Ereban: Shadow Legacy is further proof that 2024 is the year of the AA game, following on from other fun surprises like Helldivers 2 and Outcast: A New Beginning. This third person stealth platformer takes inspiration from titles like Splatoon and Prince of Persia, with a hint of Assassin’s Creed sprinkled in there for good measure.
Created by Baby Robot Games is a young indie studio from Spain, the game puts a unique spin on an amalgamation of borrowed genre tropes to create something fun and cool to look at. Considering this is the developer’s debut game, it is seriously impressive and could well make its way on to the most underrated games of 2024 list at the end of the year.
Ereban: Shadow Legacy is out now for PC and Xbox systems.
The main crux of Ereban: Shadow Legacy is lighting, or lack thereof. The use of shadow is so fundamental to both the game’s visuals, and its moment to moment gameplay, that it was an essential element for Baby Robot Games to get right. Thankfully, the Barcelona-based studio nailed it, creating something that works practically while also looking aesthetically pleasing.
The reason that shadows are so important in Ereban: Shadow Legacy compared to traditional stealth games is due to the fact that you play as a character called Ayana who is the last of her kind; her kind being the titular Ereban. These beings are able to shapeshift wherever there is a lack of light in order to climb vertical walls and traverse environments that would otherwise be inaccessible.
This makes for a pretty fun mechanic that allows for some engaging puzzle solving in order to access seemingly unreachable areas, and also for some tense enemy encounters. The enemies in Ereban: Shadow Legacy are mostly robotic in nature and there is no real combat element on the game to speak of. If you fail to take out an enemy while remaining unseen, they will instakill you and send you back to the previous checkpoint.
Thankfully, the game is pretty generous in terms of its checkpoints and so there are never any moments that feel unbearably frustrating. The enemy AI is somewhere between the genome soldiers from Metal Gear Solid and the Xenomorph from Alien: Isolation, meaning that it isn’t unforgivable, but it presents enough of a challenge to keep things feeling at least somewhat tense throughout.
The visuals in this game are stunning
Everything in Ereban: Shadow Legacy flows dynamically, from the stealth sections to the traversal elements, with smooth animations and a good sense of momentum. Above all else, this was a truly fun game to play though thanks to an innovative control scheme and a complete absence of any technical issues plaguing the flow of the experience.
There is even a real flow to the game’s stunning visuals, which pop right off of the screen in every frame. The art direction in Ereban: Shadow Legacy is very cool, along with the use of reflections and the aforementioned shadows, it results in some truly breathtaking visual moments. Almost any screenshot from this game would work as an impressive desktop wallpaper.
The presentation as a whole is of a high level of quality, with strong voice acting permeating every cutscene in the game. Ereban: Shadow Legacy’s plot may be seen as a bit generic to fans of sci-fi adventures, and while the script is also a little pedestrian, the dialogue does enough to propel the story forward and give players a reason to sneak through the subsequent combat area.
The virtual locales also do a lot of heavy lifting here, with the environmental design doubling up as both an additional storytelling device, and a functional gameplay setting that also looks appealing to behold. The environments in Ereban: Shadow Legacy actually reminded me a lot of those seen in The Pathless, – if you have not played that game, this is a very complimentary comparison.
Is Ereban: Shadow Legacy good?
Besides the game’s story not feeling like the freshest one ever told, its other biggest sin is its brevity. This is a short but sweet experience that I could have actually gone for a lot more of. I guess that it is preferable to see more effort put into a brief experience, as opposed to getting a longer game that feels less detailed, but it still feels like there is more that could be done with this universe. Hopefully the game will do well enough for a sequel to be worked on down the line.
Overall, Ereban: Shadow Legacy is a title well worth playing. At the more than reasonable launch price of $24.99, this is an easy one to recommend, even if it is on the shorter side. It has also made me interested to see what Baby Robot Games does in the future. If this solid first outing is anything to go by, then the future looks bright for this team.
Ereban: Shadow Legacy – 7/10
