izigame.me

Solar Ash is a game with great ideas and themes that get a bit muddied down with their executions. The game gets close, but not all the way there.

Price

If you're a fan of Heart Machine games and want to support this developer's work, I would recommend buying at the full $40 USD price tag. If not, that price point can seem a bit steep - with the amount of content this game gives you, I'm not sure if it fully measures up to that chunk of change for a lot of people.
It took me about 12 hours total to 100% this game (all Voidrunner caches/suits, side content). I don't necessarily consider my money wasted - it's a very rare occurence that I 100% a game (ever), so in a way I was glad that I was able to do that so easily, however at the end I was left wanting so much more than what I ended up getting.
If you're not a diehard fan of this developer, $40 isn't quite right for the amount of content on display here. I'm not going to pretend I know how expensive making a game is nowadays (I'm a developer, just not a game developer). If I had forgotten how much I paid for this game, I would have guessed the price would sit at a nice $25 or even $30 for the amount of stuff there is to do.
Another point to add is there are many people who won't care to 100% this game, in which case they'll finish it off around the 6-8 hour mark - making the $40 price tag a bit too steep for those people.
Considering Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine's previous title) sits at $20 USD, and I got 18 hours out of that rather than the 12 I got here, I feel I got a much better deal with HLD.
Maybe wait for a sale, unless you want to support Heart Machine, in which case, godspeed.

Gameplay

This game takes a good amount of inspiration from HLD - you're an agile warrior that has sword-like attacks, and you can dash and run. You only have ONE main attack in this game (slash combo, 3 parts). You can also use your "grappling hook" to hit and latch onto enemies as well, something I didn't learn until much later in the game than I should have.
There are only about 4/5 main enemy types (excluding the "big bads" at the end of every zone) - each enemy type can basically be killed by hitting them a lot. Most of them don't require special tactics to take down, just spam melee at them. There was no progression of the combat systems as you progress the game. What you have in the opening section is what you'll use the entire rest of your playthrough.
Movement feels great here as you skirt and skate on and around these environments - it definitely feels what this game wanted to nail down the most was movement and the environment design to complement that, and I think the developer did a great job there. Each zone feels different enough to move around in that I never really got bored of traversing this world. You've got rails/vines to skate on that really make you feel like a badass, and skating on the many "clouds" in the game feels fluid, just as it should.
I definitely would have liked to see more "safeguards" around movement here though, as some times it feels a bit floaty and it's easy to miss your intended direction as you jump/dash. There are times when it feels your momentum isn't preserved enough (as you tend to suddenly switch directions when dashing in a direction that isn't completely straight ahead), and there are also time when it feels your momentum is preserved too much. I think some fine tuning would have been great in this department.

Story

Overall, I think the story did the job it needed to - but for a $40 title, I expected a bit more than I got. Definitely not as much depth to the characters as I wanted - there were plenty of moments where I was left wanting for more interaction, but did not find it.
A note on the main character - her voice actress does a great job portraying her character's feelings of desperation, despair, and grief - absolutely necessary when the character's animations during story moments are basically non-existent.
Speaking of exposition - along your journey, you'll find Voidrunner Caches in the zones you explore. These are leftover voice recordings from your "teammates" you came to this place with in order to stop a devastating event from happening.
Unfortunately, you have to stop dead in your tracks, unable to move while you listen to them - and sometimes they really do slog. Some recordings go on for over a minute, while you're left unable to move, or do anything, really. This ended up being one of my biggest pet peeves in this game - with the game being focused around fluid, fast movement, it seems counterintuitive to make the player completely stop moving when they come across a Cache, being basically stuck in a pause screen while the audio plays. I really wish this was eventually changed, but wasn't, and most likely will never be.
Overall, I wouldn't buy this game for its story at all - it had great ideas, it just didn't flesh those ideas out enough for me to consider this a good buy for story alone.

Graphics/Visuals

Graphically, Solar Ash is stunning to look at, with each zone being visually distinct from the last but remaining just as awe-inspiring all the way through. This game certaintly has its "wow" moments - in certain areas, the game is pre-programmed to pan the camera out and reveal a much more "top-down" view of the zone you're about to explore. This is one of those "every moment is a screenshot" games that never pulls its punches on its visual delivery.
The game is highly stylized in many aspects - one of which being its beautiful color palette.

Verdict

Solar Ash was Heart Machine's first foray into 3D worlds and I believe this developer almost nailed it on the head. Lots of missed marks in terms of story/presentation, character development, and combat depth and progression. However, many other marks were hit right on the head: movement, overall gameplay loop, visual/sound/musical presentation, and just being a fun video game.
I really liked what I played here - I just wish there was more of it - I wish there was more stuff to do, more places to go, and more enemies to fight.
I'd recommend to diehard Heart Machine fans and people who love the "space skater" schtick - if neither of those labels speak to you, I'd wait for a sale to try this one out.