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.
Couldn't find the uncle