Greak: Memories of Azur is a fascinating take on the Metroidvania genre. Instead of playing as one character, you can (as you progress) control three characters simultaneously and switch between them as you see fit. Platform and navigate deadly environments with minimal health, small inventory, and very few upgrades.
You start playing as Greak, searching for their sister, when you wake up in a small camp with remnants of the Courine people. After an invasion by Urlag, the Courines attempt to build an airship to escape to distant lands because their homes are now infested and destroyed.
Movement and combat are as smooth and polished as Hollow Knight. It's quick. It's precise. It's just nice. You can learn a few new skills by completing quests, but it doesn't scale into anything more. The puzzles are decent but get harder when more characters are involved. Switching between the three characters is instantaneous and a mini-circle appears on the HUD, so you know they are doing well.
Still, the fight can only take the game so far. Two main mechanisms, when combined, are precisely where the problems start to arise. Due to controlling three characters, you have an impersonation ability where the other two characters follow your main character. This is done by holding down a button (which can be toggled if desired), but since the characters are different they very rarely feel in sync.
The only real mechanic imitated is movement, but Greak is also a platformer and jumping is important. Adara has a floating ability, not a double jump, so the second you double up with Greak, Adara starts trailing behind if the mimic doesn't work as intended. And if you're not careful, you can end up where you were 20 minutes ago. Half the time, it's faster to manually move each character instead of relying on the mimic mechanic.
Uncontrolled characters will automatically attack but will not escape when your main character evades due to different evasion animations/moves. This means you can triple most enemies in hash. But against the bosses, it's a different story. Each character has their own health bar. If a character dies, even one you don't manually control, the game is over. As a result, the battle results stream forces you to hide one or two characters while attacking the boss with the main character you're most comfortable with.
| Benefits | The inconvenients |
|---|---|
| Stunning hand-drawn art style paired with amazing music. | No card. You have to remember where everything is. |
| The puzzles are engaging. Especially when controlling three people. | The health of all characters should be on screen. |
| Combat is fun. | Virtually no upgrades. |
| Item management and limited health are a good difficulty. Life regeneration on instant recovery makes you patient. | No inventory break. |
Verdict – Wait for a sale
Greak had incredible promise, but he fell short without any exploration reason, even more so with null zone maps. It's incredibly short at five plus hours, depending on if you want to find all the relics. Combat is great when playing as a single character, but it feels like a liability, especially against bosses as soon as others are introduced. Character switching is an amazing idea, and the puzzle solving works well, but more thought could have been put into the combat. Not knowing your other character's health is a problem, but it wouldn't matter anyway with health regen and no inventory break.
The game is beautiful to look at and it feels good, but this one is worth playing if only bought during a sale.
