This, I think, is quite weird for a climbing game.
A Highland Song review
But!
Fall off or run out of health and you just pop back to where you were before.
An example: A Highland Song isn’t afraid to have you do things without purpose.
A discarded crisp packet contains the torn page of a mountain guide, to serve as a makeshift map.
A buried key might open a nearby building, for some essential shelter.
Between triumphant trips to mountain peaks you might come across long and tantalising paths to a dead end.
This is all the more impactful when you piece A Highland Songs occasionally discordant mechanics together.
It’s deeply, richly evocative, poetic, and befitting of A Highland Song’s carefully chosen words.
Maybe you end up somewhere else.
You might, like me, never see that pin again.
Altogether, A Highland Song can make its mechanics, its game-ness, too evident.
As can the odd song itself, too.
Occasionally that language is too subtle to really understand, which in turn makes it too visible.
A Highland Song accessibility options
One alternative control scheme.
Trip less when running to music toggle.
Never flail while climbing toggle (for multi-tap button prompt).
Easier music rhythms toggle.
Single jump button only toggle.
Weather and environment difficulty parameters.
Reframed, this is a very different game.
One about direct experience over success, exploration over outcome.
A Highland Song is about what it feels like to be lost in the mountains.
Not even lost, in fact.
In Moira’s case it’s over a week, in Shepherd’s most of a lifetime.
A copy of A Highland Song was provided for review by Inkle.
