Lost Ember review: Not quite the majestic beast it wants to be

Lost Ember tells a human story without people.

In the ruins of a tribal civilization, there are only wild animals that grow and move through deserted spaces that point to a past of conflict and hubris. As you poke yourself into the paws, wings, and fins of various animals, you are forced to contemplate what human nature can teach, and the need to reconsider firmly anchored beliefs and assumptions.

It is a clear and coherent topic. If only the experience itself were so secure.

In the world of Lost Ember, deceased humans are said to have ascended to a heavenly kingdom known as the City of Light, unless they were not fair enough in life. Those who do not resurrect are instead reborn as animals. You play such a reincarnation, a wolf who befriends the lost spirit of another dead person, a hovering, talkative sphere of light that seems destined for the hereafter, but can not quite get there.

For some reason you seem to be able to help, so travel together across the country, hoping that you both will find a way to enter the city and eventually be accepted.

(embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkYyTU7u6q0 (/ embed)

This is mostly a sightseeing and history tour. Do not expect puzzles or fights. Just walk around exploring the landscape from behind the beast and find the way forward. The trick is that you have to navigate in every terrain, from grasslands and cliffs to rivers and mountains, and your running, jumping wolf is just so versatile. They need help from other animals.

Fortunately, you have the power to own any creature you see, be it mammal, fish or bird, giving you control over their unique shapes and abilities to overcome certain obstacles before returning to your lupine body.

The animals you control seem to hover above the ground rather than run along it

Neither duo can remember their past lives at the beginning of this adventure. To improve, you also need to bring to light memories. Red clouds of smoke on the horizon mark places that are important to your human self. Get on the road and trigger a scene from your past that plays as a series of still images. Then a transparent barrier tears around the area and you can continue traveling. This means that you are witnessing both the personal and social events that led to your death as you learn about a civilization that no longer exists. So you not only get an insight into who you were, but also into the world in which you fit.

The puzzles of why your character has been reborn, rather than ascending, the identity of the lost mind, and why unlocking your memories helps him progress, make up most of the story of the game. It quickly becomes clear that this is a story of intertwined fates, and the nature of your connection to the Lightball is one of Lost Ember’s driving forces.

Even more intriguing, however, is how the remembrance scenes overlay your morally questionable past with layers of the social context to continually change your view of you. The same thing happens in a more direct way as you begin to take on the forms of other animals, literally allowing you to look back on the human world from multiple angles.

It’s a shame that everything feels overwhelmed by this neat narrative structure. The other main attraction of Lost Ember is his sense of scale, and sometimes it’s impressive. During this six-hour hike, you will pass miles of uninterrupted landscapes with green fields that give way to hills, cliffs and plateaus that lead into deep rivers and subterranean caves. If you cross large valleys, swim over waterfalls or get out of dirty tunnels into sun-drenched vistas, you will surely be amazed.

Mooneye Studios

The width and openness, however, is associated with high costs for attention to detail and performance. Basic geometry and muddy textures affect some potentially spectacular views. Land features appear at close range, and the screen usually freezes for a moment as a new piece of landscape comes in.

The animals you control seem to hover above the ground rather than run along it. They bounce and slide with weightless animation of low walls. The characters and scenery hardly work together, rather than existing in a state of natural harmony.

These technical issues play an important role in a game in which sensations are involved in finding different animals and testing their roll, tunnel or hovering movements to get where you need to go. Whether you’re running as a wolf, as a mountain goat jumping stones or leaping up a fish – the feeling of being wild and free is crucial, but all too often these intentions hit the rough edges of the game and undermine its flow.

There are about a dozen animal species in Lost Ember, but these are slow to be imported. The first half of the game is therefore associated with many repetitions. And if each animal is so simple and has only one unique feature that allows you to make progress – armadillos dig in under walls, ducks glide over gaps – they are just entertaining. It is daunting to see a few creatures in front of you, only to find that they are another gang of wombats whose only real benefit is squeezing through narrow passages.

There is no real challenge or sense of discovery. One only sees an obstacle and then looks around for an animal that has a way out, over or through it. A rickety camera and invisible walls add to the frustration.

The landscapes can be very beautiful. Mooneye Studios

Lost Ember works better if you focus on forward momentum, in part because promising new horizons is more inspiring than trying to explore the current one. But it’s also a simple pleasure to cover space quickly, whether you’re wolfing across the grasslands in wolf form or rolling down hills, and the seamless transformation between creatures is sometimes used effectively. For example, a sequence of flying a parrot through a huge gorge and then appearing between a herd of galloping buffalos on a desert plain to join them in order to take part in the attack is a real highlight.

Such impressive moments are more common in the back half of the game. The range of environments is increasing, littered with ever-larger, more intriguing human structures, often framed by conspicuous uses of light and color. New animals are also introduced faster without being overstrained (though the wombats never stop). There are even a few animals, such as turtles, that only seem to exist to provide a short distraction. Even if they do not do much, the environment is more like an ecosystem worth looking around.

The story picks up in the final hours with a suitably touching ending, and at the end of Lost Ember it’s much easier to get excited about the whole experience. Sometimes it replicates the joys of traveling, paints emotional lines with its places, its music and its movement, and the combination of games and themes reinforces its narrative effect.

But Lost Ember stutters and stumbles because of its technical limitations and takes far too long to flow properly. Too many mishaps, too few truly memorable moments, and an overabundance of wombats prevent the game from becoming a truly majestic animal.

Lost Ember is now available for PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. There will be a release for Nintendo Switch in the future. The game was tested on PS4 with a final “retail” download code from Mooneye Studios. For more information about Polygon’s Ethics Policy, click here.