Baby Robot Games worked on Ereban: Shadow Legacy for 5 years. Just that it was going to be on Xbox Game Pass on the first day it came out was all I knew about it before it came out. But since they lost their publishing deal, the only place to get Ereban is on Steam. Still, there are plans for an Xbox version. It does have some design flaws, though, which I think hold it back. The trip is still worth taking, though.
It is known that you are Ayana, the last Ereban. Helios, a company that seems to have fixed the energy problem and saved the world, will test her. This tells you more about her and what Ereban is. After the test, she is now being chased because of her shadow skills. The Ereban are dangerous because of this trait. Even though Helios calls the Forgotten Suns terrorists, they can help her get away from him.
Table of Contents
Ayana The Ereban
Ayana can become one with the shadows around her. She can move and sink into them to get past walls and gates. She can’t do these things when it’s light, though. The basic structure is played really well during the six to eight-hour trip. Based on how long it takes you to find every treasure or tech card, this game can take up to 12 hours to finish. This is because it’s easy to get to more than one ending by picking a chapter.
Helios is just another big company with a good name that keeps big secrets from its employees, so the story might be a little too clear at times. The story does get better, but not until the second part of the game, when some secrets are revealed. I will say that the last two hours were very interesting, mostly because of some surprise that worked really well.
From here, Ayana starts to figure out what happened to her people and how Helios is linked to it. Even though the ideas aren’t very new, I wasn’t expecting these parts to work so well for this team’s first game. The voice acting, writing, and direction are all great.
People who work with humanoids don’t fight, but they will call the police if they see Ayana. Your plan will go differently if you try to avoid or kill these people. What you can do to improve when you finish a level is also changed by this. You can pick skills that help you sneak or powers that help you kill.
You’ll need to find shadow orbs and other things that are hidden in each stage to make these better. You can play through stages again at any time, but you can’t change the stories you chose during that run.
Stealth Platforming
Ayana isn’t very good at fighting. She will lose the game if a robot sees her quickly grabs her by the neck and holds her down. If you fail, you only lose the grade you get at the end of the job. There are a lot of checkpoints. It takes different types of play to get to the end score. For example, you can kill, sneak, or fight your way through each stage.
I picked to play in sneak mode and only target robots, and I liked how things turned out. With a few tools, Ayana can “don’t be seen” situations better. You can pick a fake, mines that only stop robots, a flash bang that blinds the enemy, or a shield that protects you from a few hits.
To make things feel strong, you will have to build and level them up. During my run, I didn’t use them very often. For the more useful skills, you need to have making materials on hand, and I didn’t want to look all over for more of them. I used the radar ping for most of the game because it was easy.
While you’re on the platform, you’ll find both easy jumping and sneaky jobs. For the sneaky ones, you had to change into your shadow form and hit people, things, and places in a certain order. Everything was “fine.” It’s not too hard, but sometimes it’s too easy, which makes it dull to figure out.
Controller Controls
To connect, press the Y button on the controller. To jump, press A, to crouch (key for noise levels), and to sneak attack, press B. If a computer sees you, it can’t be turned off. But you can stun someone at any time. To get into shadow mode, press the right button. People on the surface won’t be able to see you if it isn’t lit up, which lets you climb up most of them.
You can dash while in sneak mode now that the game has been updated, but it uses up stamina. Because of that bar, you can’t stay in Stealth for long. It looks like it came from Breath of the Wild. I thought Ereban was fun to play, which is how I felt about most of the game.
Is The Storyline Bad Or Bland?
I don’t think it’s a bad story, though. I don’t even remember what that one was about because it was so dull. It would have been much better with some changes. Instead of using dialogue snippets to make it look like Ayana and the first resistance member she met became friends, their relationship should have grown naturally. We, the viewers, were there the whole time and knew they didn’t.
Syms are your main enemy. They are big, chunky robots that patrol areas by moving in simple patterns. These robots are there for you to dodge or destroy as you please, and they say some really funny things. The task lasts only 5–8 hours, but a few different types show up, like long-range snipers and a unique model that can bring dead allies back to life.
You do not fight, even though you have a bendy blade that can kill a Sym in one hit. It’s better to be sneaky in Ereban: Shadow Legacy because the Syms can also one-shot you. Most of the time, getting caught will mean the end of the game, not a reason to pull out the rocket launcher.
Graphics, Sound, and Bugs
To be clear, Ereban: Shadow Legacy looks like a lovely 360-era game that has been given a new look. I like the main character’s art style and the cel-shading style next to it, but I don’t like how the people and robots look. It’s not always easy to tell what’s in the background when the surroundings look good. Ayana and a few other important figures look great. I wish the setting didn’t look like an old phone game all the time.
It’s nice that the game has nice music. However, it didn’t stand out and didn’t bother me either because it fit the mood well enough. The voice actors in the game are all in the same group. It’s fine, and the main players do their best to carry the dialogue at times. It looked like one of the supporting characters was trying to say, “Hi, I’m acting.”
I didn’t find any interesting bugs. Being able to change the camera during a sneaky wall climb was my least favorite part of the game. You’ll have to jump from wall to wall as a wisp in some places. It can be hard to see what you’re going toward when the camera moves around a lot.
When I pressed “left” to move to the left, the camera would move, and all of a sudden I was going straight up into some lights, which killed me. It finally happened after a long time, when the tasks and platforming got tougher. You can check out more about the game in the trailer.
Conclusion
People who work for Helios and go about their daily lives happen much less often than robots. If you don’t bother the soft people, you’ll get pure stealth skills that will let you get by without anyone realizing. The easy moral system in Shadow Legacy comes in handy here. The skills will lean toward the killing method if you decide to kill the people.
It sounds like a good idea, but the morals scheme doesn’t work well in real life. The problem is that killing people never makes sense, just like before. You have to go out of your way to kill the people because it’s easy to sneak through without being seen.
To make things easier, the humans you’re trying to kill should be put in tough spots. This way, you’d have to make a tough choice: do I kill the humans to make things easier, or do I stay hidden? It’s always easy to get by, though, so there’s never a choice. You should only kill people to get the dangerous skills, but they’re not fun enough to make it worth it.
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