Scotland. The closing frontier. At least, so far as video games go. Despite many video games being made in and concerning the wonderful north, only a few truly symbolize its pure marvel with out additionally that includes an embarrassing stereotype of haggis-eating, ginger-bearded, tartan-clad males, and/or clobbering the English (though we do deserve that final one).
A Highland Song, the newest providing from the narrative sport wizards at Inkle, steps flippantly in to proper this mistaken. Its mountains and its music stream like honey, exhibiting a facet of the highlands that almost all of us hardly ever get to see with out taking an extended prepare up north. And you, as the teenager runaway Moira, are tasked with exploring this daunting mountain vary with one aim: to get to the ocean.
Moira is a typical teenager, which means she needs to place as a lot distance between her and her mam as doable. Her ticket to freedom comes within the type of a letter from her uncle Hamish, who lives in a lighthouse simply over the opposite facet of about two dozen hills and mountains, summoning her to return go to earlier than Beltane (Gaelic May Day) in a few week’s time. Most of A Highland Song is about climbing up, down, round, and thru these superbly painted mountains, all of which must be mapped, named, and topped by Moira with no matter treasures she has at hand.
If you’ve got performed Inkle’s 80 Days, this will likely sound acquainted. Get from X to Y in Z variety of days, discover fascinating story tidbits as you go, and take a look at to not die alongside the way in which. In a way, it is a direct descendant of 80 Days, and you’ll see a whole lot of similarities as you wind your means round this stretch of granite, heather and gorse. But 80 Days is about two adults spanning the globe to seek out fame and success; A Highland Song is about one younger lady strolling to the sting of her tiny world and discovering herself.
Climbing these mountains is not any straightforward job, even for somebody with expertise and tools, and Moira has neither. Her little lungs cannot deal with climbing a sheer cliff, so you could discover one other means. Her small fingers will lose their grip as you try and drop down a steep drop, and he or she’ll usually fall and graze her knee, scrape her toe, or bend her elbow, taking invaluable chunks off her well being bar. If she will be able to’t discover anyplace snug and sheltered to sleep — a bothy, a shed, or a cavemouth will do — that very same well being bar will shrink in dimension, and when you’re caught out in a rainstorm, it’s going to drain slowly however always, limiting what number of errors you can also make.
Luckily, you may discover maps to shortcuts alongside the way in which which you may have to scale the closest peak to pin down. It’s a bit of check of cartography, matching hill silhouettes to their simplified variations on these scraps of paper, checking that the landmarks line up good. These shortcuts are your saviours, permitting you to skip tough sections of the hillsides and shorten your journey to make it to the lighthouse in time.
But till you will have a major variety of these maps and pinpoint the shortcuts, you may must do issues the exhausting means. And it’s exhausting — there are problem settings, however even the mildest one is punishing sufficient to fray your nerves at occasions. You’ll be forgiven if, like us, you domesticate a way of being a frightened guardian as you watch Moira tumble down free scree, take heed to her nervous cries of ache, and listen to her panting for air as she pulls her fragile physique up a vertical rockface. “Mum’s gonnae kill me,” she’ll say, and you will nod in settlement. “I’m gonnae die out right here!”
Bu Inkle’s power has at all times been its narrative, and we discovered ourselves eagerly awaiting all of those story threads to be tied up right into a neat bow, solely to be a bit of disillusioned. These shortcut maps trace at folks leaving secret messages and hiding treasures for each other — however they by no means appear to go anyplace. And if Moira is operating away from residence, why are there seemingly no penalties for her reckless journey (or is that simply the boring grown-up in us speaking)? And what precisely is the purpose within the rhythm sections, which break up the climbing by asking Moira to run to the jaunty however irregular beat of Scottish people music?
Our greatest reply to this query is our heroine herself. Moira, being a teen whose world extends solely to the close by coast and again, has an lively creativeness, and her thoughts is steeped in Gaelic folktales. As she runs, she hears Hamish in her head, writing to her concerning the witch-queen Morag, the elusive selkies, and all of the myths and legends which have soaked into these mountains just like the blood of clans previous. Moira, bless her coronary heart, takes all of it at face worth — however as she explores, you begin to see this magic blur into actuality, too. Echoes lead you thru secret cave passages. The goshawk, an avian emissary of Morag, watches over you. Secret messages carved in ruins trace at a long-lost cult of some sort. It’s exhausting to not fall in love with this richly woven tapestry of a world, even when the mountain-climbing will get irritatingly backtrack-y.
Like 80 Days, A Highland Song needs you to play once more, and once more, and once more. In the primary run, you are underpowered, underprepared, and do not but perceive that generally the way in which to progress isn’t apparent, resulting in a irritating expertise. The second run is best. The magic of the hills saves all of your shortcuts and maps, and the story builds on what you already know, sketching a fuller image of why Moira’s operating away, and what she’s operating in direction of. The third is best nonetheless. The fourth run is near one thing actually nice.
But the pull of thriller and discovery is not fairly sufficient to mitigate the need of repetition. You’ll tire of trekking up the identical mountains, listening to the identical phrases from Hamish, and getting caught on the identical difficult little bit of hill time and again. You’ll attempt to put collectively the puzzle items of which merchandise to make use of the place, like keys and cash used on doorways and statues, solely to seek out that you just dropped that exact merchandise on high of a hill means again at god-knows-where. You’ll need to take new paths by means of the hills to seek out new tales, however realise that you do not keep in mind which means you went final time. Somewhat sherpa-like help — or higher but, extra selection at first — might need made it a bit of simpler to work our means from the underside to the highest once more. After all, do not they are saying you by no means climb the identical mountain twice?
Conclusion
A Highland Song’s folklore-infused journey takes “strolling simulator” to the acute, as you pull its teen runaway Moira up and down the cliffs and mountains of the Scottish highlands, discovering treasures, music, and magic alongside the way in which. But its repetitious nature wears away the enjoyment of exploration, and additional playthroughs are a battle between the joys of recent discoveries and the tedium of getting to retread outdated floor.
