night falls not only will it be nearly impossible to see, even with a torch, but she’ll need somewhere safe to shelter or risk losing health that typically only drops if she’s managed to bump herself on a fall.
During all this climbing and running, your aim is to find peaks, get up high to survey the rest of the land in your grand journey to the sea - a lighthouse in the distant background that guides your way.
As you progress Moira will either have notes she has bought or maps and things she has found to help her journey from one peak to another. It gives the journey a back and forth feel as you may find a new guide but need to get back to the peak to see where this shortcut will be.
Occasionally there will be other things, even people that may help guide the way but a large element of this game is discovery and I don’t want to completely ruin that.
All in this game looks fantastic, the art is lovely, the sights for the peaks are wondrous and there is plenty of colour and emotion conveyed throughout every sight.
The voice acting is brilliant, I have some bias because I have been known to watch the protagonist’s VA on Twitch. In general it is so nice to hear actual Scottish voice actors using Scottish dialect, it adds authenticity to the story and helps you believe in the characters and their tales - I just wish more of it was voice acted than it is.
With my connection with Scotland, minor connection with this game and love for everything it is trying to do, A Highland Song had massive potential to sneak in as a Game of the Year for me.
Unfortunately though there were times where this song for me, was less a beautiful ballad and more similar to hold music with a company you don’t want to be speaking to.
Many elements of the game gave me minor annoyances. The rhythm game at first seemed exciting but when it first introduced a second button the icons were less clear and felt more of a gotcha than an increase in difficulty. This game made me feel incredibly stupid because it never gave me the prompt or tutorial of how to hop down from background to foreground and, not the only time, I felt I was stuck with no way to progress.
Progression can feel irritating. The idea of finding notes, picking out what is being highlighted while on a peak, to then find a shortcut or an item to lead you further down a treasure hunt is, on paper, great. When it works it is genuinely quite fun but the issue is finding these clues, these breadcrumbs as it were in the first place.
They are highlighted in classic video game shiny spot form but if you’re rushing you can easily miss these pop up and more often than not there is nothing else visually to show you there is something of interest to stop at.
Too often the maps lead you back to places you have already been and more often than it should the reason Moira didn’t notice the path when there the first time is extremely contrived.
Throughout this treasure trail are little items, these can be used to progress certain places or as offerings when you are at the peaks. Sadly I am reminded of older, less-good point and clicks too often with these - sometimes there is obvious logic of what you can use or what you need but too often you can just be clicking each option until something works.
The game itself encourages multiple playthroughs, the item finding leans into this as, for example - one time I discovered a stone with a hole in that looked towards the lighthouse but could not use it, on another run I had the correct item to combine and it gave me a short scene and only then did Moira see a path to go forwards.
This sounds like typical game logic, finding the blue door but without the blue key, but because it can be obtuse and backtracking isn’t encouraged as the game is leading you to make this journey in a set amount of time this “blue door” feels like a wall and often then just has you running in circles to either find that key or another exit.
Going around the same peak twice feels fine but beyond that it becomes tedious which is further exacerbated if you are aiming for a quicker time, more peaks found etc. on other playthroughs as the movement is good but not exciting enough to want to do the same thing over and over.
I spoke about moving from the background to foreground and this is another reason that traversal can also be an irritation. Sometimes the painterly art doesn’t make things clear, not being 3D also makes judging distances in a third direction hard to judge and this leads to experimentation which can go wrong, hurt the character, slow you down and once again lead to repetition.
There are other minor things, bits I didn’t love and after my second session with this game, I started to believe I might even hate it but in the end it was more that I was just disappointed.
I wanted to love this game, its art - audibly and visually is fantastic. Its ideas and innovations are great but the actual act of playing the game never felt amazing and the idea of repeating it for just a few drops of more goodness are not enticing to me at all.
It is strange, because when I see others praising something I didn’t enjoy I tend to believe that they must have gotten something out of it that I could not - but A Highland Song ticked so many boxes, I wouldn’t say it was ever like it was designed for me but it definitely falls into my interests and sadly that just made it a bitter pill to swallow.
What a beautiful experience.
This game captures my favorite feeling in games - a true sense of exploration, where I am navigating my own way through an unknown world, discovering secrets mundane or (in this case) something approaching magic. I have seen it framed as "the exploration of Breath of the Wild put into 2D," and I don't think that's wrong.
On top of that, it has an evocative score (with occassional rhythm game), great voice acting, and a narrative consistent with the studio's history.
This game captures my favorite feeling in games - a true sense of exploration, where I am navigating my own way through an unknown world, discovering secrets mundane or (in this case) something approaching magic. I have seen it framed as "the exploration of Breath of the Wild put into 2D," and I don't think that's wrong.
On top of that, it has an evocative score (with occassional rhythm game), great voice acting, and a narrative consistent with the studio's history.
Donde Overboard! invita a que nos relajemos y nos pongamos travieses con las posibilidades, A Highland Song es un reclamo regionalista del paraje y cultura escocesa. Siendo como es, el juego decide celebrar este pedazo de tierra con cabriolas y exploración.
Inkle demuestra aquí algo que ya sabíamos desde Heaven's Vault pero que no terminaron de demostrar bien: que su modelo narrativo admite más capas de interacción sin romperse. No es una ejecución perfecta, y en ocasiones se hace pesado tener que rastrear los mismos sitios una y otra vez para localizar el sitio que tu mapa te está diciendo que existe. Pero la belleza del escenario y la intimidad que desarrollas con el mundo compensan la repetición e invitan a una mayor exploración. Por desgracia, eso también lo hace a costa de los personajes, que se sienten mucho más planos que en Overboard, pero es comprensible. Tu relación ahora no ha de ser con las personas, sino con las montañas.
--------
Where Overboard! invites us to relax and get naughty, A Highland Song is a reclamation of the Scottish landscape and its culture. In doing so, it chooses to celebrate it with platforming and exploration.
Inkle demonstrates here something we already knew from Heaven's Vault but weren't able to show before: that their narrative model allows for more layers of interaction than just dialog. It's not perfect at some points, and at times it gets tiresome to track down the same places over and over again to locate the place your map tells you. But the beauty of the setting and the intimacy you develop with the world make up for it and pushes us further. The added exploration also comes at the expense of having complex characters, who feel much flatter than in Overboard!, but that's understandable, because your deal now is not about the people, but about the mountains.
Inkle demuestra aquí algo que ya sabíamos desde Heaven's Vault pero que no terminaron de demostrar bien: que su modelo narrativo admite más capas de interacción sin romperse. No es una ejecución perfecta, y en ocasiones se hace pesado tener que rastrear los mismos sitios una y otra vez para localizar el sitio que tu mapa te está diciendo que existe. Pero la belleza del escenario y la intimidad que desarrollas con el mundo compensan la repetición e invitan a una mayor exploración. Por desgracia, eso también lo hace a costa de los personajes, que se sienten mucho más planos que en Overboard, pero es comprensible. Tu relación ahora no ha de ser con las personas, sino con las montañas.
--------
Where Overboard! invites us to relax and get naughty, A Highland Song is a reclamation of the Scottish landscape and its culture. In doing so, it chooses to celebrate it with platforming and exploration.
Inkle demonstrates here something we already knew from Heaven's Vault but weren't able to show before: that their narrative model allows for more layers of interaction than just dialog. It's not perfect at some points, and at times it gets tiresome to track down the same places over and over again to locate the place your map tells you. But the beauty of the setting and the intimacy you develop with the world make up for it and pushes us further. The added exploration also comes at the expense of having complex characters, who feel much flatter than in Overboard!, but that's understandable, because your deal now is not about the people, but about the mountains.
wildly charming game that has made me rethink how exploration can be done in a 2D platformer. it can be beaten in a pretty short amount of time but there is so much in it to see that it pretty much is begging to be replayed.
Beautiful music, story, and aesthetic. It invokes a real sense of wonder and exploration as you transition your way climbing to and fro. It does not hold your hand. There are multiple paths - you don't always know which way is correct. That whimsical getting lost and exploring is a feeling that Highland Song invokes best.
I didn't do enough research before playing this and that's on me. I was expecting a cosy, straight-forward indie but this has a time limit, health management, rain mechanics, and a total lack of hand-holding which wasn't really for me.
It looks absolutely beautiful though and the music/voice acting are fantastic, so I can't bring myself to score it below 3 stars. It just wasn't the chill game I was hoping for.
It looks absolutely beautiful though and the music/voice acting are fantastic, so I can't bring myself to score it below 3 stars. It just wasn't the chill game I was hoping for.
Interesting concept but falls a bit flat, unlike the hills you have to climb. While the art is beautiful, the gameplay & animation feels a bit too stiff too my liking. At some points it almost felt a bit like climbing a mountain with low stamina in Breath of the Wild, never ending rain included.
Music is fantastic & you do meet a handful of quirky & interesting characters on your journey. I finished the game arriving one day too late so I‘ll probably pick this back up for another go later in the year. For now I’m good however.
Music is fantastic & you do meet a handful of quirky & interesting characters on your journey. I finished the game arriving one day too late so I‘ll probably pick this back up for another go later in the year. For now I’m good however.
I will give it to the developer - the aesthetics are among the best I've experienced in any indie title, and coupled with the amount of praise I've seen, I decided to give the game a try.
I am sadly regretting that decision. The game mechanics, conceptually and in themselves, are fine enough - health management, rain, and terrain navigation are obviously a part of the experience - but it's almost like the game is intentionally made with obtuseness in mind. It's incredibly difficult to get Moira to choose which layer of hillside to get onto, and unintuitive would be a mild way to describe what seems to be very meticulously deliberate counterintuitiveness in what is one of the game's primary mechanics. I understand that it's in part intended to make me feel lost in the Highlands, but the amount of jank does not contribute to a pleasant experience.
I hope to see past its faults after I come back to it at a later date, but so far, it's not an experience I'm eager to recommend to anyone.
I am sadly regretting that decision. The game mechanics, conceptually and in themselves, are fine enough - health management, rain, and terrain navigation are obviously a part of the experience - but it's almost like the game is intentionally made with obtuseness in mind. It's incredibly difficult to get Moira to choose which layer of hillside to get onto, and unintuitive would be a mild way to describe what seems to be very meticulously deliberate counterintuitiveness in what is one of the game's primary mechanics. I understand that it's in part intended to make me feel lost in the Highlands, but the amount of jank does not contribute to a pleasant experience.
I hope to see past its faults after I come back to it at a later date, but so far, it's not an experience I'm eager to recommend to anyone.
It's a walking simulator. It's an earnest walking simulator, but it's a walking simulator.
I thought sleeping for the day inside a house would help restore my HP, but every time I rest it keeps going down instead.
Salvando el cuestionable gusto de las secuencias musicales y valorando una primera partida a ciegas y no rejugadas buscando el completismo, A Highland Song presenta una estampa abierta de una Escocia llena de misterios y secretos. Lo cultural y lo mitológico a través de la naturaleza. Si Breath of the Wild mataba la magia de su mundo una vez descubierto lo artificial de su diseño, A Highland Song solventa este problema relacionando las colinas que trepas con folklore real, dándole una proyección mayor que la del microverso que se pueda inventar el videojuego. Y esta narración de leyendas autóctonas, proyectada en una exploración protagonista. Con todos los acertijos confluyendo en la interpretación y navegación del entorno y todas los cuentos e historias retornando hacia los lugares que pisas. Porque no solo va de conquistar terreno, sino de reconectar con esta tierra.
It's got charm and it looks good at times but the general gameplay and mechanics of this walking sim are pretty disappointing.
You'll be doing a ton of walking AND climbing so it's a little more than just a walking sim. The exploration can be interesting. The stamina system and the weather system though really bring this experience down and make exploring feel more like a chore at times.
You'll find maps and secrets along the way that'll help you pinpoint where you are on your journey. You don't need to do these things in order to complete the game luckily but they do extend this relatively short experience if you do love the world and want to spend more time getting lost in the hills.
If you enjoy walking sims though and you've vibed with a trailer or something, this game is still worth trying. The general gameplay/climbing/exploring may work for you more than it worked for me. But personally, there are better games like this from 2023 alone.
You'll be doing a ton of walking AND climbing so it's a little more than just a walking sim. The exploration can be interesting. The stamina system and the weather system though really bring this experience down and make exploring feel more like a chore at times.
You'll find maps and secrets along the way that'll help you pinpoint where you are on your journey. You don't need to do these things in order to complete the game luckily but they do extend this relatively short experience if you do love the world and want to spend more time getting lost in the hills.
If you enjoy walking sims though and you've vibed with a trailer or something, this game is still worth trying. The general gameplay/climbing/exploring may work for you more than it worked for me. But personally, there are better games like this from 2023 alone.
This review contains spoilers
I really liked this game. Traveling over the beautiful landscape, solving maps like they're puzzles, and running to the rhythm of folk music was right up my alley.
On my first attempt, I got stuck more or less 2 different times: first after taking a cave that I didn't realize would bring me fowards with no way of going back to the areas I had maps for (I ended up wasting the better part of 3 days on Golden Field and its neighbors. Eventually I ended up at Witches' Peak, and got stuck in that range of mountains, until I fell to my death while traveling east and ended up getting brought back west by the ice climber, the first NPC I spoke to in the game. I got to the Lighthouse during the early morning of day 13, 6 days after Beltane. It took me about 4.5 hours to get from the house to the Lighthouse. My second run took 2.5 hours. I arrived at the Lighthouse during the morning of Beltane.
I was surprised by how quickly I was able to speed up thanks to the maps and climbing skills I had l gained on my first run, even as I went in a completely different direction around the Loch. I was worried that going through the game would get slow and tiresome, but I kept getting to the Lighthouse earlier and earlier with each run, managing to get to Beltane in a single day on my 11th run (the first time I attempted to get there in one day). Unlocking shortcuts and paths, learning which peaks I want to avoid (Forest Crown and Sharpstone, I hate you forever) consistently made my runs faster and easier. Although, honestly, part of me wishes it didn't get so fast. I definitely enjoyed honing my path to the Lighthouse, but I do think that making the journey to the Lighthouse require multiple days of travel might be better? Like, looking back on my 11 runs, the one I remember the best is my first run, where I kept getting lost and wandering around. I was often lost, without maps, and unsure of where to go, but I really liked that, it made me just keep exploring and looking around. Wandering aimlessly was a lot of fun for me. I guess part of it is that I also wish the game was a bit longer. Idk, maybe it all comes down to different play styles, I'm only ever a speedrunner to earn achievements and sate my completionist urge.
I've got good things and bad things to say about the movement and controls in this game. This game is really good at jumping (during the normal sections). There are plenty of moments when you're jumping across small pointy platforms, like a goat. The first time I found myself on one, I was worried about timing and measuring my jumps, fearing that if I jumped too shallow or too far I would miss the next pointy platform and fall down into the crevasse below. But to my pleasant surprise, the game interpreted my jumps perfectly, with each jump snapping to the next platform in the sequence, a mechanic I can't think of seeing in many other platformers. So yeah, jumping is good. Climbing, however, I have some notes on. When you're climbing down a surface, you will often start to slip, losing control of the speed at which you descend the wall you're climbing. If you don't manage to get control of yourself before you reach the bottom of the wall you're climbing, you will hit the ground with a thud and lose health. That's a fine mechanic, I don't begrudge the game for having climbing be dangerous. However, I don't think there was ever any tutorial or instructions on how to actually regain your control. I have tried every button that has any use in the game. I have managed to recover from slipping maybe 10% of the time. Sometimes I'm able to recover and then quickly start slipping again but unable to save myself again. I imagine that I am doing something wrong when it happens, but the game never seemed interested in helping me figure out what I should do when I start to slip.
Brief thing about the Look Farther camera mode that you can use to see what parts of the background you can actually stand and climb on: sometimes it outlines inaccessible areas as well as accessible areas. Like, sure, I guess that hill is an actual platform, but there is literally no way to reach it.
Remember how I specified that jumping was very well implemented during the normal parts of the game? Well, here's where it isn't: In the sections where you run with deer and make jumps to the rhythm of the music, I have had the random terrain generate sequences of jumps that are all but impossible to make. I think this problem is more frequent to running segments that are on a downwards slope, but not exclusive to them. Essentially, the random terrain generator will make a sequence of quick successive jumps which initially are going downwards until one of them is suddenly going back up, leaving you little time to jump before you end up clipping yourself on the rock you need to jump over.
Beyond climbing and running, the other gameplay element that drives the game is solving maps and identifying the names of the peaks. Some of the maps are really difficult to place down, but I don't think it's ever too difficult or unfair, especially since the game will tell you which maps are nearby you when you climb a peak (although it'd probably be more accurate to say "which maps are in areas you haven't passed up yet" instead of "which maps are nearby"). Another mechanic that you can do atop a peak is Blessing.
Spoilers, I guess, for a mechanic that is never explicitly mentioned or explained in game: Blessing a Peak usually involves leaving behind one of the items you find scattered across the land on top of a peak. If you use a correct item on the correct peak (following context clues from the history and stories that your uncle Hamish's letters tell you about each peak), the peak is Blessed, providing a beam of sunlight that keeps you warm at the top of the Blessed peak. There are a few different peaks that you don't Bless by leaving an item at the top, and I think that's better. Wrestling Rock and Beacon Hill require you to actually do things, Queen's Throne and Eagle's Nest frame leaving the item as an exchange between the player and the spirits/fauna, Warrior's Walk makes you help a ghost and you leave the item somewhere other than on the peak itself, and the Beak makes you drop an item down the crack to make the giant sneeze you away to the next zone! I like these peaks' Blessing requirements a lot more than all of the ones that are just like "leave an item on top of the peak, items that are related to words in the peak's name will probably do it" (@Moonspike @Golden Field @Hope's Ladder @Broken Tooth @Giant's Tooth) are boring. Like, you go from "Cool, I just had a gift exchange with the fairy queen of the mountains" to "I'm leaving a toy astronaut up here because there's a telescope on this peak and the vibes are right." Also the way the game lets you leave an item behind is really annoying. If you don't have any of the correct items, it'll let you choose between 1 of 3 random items. If you want to try one of your items that isn't among the 3 options, you need to put down one of the 3 options, pick it back up, and you'll have a new option that you can put down. If you do have an item that will Bless the peak you're at, it will be one of the 3 options UNLESS you have more than 3 items that can Bless the peak. That might not seem so bad, but since some items can Bless multiple different peaks and some items can only Bless one, you might be forced to leave behind a more useful item while you're holding onto an item whose only purpose has been filled by something else. You could pick the item you just used back up and try to get new options, but sometimes this will cause a peak to stop being Blessed the next time you start a run. END OF SPOILERS FOR BLESSINGS
complain about still having "hamish is my da" in the journal even though moira forgets it every run. also the repetitive things moira says when reaching the top of a peak, entering a bothy, or fucking whenever.
Continuity is a bit weird. When you start a new run, you keep all of the maps you have (both solved and unsolved), as well as all of the bits of stories and information that Hamish's letters tell you throughout the game. Once you've made it to the Lighthouse in time for Beltane, you also keep all of the items you pick up on your runs (as opposed to only keeping some of them). Every time you start a run, Moira (the player character) is 14 years old and Beltane (May 1st) is six days away. SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF THE GAME & BELTANE:
After you have reached the Lighthouse for Beltane, Moria's journal will include "Hamish is my da" among all of the other pieces of information she writes down. However, unlike every other piece of information that is already in her journal, Moria never knows the truth about Hamish until she reaches the Lighthouse in time for Beltane. Storywise, I get why that is, but gameplay loop wise, it does feel a bit weird. I think Hades does a better job of maintaining continuity as a game where replaying is encouraged even after the player wins. That does not mean that I think A Highland Song should end with Moira dying after reuniting with her parents, but I think there is room for improvement in that regard. Blah blah blah filler to make distance between the actual spoilers and the upcoming "spoiler over" text.
SPOILER OVER
This is one of my favorite indie games now. Despite problems and frustrations that extend beyond the scope of what could be considered immersive for a long-distance hike, A Highland Song is truly great. The art style and design is beautiful, the Scottish history and folktales used as world building is very cool, the struggle of the climb itself is fun, and it is magical running alongside those deer with the music and the mountains and sea in the background. Love this game.
On my first attempt, I got stuck more or less 2 different times: first after taking a cave that I didn't realize would bring me fowards with no way of going back to the areas I had maps for (I ended up wasting the better part of 3 days on Golden Field and its neighbors. Eventually I ended up at Witches' Peak, and got stuck in that range of mountains, until I fell to my death while traveling east and ended up getting brought back west by the ice climber, the first NPC I spoke to in the game. I got to the Lighthouse during the early morning of day 13, 6 days after Beltane. It took me about 4.5 hours to get from the house to the Lighthouse. My second run took 2.5 hours. I arrived at the Lighthouse during the morning of Beltane.
I was surprised by how quickly I was able to speed up thanks to the maps and climbing skills I had l gained on my first run, even as I went in a completely different direction around the Loch. I was worried that going through the game would get slow and tiresome, but I kept getting to the Lighthouse earlier and earlier with each run, managing to get to Beltane in a single day on my 11th run (the first time I attempted to get there in one day). Unlocking shortcuts and paths, learning which peaks I want to avoid (Forest Crown and Sharpstone, I hate you forever) consistently made my runs faster and easier. Although, honestly, part of me wishes it didn't get so fast. I definitely enjoyed honing my path to the Lighthouse, but I do think that making the journey to the Lighthouse require multiple days of travel might be better? Like, looking back on my 11 runs, the one I remember the best is my first run, where I kept getting lost and wandering around. I was often lost, without maps, and unsure of where to go, but I really liked that, it made me just keep exploring and looking around. Wandering aimlessly was a lot of fun for me. I guess part of it is that I also wish the game was a bit longer. Idk, maybe it all comes down to different play styles, I'm only ever a speedrunner to earn achievements and sate my completionist urge.
I've got good things and bad things to say about the movement and controls in this game. This game is really good at jumping (during the normal sections). There are plenty of moments when you're jumping across small pointy platforms, like a goat. The first time I found myself on one, I was worried about timing and measuring my jumps, fearing that if I jumped too shallow or too far I would miss the next pointy platform and fall down into the crevasse below. But to my pleasant surprise, the game interpreted my jumps perfectly, with each jump snapping to the next platform in the sequence, a mechanic I can't think of seeing in many other platformers. So yeah, jumping is good. Climbing, however, I have some notes on. When you're climbing down a surface, you will often start to slip, losing control of the speed at which you descend the wall you're climbing. If you don't manage to get control of yourself before you reach the bottom of the wall you're climbing, you will hit the ground with a thud and lose health. That's a fine mechanic, I don't begrudge the game for having climbing be dangerous. However, I don't think there was ever any tutorial or instructions on how to actually regain your control. I have tried every button that has any use in the game. I have managed to recover from slipping maybe 10% of the time. Sometimes I'm able to recover and then quickly start slipping again but unable to save myself again. I imagine that I am doing something wrong when it happens, but the game never seemed interested in helping me figure out what I should do when I start to slip.
Brief thing about the Look Farther camera mode that you can use to see what parts of the background you can actually stand and climb on: sometimes it outlines inaccessible areas as well as accessible areas. Like, sure, I guess that hill is an actual platform, but there is literally no way to reach it.
Remember how I specified that jumping was very well implemented during the normal parts of the game? Well, here's where it isn't: In the sections where you run with deer and make jumps to the rhythm of the music, I have had the random terrain generate sequences of jumps that are all but impossible to make. I think this problem is more frequent to running segments that are on a downwards slope, but not exclusive to them. Essentially, the random terrain generator will make a sequence of quick successive jumps which initially are going downwards until one of them is suddenly going back up, leaving you little time to jump before you end up clipping yourself on the rock you need to jump over.
Beyond climbing and running, the other gameplay element that drives the game is solving maps and identifying the names of the peaks. Some of the maps are really difficult to place down, but I don't think it's ever too difficult or unfair, especially since the game will tell you which maps are nearby you when you climb a peak (although it'd probably be more accurate to say "which maps are in areas you haven't passed up yet" instead of "which maps are nearby"). Another mechanic that you can do atop a peak is Blessing.
Spoilers, I guess, for a mechanic that is never explicitly mentioned or explained in game: Blessing a Peak usually involves leaving behind one of the items you find scattered across the land on top of a peak. If you use a correct item on the correct peak (following context clues from the history and stories that your uncle Hamish's letters tell you about each peak), the peak is Blessed, providing a beam of sunlight that keeps you warm at the top of the Blessed peak. There are a few different peaks that you don't Bless by leaving an item at the top, and I think that's better. Wrestling Rock and Beacon Hill require you to actually do things, Queen's Throne and Eagle's Nest frame leaving the item as an exchange between the player and the spirits/fauna, Warrior's Walk makes you help a ghost and you leave the item somewhere other than on the peak itself, and the Beak makes you drop an item down the crack to make the giant sneeze you away to the next zone! I like these peaks' Blessing requirements a lot more than all of the ones that are just like "leave an item on top of the peak, items that are related to words in the peak's name will probably do it" (@Moonspike @Golden Field @Hope's Ladder @Broken Tooth @Giant's Tooth) are boring. Like, you go from "Cool, I just had a gift exchange with the fairy queen of the mountains" to "I'm leaving a toy astronaut up here because there's a telescope on this peak and the vibes are right." Also the way the game lets you leave an item behind is really annoying. If you don't have any of the correct items, it'll let you choose between 1 of 3 random items. If you want to try one of your items that isn't among the 3 options, you need to put down one of the 3 options, pick it back up, and you'll have a new option that you can put down. If you do have an item that will Bless the peak you're at, it will be one of the 3 options UNLESS you have more than 3 items that can Bless the peak. That might not seem so bad, but since some items can Bless multiple different peaks and some items can only Bless one, you might be forced to leave behind a more useful item while you're holding onto an item whose only purpose has been filled by something else. You could pick the item you just used back up and try to get new options, but sometimes this will cause a peak to stop being Blessed the next time you start a run. END OF SPOILERS FOR BLESSINGS
complain about still having "hamish is my da" in the journal even though moira forgets it every run. also the repetitive things moira says when reaching the top of a peak, entering a bothy, or fucking whenever.
Continuity is a bit weird. When you start a new run, you keep all of the maps you have (both solved and unsolved), as well as all of the bits of stories and information that Hamish's letters tell you throughout the game. Once you've made it to the Lighthouse in time for Beltane, you also keep all of the items you pick up on your runs (as opposed to only keeping some of them). Every time you start a run, Moira (the player character) is 14 years old and Beltane (May 1st) is six days away. SPOILERS FOR THE ENDING OF THE GAME & BELTANE:
After you have reached the Lighthouse for Beltane, Moria's journal will include "Hamish is my da" among all of the other pieces of information she writes down. However, unlike every other piece of information that is already in her journal, Moria never knows the truth about Hamish until she reaches the Lighthouse in time for Beltane. Storywise, I get why that is, but gameplay loop wise, it does feel a bit weird. I think Hades does a better job of maintaining continuity as a game where replaying is encouraged even after the player wins. That does not mean that I think A Highland Song should end with Moira dying after reuniting with her parents, but I think there is room for improvement in that regard. Blah blah blah filler to make distance between the actual spoilers and the upcoming "spoiler over" text.
SPOILER OVER
This is one of my favorite indie games now. Despite problems and frustrations that extend beyond the scope of what could be considered immersive for a long-distance hike, A Highland Song is truly great. The art style and design is beautiful, the Scottish history and folktales used as world building is very cool, the struggle of the climb itself is fun, and it is magical running alongside those deer with the music and the mountains and sea in the background. Love this game.
This review contains spoilers
Game where you have to identify the path forward using maps? Great! But sadly, this was more like: Game where you have to identify the path forward using maps-- oh no you missed a map so now you have to backtrack and there are characters apparently but you haven't actually run into more than one and he wasn't useful in the slightest and you swear that you've climbed this cave before and, yep, you have, you're going round in circles and the protagonist is now berating herself because there's a soft time limit on navigating this terrain and you're taking too long and you just fell to the bottom of the climb again and the day is over and there's nowhere to sleep so you're just going to lose health tonight before you climb your way through this cave for the third time. Time for a jaunty tune that you've heard three times while you jump across this plain again since you're not sure if you need to go to the left or right side of it and you keep running into dead ends! Oh and while you want to interact with this signpost that'll let you cross to another path, the protagonist just launched into an anecdote so you'll have to wait until she finishes.
Sorry for the vent, a small title like this doesn't deserve it - especially one that's so earnest and inspired and doubly so when I may have just been an idiot and missed something obvious. But the pitch of open-ended navigation by identifying the path forward on maps sounded like something right up my alley. I love that shit! And with a great visual style, great music and some fun writing in Scottish accents? Everything sounded perfect to me, so I can't help but feel incredibly frustrated with my experience of it. I feel like I'd have more patience if it wasn't for the soft time limit. Initially I was taking my time, exploring the world, but then the protagonist started talking about how I was taking too long and wouldn't make it to the lighthouse in time so I started rushing and getting stressed out by how few relevant maps I was finding. Maybe I'll give this a few years and come back to it with a fresh perspective and love it.
Sorry for the vent, a small title like this doesn't deserve it - especially one that's so earnest and inspired and doubly so when I may have just been an idiot and missed something obvious. But the pitch of open-ended navigation by identifying the path forward on maps sounded like something right up my alley. I love that shit! And with a great visual style, great music and some fun writing in Scottish accents? Everything sounded perfect to me, so I can't help but feel incredibly frustrated with my experience of it. I feel like I'd have more patience if it wasn't for the soft time limit. Initially I was taking my time, exploring the world, but then the protagonist started talking about how I was taking too long and wouldn't make it to the lighthouse in time so I started rushing and getting stressed out by how few relevant maps I was finding. Maybe I'll give this a few years and come back to it with a fresh perspective and love it.
This review contains spoilers
For anyone who hasn't seen it, A Highland Song is the new game from Inkle. Like 80 Days before it, the joy lies in tackling the game multiple times, to find faster routes to reach your target; a lighthouse out at sea. You start in the Scottish Highlands and have to navigate caves, climbs, snow covered peaks, water, weather, nightfall, ski lifts, dams and much more besides to reach your goal.
Its a 2D exploration game and it looks gorgeous. Hand painted landscapes that have you taking screenshots all the time. Being set in Scotland, the folklore, narration and music is also wonderful. It really captures the spirit of the country perfectly.
Overall though, I'm a bit conflicted on this one.
For large parts of the game, I adored it.
Finding scraps of maps, figuring out where short cuts are and navigating mountains is very rewarding. And not as easy as you'd think. And it's clear that many objects you pick up won't be useful until a future run.
But it's not without issue. I had two or three bad crashes that locked my Switch or shut the game, losing some progress. I fell through the levels a few tmes. Some of the landscape is very hard to read, though a patch that came out tonight fixes some of that. The skill of figuring out where to go is wonderful when it works, but when you're lost it can be very frustrating; I lost 3 days trying to find a way off one mountain (which reminded me in 80 Days of that foray to Antarctica that kills you).
The biggest issue though is that after 2 runs, I'm not sure I want to do a 3rd. Whereas with 80 Days, I did about 20 as it was so much joy to experiment with new routes. Here, because the climbing is a bit laborious, it gets a bit dull, fast.
I've probably put about 6 hours in and feel like I've seen enough for now, until it's patched. And I think what is there is genuinely unique and charming.
It just didn't quite have the 'one more go' factor that I'd hoped it would.
Nice game, very fun, but hard to navigate.
This was the first indie game I've taken a chance on and spontaneously bought in a long while, and I feel like I was rewarded. Although Switch performance is a little spotty, it was never an issue during regular gameplay, and looks and sounds gorgeous. Despite the game's short runtime (it can be beaten in just a few hours), the variety of routes you can take to reach the end is enough that it almost begs to be replayed. The game merges narrative and gameplay extremely well – you can't approach exploring the highlands like you would a normal video game. While A Highland Song is far from merciless, it is more than happy to punish you for not paying attention to Moira's well-being or underestimating the danger of the seemingly peaceful Scottish highlands. I had to restart the game about four times to complete it because I made a mistake and got stuck, but it almost felt like an intentional approach to the game, and I was rewarded for my persistence with a better understanding and appreciation for the landscape.
The rhythm sections felt a little wonky, as despite my best efforts to synchronize inputs, it still felt slightly off with the otherwise gorgeous (licensed) music (I have Echo by Talisk on repeat as I write this).
This gets a solid recommendation from me.
The rhythm sections felt a little wonky, as despite my best efforts to synchronize inputs, it still felt slightly off with the otherwise gorgeous (licensed) music (I have Echo by Talisk on repeat as I write this).
This gets a solid recommendation from me.
Now, I do want to stress that I had pretty high fever while playing A Highland Song so I was probably a bit off my trolley, but while it is an absolute beauty of a game, I really didn't enjoy this as much as I had hoped. I played through it twice, once sort of learning the ropes and getting to the uncle late, and then a replay where I understood the game better and got there on time. I hated the game on my first playthrough, probably because I wasn't entirely up to speed on how I should play the game, but also because it's pretty glitchy on Switch so I had to reload my save several times because I would die and not respawn or the ground would just disappear under protagonist Moira's feet and she'd just fall in perpetuity. But I was probably also a bit annoyed by the constant rain, everything looking the same, and having to replay the fairly long (though charming if only ran through once) rhythm sections when I realized I needed to backtrack. Switching between different layers also felt sort of bad, and Moira having the grip strength of Nathan Drake but the stamina of Alan Wake while climbing cliffs certainly didn't help matters much either.
I certainly learned to enjoy the game more on my second playthrough when I met more people on my journey, understood the map mechanics better (you actually have to get to the peaks and point out paths to be able to progress in the game, which I somehow beat the entire game without realizing previously. I blame the fever.), and learned to better appreciate getting lost in the beautiful setting and the struggles of traversing across the mountains, which required a bit of planning and getting to know the landscape. Still didn't love the constant rain, every collectible being yet another scrap of a map, or not really being given time to appreciate the world since I was going against the clock (and I usually don't dislike timers, but this one just felt a bit antithetical to the gameplay of exploring and discovering the highlands to me), not being able to interact with things while Moria or her uncle were narrating, and the ending when you get to him on time is just terrible. Actually reaching the lighthouse is one of the most beautiful moments of my gaming year, however.
I certainly learned to enjoy the game more on my second playthrough when I met more people on my journey, understood the map mechanics better (you actually have to get to the peaks and point out paths to be able to progress in the game, which I somehow beat the entire game without realizing previously. I blame the fever.), and learned to better appreciate getting lost in the beautiful setting and the struggles of traversing across the mountains, which required a bit of planning and getting to know the landscape. Still didn't love the constant rain, every collectible being yet another scrap of a map, or not really being given time to appreciate the world since I was going against the clock (and I usually don't dislike timers, but this one just felt a bit antithetical to the gameplay of exploring and discovering the highlands to me), not being able to interact with things while Moria or her uncle were narrating, and the ending when you get to him on time is just terrible. Actually reaching the lighthouse is one of the most beautiful moments of my gaming year, however.
Way too opaque for its own good, would need to play it way more to truly get it, but there's not much to motivate me to keep going.
Presentation is great, the visuals, music and voice acting both work really well to set up the atmosphere.
Gameplay is... alright, the survival style systems are a bit annoying at times, and the controls can feel a bit slippery.
Not a bad way to spend a couple hours, but I'm probably not going to come back to it.
Gameplay is... alright, the survival style systems are a bit annoying at times, and the controls can feel a bit slippery.
Not a bad way to spend a couple hours, but I'm probably not going to come back to it.
while the environments and sound scape is really good. the gameplay felt awful the more I played it. after 2 hours I just felt like I was done.
An interesting mixture of genres. Part platformer, part exploration and climbing game with realistic-ish movement and measured pacing to avoid taking damage, part adventure, and part rhythm game at times. I liked how it was done.
A Highland Song is charming in that classic Inkle style - it's a small, personal story told non-linearly in a visually interesting world. Climb hills, find strange objects, read some maps, talk to strangers, and make it to your destination.. days too late. Until you go again and see the different way your story unfolds.
The downside to A Highland Song is that the other gameplay mechanics - the climbing/platforming, and autoscroller rhythm game - aren't particularly engaging. The climbing is a bit slow and tedious, in a world that's so easy to get lost in because of the visual similarity of the overlapping layers of hills - while the rhythm minigame feels a bit light and lacks any real sensation to nailing an action on the beat.
It's an interesting game - it's Inkle, of course it is - but not one that I felt compelled to play more of.
The downside to A Highland Song is that the other gameplay mechanics - the climbing/platforming, and autoscroller rhythm game - aren't particularly engaging. The climbing is a bit slow and tedious, in a world that's so easy to get lost in because of the visual similarity of the overlapping layers of hills - while the rhythm minigame feels a bit light and lacks any real sensation to nailing an action on the beat.
It's an interesting game - it's Inkle, of course it is - but not one that I felt compelled to play more of.
Love the look of it and the voice acting is pretty neat but the Switch version seems to lag badly making the rhythm sections a chore and annoying. Also, navigation in the game is incredibly confusing, ruining any momentum the game generated as I wandered around with no real clue where to go next. Real shame.
Couldn't find the uncle