On the whole, it is heavily inspired by ICO and Dark Souls, as the developers freely admit themselves. It's set in a fantasy world where the battle between good and evil ended up with the latter winning. Hence, the world is claimed by the darkness to the point the Sun itself is dying, while most people have devolved into monsters, who are denied death for all eternity. However, a young girl named Aether has developed the ability to radiate light on her own. Her father, the grizzled warrior Nyx, is stunned and decides to take her to where the dying Sun still may shine.
Compare to DarkMaus and Shrouded In Sanity for the other indie attempts to recreate Dark Souls' mechanics with a top-down perspective, and Salt and Sanctuary, Void Memory, Gloom, Unworthy, Death's Gambit and Dark Devotion for the Side View games that have tried the same.
It is not to be confused with the 2018 Puzzle Platformer Light Fall.
Tropes present in this game:
- After the End: The world has essentially undergone a magical apocalypse as a the result of evil winning.
- Artificial Stupidity: Aether's AI has issues. In particular, she may end up walking into quite obvious traps, or even straight-up flames.
- The enemies can be kited with long melee weapons with relative ease.
- Charged Attack: Every melee weapon has a heavy attack.
- Convection, Schmonvection: There are areas with pools of hot lava, which once again causes no discomfort to anybody unless they actually fall inside.
- The Corruption: The Darkness is explicitly said to have infected everything it could reach after its victory, and to corrupt the humans.
- Crapsack World: How else to describe a realm shrouded in darkness, where practically everyone is either dead or corrupted, and most other survivors are resigned to either of these fates?
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: As an avatar of the world's last light, Aether cannot really die. She may crumble to ash after getting hit, but a touch from Nyx will instantly revive her. Thus, smarter antagonists give up on trying to kill her and instead attempt teleporting into the battle in order to grab her and throw her into a prison.
- Dual Wielding: Nyx can fight with two one-handed weapons at once, though this obviously requires him to forgo a shield.
- Escort Mission: The entire game is a variation on this, as Nyx's only goal is to safely deliver his daughter Aether to the sunlit lands. Unlike most examples, Aether's death means little, as she can be revived indefinitely. However, if Nyx dies, Aether will be slain by monsters on the spot, and after he revives at the nearest shrine, he'll have to reach her ashes to revive her. The kidnappings are even more annoying.
- Everything Fades: Dead bodies sink into the ground without a trace mere seconds after collapsing.
- Fire, Ice, Lightning: The powers of the Final Boss. He begins by calling down lightning, then switches to throwing down meteors, and then to freezing ice orbs.
- Flaming Sword: The first boss has a conventional example, to go along with his ability to summon flaming meteors. Nyx's own sword will be charged with some blue energy if he is close to Aether.
- Flunky Boss: The Final Boss will regularly summon basic enemies to compensate for its own lack of melee prowess.
- Giant Mook: There are enemies like club-bearing trolls, or simply giant armored knights.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: One is heard right after you defeat the Final Boss, which is followed by Aether collapsing, and a pulsing electrocardiogram reading appearing in the corner of the screen. Nyx carries her to a boat and pushes it to drift away, while he himself gets taken by the suddenly reborn boss.
- Homing Projectile: The meteors favored by both the game's first boss and the final boss.
- Hollywood Darkness: Averted; the darkness that claimed the world is no metaphor, and it is very hard for Nyx to see anything without light from Aether nearby. He can also carry an oil lantern, but doing so makes combat impossible.
- Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Chests with equipment are often found through exploring various nooks and crannies.
- Justified Save Point: There are shrines of the Goddess of Light; while she's been defeated by the dark wizard in the prologue, Aether is still able to consecrate them, which turns them into checkpoints. Unfortunately, they revive all of the enemies as well, just like Dark Souls' bonfires. Moreover, if Aether is dead or kidnapped, there's no longer a way for Nyx to interact with the shrines until he gets her back.
- Kaizo Trap: Defeating the Final Boss will suddenly spawn five basic monsters very close to Nyx, who may well claw him to death if he doesn't react fast enough.
- Knightly Sword and Shield: This is the starting equipment of Nyx.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Shield allows Nyx to block attacks instead of relying on rolling. However, blocks still consume stamina, and kiting enemies with long two-handed weapons often works even better.
- McGuffin: The three Shards that are necessary in order to enter the last of the sunlit lands. As expected, they can only be obtained through killing major bosses.
- Multiple Endings: Three of them.
- Not Quite Dead: The Final Boss, who seemingly sinks into the dark waters after being defeated, suddenly reemerges right after Nyx carried Aether into the boat and pushes it away to drift to the sunlit land.
- One Hitpoint Wonder: Being an eight-year-old girl, Aether crumbles to ash after a single hit from anything. Luckily, a touch from Nyx will revive her from said ash, indefinitely.
- Pamphlet Shelf: Every book in the game consists of around three sentences.
- Puzzle Boss: The Final Boss is a giant creature that stays out of reach and only attacks by casting spells and summoning basic enemies. To defeat it, you need to first ring a bell, then have Aether activate a shrine near it, which will fire an energy beam at the boss, then move on to the next bell and shrine, etc. until it is defeated..
- Pressure Plate: Most puzzles in the game revolve around correctly placing Nyx and Aether onto these in order to activate the mechanism in question.
- Rare Candy: Downplayed: the foes' souls collected by Nyx are automatically converted into extra health at the shrines.
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Reality Subtext: The bad ending reveals that The game is devoted to a daughter of one of the creators who died at 15, with a haunting message "I couldn't save you." - Respawning Enemies: Every enemy will respawn at exactly the same positions they were in every time you die and recover at a shrine.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Many of the knightly enemies carry shields, and block attacks with them just as well as Nyx does.
- Sinister Scythe: One of the weapons available to Nyx.
- Spikes of Doom: Spike traps are one of the frequent level hazards.
- Sprint Meter: Since the game is inspired by Dark Souls, stamina management plays an important part in combat. Unlike Dark Souls, however, it is impossible to raise the starting amount of stamina, with only Nyx's health getting upgraded at the shrines.
- Super Mode: Nyx's shadow form is one. It can be activated by spending a charge from his talisman - however, the same charges are also used to heal, and can only be restored at checkpoints, so there's a delicate trade-off involved.
- Sword Lines: White lines mark the range of everyone's melee attacks.
