by Gamatroid 🕹️
GAME FACTS
- TITLE: Lunark
- RELEASE DATE: 4/5/2023
- MSRP: $19.99
- DEVELOPER: Canari Games
- PUBLISHER: Wayforward
- PLATFORMS: Xbox, PlayStation, Switch and PC
- PLAYED ON: PlayStation 5
RETRO ROOTS
Lunark is very clearly inspired by the 90s classic Flashback, which in turn was inspired by Out of this World.
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| Flashback opening cinematic |
Much like in Lunark, in Flashback you control your character in a 2D environment with very deliberate well animated moves, in the style of Prince of Persia, with rotoscoped-looking realistic animations.
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| Flashback used rotoscoped animation |
Flashback also continued the animated cinematics like in Out of This World.
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| Flashback used animated cinematics much like Out of this World |
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| Out of This World cinematic |
In Flashback you have a semi-complicated control scheme to run, jump, climb and fight your way to freedom. While Lunark is very obviously inspired by Flashback, it makes a bunch of improvements that make it much more playable.
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| Lunark cinematics are similar in style to Flashback |
REVIEW
Gameplay and controls are one area where this game will likely be hit or miss for gamers.
On the one hand, if you were a fan of Flashback back in the day and had little to no issue with its controls, you will find Lunark is a much improved but similar experience. Personally I always liked the idea of Flashback's control scheme, but found it difficult to execute in practice. Lunark, on the other hand, employs similar controls but executes them in a much easier to understand way (at least for me).
On the other hand, if you've never played Flashback, or you didn't like the way it controlled, Lunark may have a bit of a learning curve for you, which you may or may not click with.
In terms of replayability, Lunark does offer certain items to find, and if you wanted to get 100% of all secrets and power-ups you might need another playthrough, otherwise its about a 4.5-5 hour game, with limited reason for replay.
Lunark's graphics may also be a little hit or miss for gamers.
On the one hand, the pixel art is colorful and well animated, and the cinematics are great.
On the other hand, the pixel art is a bit chunkier than I typically like.
I wish the graphic detail was closer to a game like Flashback, than what Lunark actually is, but you get used to the graphics quickly, and the smooth animations and well drawn environments more than make up for it.
The story is the stereotypical kind of typical dystopian future with a totalitarian government, robots and AIs, but overall I liked it and it kept me interested.
Thankfully the writing is well done and the text is just detailed enough to help support the narrative, but not overly detailed to the point where you'll want to skip ahead.
I honestly found the writing length to be perfect and I wish more modern games with text-based dialog would do something similar.
The music and sound design is one area where Lunark really shines. I absolutely love the music in Lunark and it not only perfectly calls back to the style of Flashback (in a very good way) but it really stands on its own to support the action and be very enjoyable. While I don't think I'll be looking to purchase the OST, it is perfect in the game itself.
Lunark performs flawlessly on PS5, which you would expect from this type of game. The framerate was steady the entire time, and the game never crashed or had any issues. While some of the save points may seem a bit far between, this is not a technical issue, although it can be a bit annoying at times.
From an innovative standpoint, Lunark heavily relies on its inspiration, but executes it in an absolutely flawless way. If you've played the recently released Flashback 2, clearly that's not an easy task.
While it may seem simple enough to emulate a classic experience, the truth is that Lunark took its inspiration but improved the control scheme to the point where its actually playable (I still can't really control Flashback well to this day.) Kudos to the devs.
At an MSRP of $19.99 and a length of about 4.5-5 hours, for me Lunark sits right at the edge of delivering sufficient value for its price.
I was lucky to get it on sale at a significant discount ($3.99 versus its full $19.99 price), and that certainly helped make the experience more valuable for me. It's length doesn't concern me, and frankly keeps it from overstaying its welcome.
If you liked Flashback and you're itching for a modern update in a similar style, and you aren't concerned with replay value, you should go ahead and pick this up at full price. If you prefer games where you can play through them multiple times, or you never played Lunark's inspiration, you may want to wait for a sale like I did.
VERDICT
CRITIC CHECK-IN
- 8/10 - Gamatroid
- 8/10 - Nintendo Life
- 8/10 - Hardcore Gamer
- 8.5/10 - God is a Geek
- 6/10 - Metro GameCentral
- 6/10 - VGChartz
You can watch my beginning gameplay on PS5 in the YouTube video below:
You can read about how our reviews work here.
