Ayasa: Shadows of Silence Review – A Visually Impressive Apocalypse You Can’t Actually Play

Beginning a game with a disclaimer not about themes or epilepsy warnings, but that the developers have poured their heart into a title (sorry, but don’t they all?!) and that they would like people to report any issues direct rather than in a review immediately puts me on the defensive. Not a great start, Ayasa: Shadows of Silence.

Cozy Builder had a similar thing, and I gave fair comments. With this statement, it’s either because the developers know there are issues, or they’re protecting themselves, as they have been so invested and pre-empting any negative criticism. Fair play, that’s with anything you create – even if it’s a poxy review on a little digital space on the internet. I get it and respect it.

However, Ayasa: Shadows of Silence is more in line with an Early Access or even beta due to the fundamental technical flaws. For context, I couldn’t continue with the game and therefore am not giving it a score on this basis. I’m neither saying I hate it, nor telling you to avoid it – that’s your decision. However, if I do influence you, hit that like and subscribe button. Oh wait – this isn’t YouTube.

Running From Something, Landing On Nothing

Right, what’s this all about? A reflection of the world we currently live in. It starts with a city skyline and a nuke. The sky lights up in silence as an army of creatures that look like they’re from Brutal Legend march into the chaos to loot some industrial-sized brushes.

Ayasa: Shadows of Silence is ambiguous (me likey) as there are no ’28 days later’ or ‘8:23 am’. We simply start in the forest with a purple-haired millennial looking like a slightly more polished version of a PS1 character. That’s not a negative; she just looks a teeny bit out of place in an otherwise excellent environment. It’s dark, ominous and well-designed.

Unfortunately, your character should have remained in a PS1 title, as they don’t integrate well here. Immediately you’re on the run from something chasing you, and just as quickly, you’re making comparisons to the excellent Inside, then promptly disassociating any similarities the moment you jump or get caught in scenery.

Platforming is the core gameplay in Ayasa: Shadows of Silence, and it’s horrible. Her jumps are floaty and do not connect with the scenery. In the first 30 seconds, I was running a couple of feet away from a log, in the air, until 90% of the way through, I fell to my death, which was an invisible floor mid-air. The pursuing load screens and repeating sections were prominent in this experience.

Stealth Is A Game Of Roulette

Stealth also plays an important role, and it’s equally broken. Enemies will spot you when crouching, or you’ll clip a leaf, ant or walk up a vertical wall whilst holding the crouch/stealth button, only for the enemy to see you and insta-kill you, triggering the loading screen for the umpteenth time. Stealth is very much chance-based.

Where a somewhat similar title, Manairons, pre-empted awkward jumps with a permanent jump shadow, this would be redundant here. Very simple jumps in Ayasa: Shadows of Silence were failures almost every time, and can’t be solely placed on the player when there are erratic delays with jumping, or you’d land on a ledge only to then fall to your death with nothing underneath you.

In my opinion, the developers could have avoided the fundamental flaws by keeping the game more on rails and restricted players from moving up and down in the scenes. Of course, Inside did this and did a cracking job, but so too did Planet of Lana and it’s sequel. Allowing players to move up and down means that it’s difficult to land a jump or conflict with scenery. It also doesn’t add any function to move within the scenes either.

The End

Ayasa: Shadows of Silence is a good looking game and follows a format that so many people will enjoy, but it gets the gameplay mechanics so critically incomplete that, for me, it’s unplayable in its current state until those physics are significantly improved. There’s definitely a game here, but in its current state, and bearing in mind this is on the PS5 and not an Early Access Steam title, I can’t continue with it and will have to let the world fall without my input.