Ayasa Shadows of Silence from Aya Games is a side-scrolling puzzle platform adventure game. It features a dark, creepy aesthetic, and from the trailers and visuals put out, it certainly looks interesting.
However, looking interesting is not enough. Is the game actually good? I spent quite a bit of time with Ayasa Shadows of Silence, so let’s dive right into it!
Ayasa: Shadows of Silence – First Impressions
In Ayasa Shadows of Silence, players will take on the role of an unnamed young girl. The game kicks off with a creepy cutscene showcasing a dead elephant, what seems to be a horde of humanoid monsters heading towards a city and then a big explosion going off in the distance. You’ll then take control of the unnamed young girl who wakes up in a forest, and off you go. The tutorial is incredibly minimal, with a pop-up that just tells you the controls, and that’s it.
Ayasa: Shadows of Silence reminded me of some of the greats in the genre, such as Limbo, Little Nightmares and Stela. Unfortunately, that’s about where the comparisons can stop.
Controls, Platforming and Early Frustrations
Within the first few minutes of playing the game, I already felt like uninstalling it and never returning. The game mentions pressing “R1” to push an object. I pressed R1, and nothing happened. Only after some random button pressing did I realise that they actually meant L1 to push. Cool, that’s sorted.
I push the object to the end of the path, and I see that we’re supposed to use it to jump across a gap and reach a log to get across.
I am not lying when I state that it took me a solid 20 minutes of trial and error trying to do this. The jump was next to impossible because of the floaty, unresponsive controls. Trying to control the little girl to jump at the right time to make the landing was so frustratingly difficult.
Major Gameplay Issues
This also leads me to 3 major issues with the game that made themselves prevalent right from the get-go.
Long Load Times After Death
The first being the fact that if you die, you will be treated to a solid 15 second load screen. In a game that’s supposed to be a survival adventure platformer, death is inevitable. If you’re going to be dying often, that means you’ll be spending 15 seconds each and every single time, repeatedly, waiting to load back in after dying.
This artificially inflates the game time and also is incredibly sad and disappointing in a world where we have NVMe and SSDs, and load times are essentially a thing of the past already in both indie and triple-A games.
Unresponsive Controls
The second major gripe is that if your game is a platformer, you’d best make sure that your controls are responsive. You don’t want players to be frustratingly floundering around with iffy jumps and movements that need to be so precise; otherwise, you end up dying.
Lack of Guidance
The third major problem lies with the fact that there’s no real guidance on offer here. I thought after failing a few times that maybe I was missing something extra to make the jump. However, this wasn’t the case.
When I eventually made the jump, I actually burst out laughing at the fact that the log isn’t stable, but it immediately tilts and tips into the very same crevice that I was falling into for the past 20 minutes.
Performance Issues and Enemy Encounters
After eventually getting across, the game then introduced another glaring issue. Inexplicable freezing stuttery lag. I was already getting this intermittently during the jumping segment, but it really kicked in a lot more once I got across.
In this area, there’s an enemy that gets triggered by you walking or running close to them, and you need to sneak past. However, the sneaking segment is so long and compounded by the fact that I was already annoyed after spending so long with the log segment, dying here repeatedly to a giant rat-like creature (that seems to run at an insanely high speed) because of freezing/stuttery lag was just really putting the icing on the cake.
Overall Impressions
In any case, I digress. I could probably write a whole 2-3 pages of the various problems with Ayasa Shadows of Silence, but the fact of the matter is, the developers have a lot of work to do with this game.
It actually makes me wonder if they even played their own game? Getting through Ayasa Shadows of Silence is an exercise in sheer frustration. There’s just so much that needs work here; it’s mind-boggling that this was released as a full game and not as an “Early Access” title, which is what it should be in this state.
In fact, it would be interesting for the developers to give access to this game to a streamer and watch them try to play through it. They’ll see exactly how terrible it is and how it needs immense work to make it function the way it should.
Visuals, Atmosphere and Soundtrack
The world of Ayasa: Shadows of Silence looks great and has an aesthetic that does draw you in, but the poor execution really ruins everything. The game can be a bit too dark at times, and it’s hard to see where to go or what to do. Some more clues or altered environmental lighting are needed here.
If the developers can actually address all the issues with the game, they might actually have a hit on their hands, but only time will tell.
The soundtrack in Ayasa: Shadows of Silence is good with orchestral piano heavy music that is clearly meant to evoke an emotional reaction from players. However, due to the sheer annoyance and the inexplicable freezing and other issues, even an emotional environmental storytelling segment, such as when you come across a dead elephant, fell completely flat because I was constantly just worrying about what’s going to kill me next or if the game is going to freeze/stutter again.
Final Verdict
I cannot with good conscience recommend Ayasa Shadows of Silence to players at all. The game is essentially a broken, unplayable mess. If you want to frustrate yourself to no end, then give this game a try.
Otherwise, pick up a classic like Limbo or Little Nightmares 1 if you’re craving a side-scrolling puzzle platformer adventure. Maybe in 6 months or so, once the problems are ironed out here, Ayasa Shadows of Silence will be worth playing. Right now, though, you’ll just upset yourself by playing this game.
Ayasa Shadows of Silence Trailer
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The game was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.
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