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.