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Scotland. The ultimate frontier. No less than, so far as video games go. Regardless of many video games being made in and concerning the superb north, only a few truly characterize its pure surprise with out additionally that includes an embarrassing stereotype of haggis-eating, ginger-bearded, tartan-clad males, and/or clobbering the English (though we do deserve that final one).
A Highland Song, the most recent providing from the narrative sport wizards at Inkle, steps flippantly in to proper this unsuitable. Its mountains and its music circulate like honey, displaying a facet of the highlands that almost all of us hardly ever get to see with out taking an extended practice up north. And also you, as the teenager runaway Moira, are tasked with exploring this daunting mountain vary with one purpose: to get to the ocean.
Moira is a typical teenager, that means she desires to place as a lot distance between her and her mam as doable. Her ticket to freedom comes within the type of a letter from her uncle Hamish, who lives in a lighthouse simply over the opposite facet of about two dozen hills and mountains, summoning her to come back go to earlier than Beltane (Gaelic Could Day) in a couple of week’s time. Most of A Highland Tune is about climbing up, down, round, and thru these superbly painted mountains, all of which must be mapped, named, and topped by Moira with no matter treasures she has at hand.
When you’ve performed Inkle’s 80 Days, this may occasionally sound acquainted. Get from X to Y in Z variety of days, discover attention-grabbing story tidbits as you go, and take a look at to not die alongside the way in which. In a way, it is a direct descendant of 80 Days, and you’ll see a variety of similarities as you wind your manner round this stretch of granite, heather and gorse. However 80 Days is about two adults spanning the globe to seek out fame and success; A Highland Tune is about one younger lady strolling to the sting of her tiny world and discovering herself.
Climbing these mountains is not any straightforward process, even for somebody with expertise and gear, and Moira has neither. Her little lungs cannot deal with climbing a sheer cliff, so you’ll want to discover one other manner. Her small fingers will lose their grip as you try and drop down a steep drop, and she or he’ll usually fall and graze her knee, scrape her toe, or bend her elbow, taking beneficial chunks off her well being bar. If she will be able to’t discover anyplace snug and sheltered to sleep — a bothy, a shed, or a cavemouth will do — that very same well being bar will shrink in measurement, and when you’re caught out in a rainstorm, it will drain slowly however continuously, limiting what number of errors you can also make.
Fortunately, you may discover maps to shortcuts alongside the way in which which you may have to scale the closest peak to pin down. It is a bit check of cartography, matching hill silhouettes to their simplified variations on these scraps of paper, checking that the landmarks line up excellent. These shortcuts are your saviours, permitting you to skip tough sections of the hillsides and shorten your journey to make it to the lighthouse in time.
However till you will have a big variety of these maps and pinpoint the shortcuts, you may need to do issues the arduous manner. And it’s arduous — there are problem settings, however even the mildest one is punishing sufficient to fray your nerves at occasions. You may be forgiven if, like us, you domesticate a way of being a anxious father or mother as you watch Moira tumble down unfastened scree, take heed to her nervous cries of ache, and listen to her panting for air as she pulls her fragile physique up a vertical rockface. “Mum’s gonnae kill me,” she’ll say, and you will nod in settlement. “I am gonnae die out right here!”
Bu Inkle’s power has at all times been its narrative, and we discovered ourselves eagerly awaiting all of those story threads to be tied up right into a neat bow, solely to be a bit upset. These shortcut maps trace at individuals leaving secret messages and hiding treasures for each other — however they by no means appear to go anyplace. And if Moira is working away from residence, why are there seemingly no penalties for her reckless journey (or is that simply the boring grown-up in us speaking)? And what precisely is the purpose within the rhythm sections, which break up the climbing by asking Moira to run to the jaunty however irregular beat of Scottish folks music?
Our greatest reply to this query is our heroine herself. Moira, being a teen whose world extends solely to the close by coast and again, has an lively creativeness, and her thoughts is steeped in Gaelic folktales. As she runs, she hears Hamish in her head, writing to her concerning the witch-queen Morag, the elusive selkies, and all of the myths and legends which have soaked into these mountains just like the blood of clans previous. Moira, bless her coronary heart, takes all of it at face worth — however as she explores, you begin to see this magic blur into actuality, too. Echoes lead you thru secret cave passages. The goshawk, an avian emissary of Morag, watches over you. Secret messages carved in ruins trace at a long-lost cult of some type. It is arduous to not fall in love with this richly woven tapestry of a world, even when the mountain-climbing will get irritatingly backtrack-y.
Like 80 Days, A Highland Tune desires you to play once more, and once more, and once more. Within the first run, you are underpowered, underprepared, and do not but perceive that generally the way in which to progress is just not apparent, resulting in a irritating expertise. The second run is best. The magic of the hills saves all of your shortcuts and maps, and the story builds on what you already know, sketching a fuller image of why Moira’s working away, and what she’s working in the direction of. The third is best nonetheless. The fourth run is near one thing actually nice.
However the pull of thriller and discovery is not fairly sufficient to mitigate the need of repetition. You may tire of trekking up the identical mountains, listening to the identical phrases from Hamish, and getting caught on the identical difficult little bit of hill again and again. You may attempt to put collectively the puzzle items of which merchandise to make use of the place, like keys and cash used on doorways and statues, solely to seek out that you just dropped that individual merchandise on high of a hill manner again at god-knows-where. You may need to take new paths by means of the hills to seek out new tales, however realise that you do not bear in mind which manner you went final time. A bit sherpa-like help — or higher but, extra selection originally — may need made it a bit simpler to work our manner from the underside to the highest once more. In any case, do not they are saying you by no means climb the identical mountain twice?
Conclusion
A Highland Tune’s folklore-infused journey takes “strolling simulator” to the acute, as you pull its teen runaway Moira up and down the cliffs and mountains of the Scottish highlands, discovering treasures, music, and magic alongside the way in which. However its repetitious nature wears away the enjoyment of exploration, and additional playthroughs are a battle between the joys of recent discoveries and the tedium of getting to retread previous floor.
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