I have never been big on mobile games. I think Angry Birds was honestly the last mobile experience I put significant time into. I just need that controller in my hands. So when I found out Projection: First Light was coming to console my ears instantly perked up. At first glance, it reminded me of Indie darlings such as Limbo, which automatically made it a must-try. But are appearances deceiving or does developer Shadowplay Studios have a hit on their hands?
GRAPHICS
The game’s art-style is beautiful. The visual design is heavily inspired by shadow puppetry. As you advance through excellently crafted 2D levels, you will notice that much of the backdrops are designed and moved as they would be in a puppet show. Characters and scenery are attached to sticks or dangling from string. I’ll touch more on this later, but you spend a lot of time manipulating the light to advance and I often found myself just taking in the unique beauty of the game.
STORY
You play as Greta. A young girl from Indonesia who causes some trouble in her home village by chasing a butterfly. After being locked in her room by her parents for the carnage caused, including damage to a police car, Greta finds a hidden passage out of her room. After venturing through a forest, she encounters a shadow puppetry theatre which in turn leads her to a shining light that will change her life forever.
The story takes you across four different lands. Indonesia, China, Turkey, and England. It tells a heart-warming tale without the use of any voice acting. Instead, the game emotes with great pantomime acting and word descriptors that appear on screen. It’s a unique method of storytelling and one that really fits in this type of game.
GAMEPLAY
Projection: First Light is a 2D puzzle-platformer. In order to navigate Greta to her desired location, you need to use the shining light, which is controlled via the right stick, that you obtain early on to manipulate shadows. Positioning the light correctly will form shadows which can then be used to climb on and reach previously off-limit areas. It’s a cool mechanic and one that allows for both rewarding and challenging gameplay throughout.
While at first you will only be concerned with angling the light against object stationery in the world, the difficulty soon ramps up and the game requires you to place objects in specific areas to create the shadows you need. It is a natural evolution and the game teaches you the gameplay rules at a fair and steady pace.
BUGS
Manipulating light can be tricky and there were times in the game where I put myself in a position I couldn’t recover from. In this situation, an option to return to the most recent checkpoint would have been very welcome, but instead, you are forced to quit out to the main menu and reload the game. It’s not the end of the world, but a strange oversight.
VALUE
I was surprised at the amount of content in the game. Most games in this genre tend to clock in around the two-hour mark but it will likely take you more than five hours to roll the credits in Projection: First Light. When you factor in that the game only costs £14.99 on the EU PSN store this really becomes a great value proposition. If anything I would have preferred the game to be a little shorter as the game did begin to outstay it’s welcome a little in the last hour.
TROPHIES
The majority of the trophies will come naturally as you play through the game, but there are collectables en route to the platinum trophy as well. Collecting every butterfly in one run without the use of a guide would be difficult in my experience, so if you are a platinum hunter I would suggest throwing up a guide and keeping track as you go.
-Terry 🦊
VERDICT
Overall Projection: First Light is a charming, beautiful and interesting game that 2D puzzle-platforming fans will enjoy. It doesn’t quite hit the heights of Creaks, but it’s certainly a welcome addition to the genre. In the end, it may last a little longer than it needed to, but there is value here given the generous price.
Best price as of review: EU PSN Store – £14.99
A review code for this product was kindly provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PS4.
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