Solar Ash feels, at times, like a parody of an indie game. From the acclaimed studio that brought us Hyper Light Drifter, Heart Machine, comes a title that scrapes a few disparate ideas from the floor of a game development war room and fails to put them together in a way that’s all that interesting. Solar Ash shows its entire hand in the first fifteen minutes of gameplay, and if you, like me, aren’t immediately on board, you’ll be quickly left behind.
Solar Ash is about uncovering the mysteries of a lost expedition of extraterrestrial beings as they ventured into a black hole threatening to consume their planet. Your objective is to activate a mysterious device called the Starseed to stop the black hole and (hopefully) save not only your world but your lost compatriots as well. A giant Gris-esque goddess looming at the heart of the vortex is committed not only to stopping our protagonist, Rei, from achieving her goal but also us, the player, from acquiring too many health points. More on that later.
