Ereban: Shadow Legacy Review – Interspersed

Eriban: Shadow Legacy It is a stealth game developed by the Spanish Baby Robot games It is their first address. I would call stealth games a subgenre in the making, and there are a lot of them: Doctrine killer, Hard lime mineral And Assassin They are household names. Even the indie scene is full of them: Sign of ninja, Shade And – relevant to this review – Force me.

Intimacy in a new twist

It's weird, because even though you take a comprehensive look at the list of people who have done this Eriban: Shadow Legacy Possible, I can't find a single name that shares the same list Force me. The similarities are so striking that it is very difficult to take your eyes off. Even the stories are strikingly similar: Ayanna joins Helios, a company that claims to have all the humanitarian solutions to the energy crisis. However, her agenda is only to find out what happened to her people, the Oraibien – where they went and why.

in Force me Have you searched for your past? in Eriban: Shadow Legacy You seek the past and future of your people on a large scale. Naturally, Iriban also replaced the feudal Japanese aesthetic with harsh, hard-hitting science fiction. Half-broken computer screens, steel doors and ventilation shafts are common. There are open landscapes, but they are often more eye-catching to see from shade-covered rooftops.

How ethical are you?

As in many other stealth games, you can… Eriban: Shadow Legacy Choose with relative freedom how you want to approach each individual challenge. However, trying to overpower the enemy is not a good idea, although by using some tools you can try that later as well. However, in the end, you have to choose to either sneak through everything without killing, or put a knife in the back of all the defectors. Both paths reward you with their own achievement.

There are two types of enemies here: SYM robots and a few humans who work for Helios. Killing robots only affects any Shifu; The people are another fifth. They form part of the morale meter that you are encouraged to keep as non-lethal.

The infiltration itself takes place in the shadows, again completely Force me. You want to avoid every ray of unnecessary light, because it drains your stamina in no time. If you get a flashlight directly in your face, you can run and hide or otherwise engage in combat, but you'll likely get hit in a physical melee – at least until the last abilities are unlocked.

Arsenal

Eriban: Shadow Legacy You have a fair amount of abilities and weapons to delve into, however, all of them except the sonar, which is used to temporarily see enemies and the like, have a limited number. You can create new menus in a simple menu that I missed mid-game on the LB button. There, if you collect shadow essence and/or scrap metal, you can repair more mines, distractions, or pits. Overall, the tools aren't quite as fun as other games within the genre; It's best to take out everyone with a knife to the hip – although some trophies encourage experimentation.

But speaking of this sonar, I find it very difficult to use it properly. Anything you find interesting in it appears as a wireframe in a specific color. However, they remain on screen for a very short time, while some of them are still very difficult to distinguish from the environments. In other words, it's not nearly as useful as Detective Mode Batman: Arkham Asylum Or similar abilities in other games. Here are many unfortunate encounters with the enemy that can be blamed on not seeing them.

Other than that, I also feel inclined to mention it Eriban: Shadow Legacy It is a bit poorly optimized on PC. With the signature decent case, some images are still skipped in the screen refresh. At least loading is fast from an SSD, but it often leads to problems with enemy AI. If the corpse I caused is discovered, I can restart from the last checkpoint, but it's not rare for the AI ​​to find a corpse in the same spot where it was now empty.

When everything is crawling around him anyway Eriban: Shadow Legacy A really competent game in a very fun genre. It's not quite as rewarding, pretty, or stable as many other stealth games, but as Baby Robot's debut title, it's a tremendous display of competence and ambition.

Ereban: Shadow Legacy was released on April 10, 2024 on PC (steam) Starting at €25 (10% cheaper now during the launch period). Xbox ports for One and Series X|S are currently in the works. This review is made possible by the review code.