A Monumental Climb Through Oppressive Isolation
In gaming, a common refrain from developers and publishers is how massive their game world is. We hear it all the time in open world RPGs, and even historically linear games have pushed for bigger spaces in their games, doing their utmost to showcase the sheer scale of their world. But what happens when a developer decides to use a massive world, not to showcase wonder and beauty, but oppression.
Lorn’s Lure places the player in control of an android that begins tracking a visual glitch through a megastructure. This megastructure is a vast complex with winding machinery filling the crevices, dark abysses to navigate, and barren deserts. Each space is absolutely massive though, and even when trapped in claustrophobic caves, the sense of endlessness persists.
The Ascent
The gameplay is simple though, climb. Keep climbing in pursuit of the unknown, as the only thing more daunting than the climb in front of you, is the fear of being trapped in one place forever.
At first, climbing is as simple as running and jumping from platform to platform. But it doesn’t take too long before the android comes across a pair of climbing picks. With these, most surfaces within the megastructure become climbable. A stamina bar appears on-screen whenever they are in use, and it’s possible to propel the android off the wall to make new jumps, or even grab walls to stop free-falling.
Platforming Peril
The structure contains many dangerous environments to navigate. Black pools of water that spell doom, dizzying climbs where the peak feels out of reach, and vast rooms with no end in sight. The atmosphere builds the gameplay up wonderfully. Of course, the gameplay is about the purest form of platforming that exists.
And it’s not easy.
There are many sections where the path forward can – charitably – be described as vague, and realistically is completely opaque. Thankfully, there is a hint system that creates a waypoint on the screen that shows the direction to go. However, finding the correct path there is often a platforming style puzzle more than anything. There are several sections where ledges aren’t obvious to see, and the path forward looks near impossible. At these junctures, it’s important to look at the room as a whole and see where a path forward may be.
Some players will find this frustrating, and casual fans of the genre may struggle to enjoy these segments. There are also timed sections in Lorn’s Lure that require quick acting and rapid responses to hazards. There aren’t many of these, but the game does end on one, and it will feel like a wall to players who haven’t fully learned the physics and platforming systems by the end of proceedings.
This is compounded by the fact that the final mission is the one in which a grappling hook is unlocked. This means there is a very short time to acclimate to it, before needing to feel like a master with it.
Mastering the Movement and Full Run Mode
However, the flip side of that is how satisfying everything feels when it starts to come together. Whether it’s grappling between rooms as everything falls apart around you, or climbing around a room and making pinpoint jumps, when you’re playing Lorn’s Lure well, it feels great. The obscure paths that block the player’s route may not have a clear solution, but whenever they are overcome, it feels like an accomplishment. It’s an incredibly satisfying feeling.
I was disappointed at first that the most enjoyable mechanic of the game isn’t unlocked until the last level, but after finishing it once, a full run mode is activated; every ability is available from the beginning of the game, and the entire structure becomes a single uninterrupted playthrough.
Cursor Clues and Survivable Falls
The UI is never really explained, but the cursor in the center of the screen actually gives the player all the information they need to master the platforming. The cursor is formed of three triangles, and whenever the player is looking at a climbable wall, the top triangle will light up. Similarly, when the player is falling from a great height, a warning sound will start to beep. Landing while this sound is in full effect means death, but you will also notice that several bars will appear around the cursor when in free fall. These appear in sequence as the player gains momentum, and so when only two bars appear on each side of the cursor, the fall is survivable. When the third bar appears on each side, that’s when the warning sound kicks in and it becomes deadly.
Using the geometry of the level, it is possible to sometimes slide out of a deadly fall. Another way to use it though is to time the fall and grab a ledge prior to the third bar appearing, as once the third bar appears, it’s no longer possible to stop the free-fall by grabbing a wall. Even knowing this, though, death will come frequently. Failure is a part of learning how to navigate the megastructure and each level will take many deaths before clearing it.
Thankfully, checkpoints are frequent. Dying will often set the player back to the last stable platform they were on. Or in some cases a few spots back if where they were standing was a bit precarious. However, respawning always put me in a spot where the path forward was readily accessible, never leaving me out of bounds or somewhere where I could no longer progress. Understanding this helped a ton when it came to following the in-game hints, which I admit I used almost constantly to progress.
And while the graphics are decidedly old-school, I don’t think they detract from the experience. The common refrain is that gameplay takes priority over graphics, and Lorn’s Lure is proof of that. There are sections though where the textures bleed together a bit too much, and it makes seeing ledges harder than it has to be.
But that said, the sound design, and specifically the music choice, is phenomenal. The game knows when to be silent and leave the player feeling isolated, and it knows when to have a somber piano tapping away in the background. The ethereal music gives Lorn’s Lure atmosphere in spades, and I genuinely enjoyed just listening to the sounds of each area I was in.
A Captivating, High-Difficulty Platformer
There is a plot and history behind the megastructure, and oftentimes the bits of lore that are discovered will touch on dark themes like war and suicide. These are fairly optional, but they add just a bit more depth to the world, which adds to the atmosphere it does such a great job cultivating.
Note though, Lorn’s Lure is an odd game. The graphics are rudimentary, and the gameplay is simple, yet it has some incredible difficulty spikes. It’s not a game that will speak to everyone, and there are plenty it will actively push away. But for players that ‘get it’, it really connects. There is a mystery in the megastructure, and exploring it is incredibly captivating.
There was a sense of nostalgia that the game gave me. Oddly enough, it reminded of older games where it was possible to break out of the map and explore the geometry of the world that you weren’t supposed to see. Which is oddly fitting as the game’s premise sees the android following a glitch through the structure.
If anything I’ve said in this review sounds intriguing, I strongly recommend experiencing Lorn’s Lure for yourself.
Important Links
Ready for a Dark, Foreboding World? The Acclaimed Lorn’s Lure is OUT NOW on Consoles – https://www.thexboxhub.com/ready-for-a-dark-foreboding-world-the-acclaimed-lorns-lure-is-out-now-on-consoles/
Buy Lorn’s Lure on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/lorns-lure/9MXRFJ6PFMCB
