| Byte sized review |
An ode to a farewell |
| Graphics |
3/5 - By now it's more common knowledge that Leaving Lyndow was designed as a prelude, or companion piece if you would, to Eastshade Studios more complex and beguiling Eastshade. While there isn't a vast difference in graphical quality between the two titles, and you can see that some of the assets are clearly shared between the two games, much like Eastshade, Leaving Lyndow is a mixed bag graphically. One hand it can look strikingly beautiful but on the other just borderline acceptable. |
| Performance / Bug & Issues |
4/5 - Oddly enough, I did not experience any performance woes with this one. Perhaps a lot of this has to do with the fact that Leaving Lyndow is a much more slimmed down affair than Eastshade, that carries no voice overs for its cast of characters and is most probably using an entirely different set of graphical shaders. As beautiful and wonderful as Eastshade was to play and experience, it was hampered by some of the worst performance issues I have encountered in a recent game and thankfully that was not on display in this prelude. In this prelude I did however encounter a few graphical glitches but nothing that outright hampers the game. |
| Story |
6/10 - Nowhere near as engaging as the fully fledged sequel. You can see Leaving Lyndow was designed as more of a prototype, testing an audience reaction to what would eventually become a fully-fledged title. This notion is further perpetuated by the fact that the game contains no voice overs for any of its cast of characters. It is also very short, over in less than 1 hour. In Leaving Lyndow you will take on the role of a young girl leaving the village for the first time to study abroad in the city of Eastshade. Much of your game time will be spent getting items together for your voyage and saying goodbye to the townsfolk of the place you call home. |
| Gameplay |
13/20 - Plays more like a walking sim where you encounter items, trigger a sequence, encounter a person then trigger another sequence. There aren't any quests this around that will have you running around the small town trying to solve or puzzles that require some puzzling to unravel. Thankfully the gameplay gets a little more involved in the sequel but here it just does a perfunctory job. I did find it a bit on the overly simplistic side, but I can understand why they chose to go this route given that we are not dealing with a full game here but literally a slice of a game. Whereas Eastshade's world is open from the start, Leaving Lyndow is incredibly linear, but to an extent that does works in the games favour given its narrative structure. |
| Sound / voice / Music |
5/5 - Once again the music by Phoenix Glendinning is beautiful. Haunting piano pieces and orchestral ballads play throughout this short experience and they invoke a sense of sadness and longing given the games theme centring on a young individual about to embark on a long journey from which they may never return. It's a soundtrack to farewells. |
| Replay value |
2/5 - Not much here to replay once done. As a prototype of what is to come, Leaving Lyndow sets out what it intends to do and for the most part succeeds because it got me interested enough to wishlist Eastshade, then purchase and play it. |
| Fun Factor |
6/10 - While Leaving Lyndow isn't going to particularly set the world on fire and I don't think it’s a necessary play to enjoy the vastly superior Eastshade, but for those that are curious it may be a worthy detour. The good thing is that its super cheap with a super short running time so you won't feel inherently cheated if you do decide to take the trip. |
| Overall score |
65% |
| Rating |
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=869454819 |
