Welcome to the hybrid baby of Dead Cells, Shovel Knight, and Trine! I’m talking about Greak: Memories of Azur, a single-player side-scrolling adventure with traditional hand-drawn animation. In Greak, the player alternates control of the three characters, guiding each of them independently to escape the Urlag invasion on the lands of Azur! Let’s jump in!
Greak: Memories of Azur
I’m not gonna lie; I was blown away by the artwork. I’m a sucker for these kinds of games, and I love it when the devs put some extra touch on the artwork. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s pixels or cell-shaded or hand-drawn like in Greak, but when it clicks – it clicks. It adds a layer of cuteness, which I missed in the grim world of Dead Cells (sure, different setting, but still). Like I said before, Greak: Memories of Azur is a side-scrolling single-player game in which you control the brothers Greak and Raydel and their sister Adara. You traverse the country of Azur to escape the impending invasion of Urlag – each with its own special powers and skills.
Greak, the youngest of the three siblings, belongs to the Courines, a magical race that fights off the invasion of the Urlags, a race that resembles native tribes from the Amazonia or Africa, featuring blowdarts, masks, and knives. The battle has been raging for quite a while, and more and more Courines are fleeing the country – we join Greak in his search for his sister and brother while helping the local Courines to build an airship to escape Azur for good.
Gameplay
When we look at the gameplay of Greak, it alternates between puzzle solving in search of quest items and exploration of the lands of Azur. Most quest items are related to the airship you’re trying to build or upgradable items to aid the locals in your quest. One of the first things you need to make is soup, which restores health and can be cooked from items found in the swamps and waterfall area near the starting area. Your inventory, however, is limited, so you can only pick up the essentials – until you upgrade your bag. Enemies are ruthless, and healing items are a priority when fighting your way through the masses, so pick your battles and items and try to combine them as much as possible.
Puzzles
The puzzles felt familiar and reminded me a lot of both Shovel Knight and Trine in a sense. Airship items, however, take up space as well, so dropping that muffin for a piece of rope might be the logical conclusion, but when you die on your way back due to lack of healing (or git gut), you’ll have to restart at last save stone you passed. Unfortunately, these save stones aren’t prevalent, so sometimes I lost a good half hour or more of gameplay, which sucked a bit (a few rage-quits were encountered). I get that Greak wants to challenge you, but the limitations, in the beginning, are a pretty hard learning curve for those unfamiliar with adventure games.
Switching between characters feels natural on the Switch, and the fact that you don’t need to control all three simultaneously gives the puzzles an extra challenge. Each sibling has its own power and way to deal with puzzles and monsters, so try to determine which one feels right for your playstyle. This way, you can tune your gameplay the way you like (even though you’ll play mostly with Greak, obviously). The control scheme works on the Nintendo Switch, but I’m not sure how this will function on the platforms with keyboard and mouse support – I think games like this (or Little Nightmares and It Takes Two) works best with a controller; so keep that in mind before dipping in.
Conclusion
Another point I have to give the devs credit for is the soundtrack – it sounds absolutely amazing and is composed by a live orchestra – which adds a Dreamworks/Pixar vibe to the already storybook-feel Greak carries itself. So if you’re looking for an adventure game with a rogue-ish twist and puzzling action like in It Takes Two and Trine, Greak might be right up your alley! And otherwise, just check it out for the amazing artwork and music.
