Ember Review (Nintendo Switch)

Review code used many thanks to N-Fusion

Ember, by developers N-Fusion is a homage to the 90’s classic role playing games. With its isometric view it reminds me off the Baldurs gate and games of that visual style. Ember was originally released as a mobile and PC game in 2016.

Sparkly Beings

Some time ago strange sparkly beings fell to Earth and they became know as Embers, the Embers were hunted and captured and a war began. You play the role of a resurrected Lightbringer from a long extinct race of semi divine beings who has been summoned to protect the dying Embers as the world is on the brink of collapse.

Unfortunately for the Lightbringer no one mentioned a side effect of being resurrected is amnesia and the Lightbringer has lost his memory as well as his powers. After the introduction to the story you meet Coren, a monk of the Radiance, who asks the LIghtbringer for his help and he tags along, You both head of in search of the lost Embers, missing memories and lost powers on a journey that takes you through Deep Barrow to reach the City of Light and save the world of Domus.

Though there is nothing surprising in the story it’s enough to encourage the player to press on to see what happens, It ticks the three staple boxes of a storyline in an RPG, regain memory, powers and save the world.

Onwards to the City of Light

You roam around the areas with different environments from Forests to Bogs and across dusty Plains on your way to find the Embers. Map areas are open so you can go of the beaten path and explore. In typical RPG style there are NPC’s scattered throughout the game for you to interact with and fulfil quests for. There are over 70 quests to complete within the game of the fetch and carry variety. In each area you’ll find lots of items to loot, though find isn’t exactly right as each item of loot is labelled and visible before you reach it which takes the element of surprise out of finding it for yourself.

Crafting and Cooking

Loot can be used to sell to merchants and make some money or alternatively used in crafting or in recipes for cooking food. You’ll find most of the items needed for crafting while looting, though the crafting system in terms of execution isn’t the deepest but it works… It works much like this: have all the items, find a crafting station, highlight the recipe in the menu and press the button. Simple enough. You can craft armour, food, weapons, as there are plenty of recipes to discover in the world of ember.

Real time Combat

Combat is in real-time time, you can however pause during combat or as the game calls it a “tactical pause”. This allows you to direct your party to the enemy you want them to attack by drawing a green line to the enemy to give the command to attack. Alternatively you can run towards the enemy with weapons swinging in real time which is more my style of combat. The tactical pause does come in useful if you come across a bunch of enemies as you can command an archer to pick off their health before the rest of the party finishes them off.

Ember doesn’t have any character classes, each party member has spells, special moves and abilities but these are tied to which ever armour they are wearing and which weapon is equipped. You can use a few potions during combat as there is a quick inventory slot, but once you use the potions from your quick slot you don’t have access to your full inventory during combat, being prepared for the next fight is essential. To regenerate your health fully you carry a bedroll and it can be used any where out side of combat.

Levelling up your party member’s Individual skills is another area of Ember that hasn’t any depth to it, by using skill points earned during combat you have only three skills available to improve, strength, intelligence, vitality and dexterity.

Visuals, Lighting Effects and Controls

The visuals, lighting, and sound effects in Ember from the different environments to the day and night cycle makes for a very atmospheric game for the player to get involved in and enjoy.

Unfortunately Ember is not free from glitches and the game has stuttering issues as you move your party around, and its particularly noticeable during combat. When I first started the game, once the introduction story had finished and it was my turn to control the LIghtbringer, his animation was stuck in one spot and wouldn’t budge. To solve the problem I had to restart the game. That’s not exactly a great first impression of a game you’re about the review.

My biggest annoyance with Ember came from the game continuously crashing, shutting down and having to reboot the game from the Nintendo Switch’s menu. This proved to be the most irritating and frustrating glitch of all Embers performance issues. Ember needs a serious update to resolve its issues otherwise I won’t be returning to the land of Domus too soon.

Ember is fully controlled by the joy-cons and the controls work smoothly and thankfully are glitch free.

Conclusion

Ember is about as old school RPG as can be, it has touches of most of the elements of RPG though on a smaller scale and not as in-depth. For a player that has never played an RPG it would be a good introduction game for them.

However what I have written above would only be recommended if Ember had received an update as in its present performance state of shutting down and stuttering during play I can’t recommend it to anyone. I’d be disappointed if I had bought Ember with the way it preforms at the moment.

Therefore my score is I’m Not Sure. If Ember gets its well deserved update and the performance issues are fixed my score will change to I Like It,

Final Verdict for now: I’m Not Sure