Nocturnal Review
Upon seeing Nocturnal at PAX East earlier this year, the game gave off some heavy Prince of Persia vibes. Coincidentally, Ubisoft recently showed off a trailer for a new Prince of Persia game coming in 2024. Well, if you need a game to hold you over, Nocturnal might be the one you were looking for all along. The question is, can it hold the torch to its clear inspirations or will it fizzle out all too soon?
Developed by Sunnyside Games, Nocturnal tells the story of Ardeshir, a soldier of the Enduring Flame, who returns home after years away to find his home covered in a deadly mist and his sister missing. You must wield the fire of your ancestors and discover (and destroy) the source of the mist in a fast-paced action platformer. Fire is the key to your survival in more ways than one as it not only helps fight enemies but will be the key to the obstacles that heed your progress.
At its core, Nocturnal is an action platformer. Combat is of the hack-and-slash variety with only two types of attacks and you will jump and climb while avoiding falling to a quick and painful death. The Mist is not just darkness blanketing the world but also deadly to the touch. Mere seconds of exposure will kill you but, as luck would have it, you can harness fire and level the playing field.
Unfortunately, unlike Beric Dondarrion, you need to find actual fire to ignite your sword. Thankfully, this is a video game so there are plenty of opportunities (imagine if you were expected to keep the sword lit the entire you were playing…). Fire only lasts so long and/or is put out by water (it rains often in Nahran and the water seems to seep through the floor). What the game does, and does it very well, is create enough obstacles to make each section challenging yet incredibly fun and satisfying to complete. A particularly fun challenge that came in a few styles was areas housing a torch that moved. Once lit, the torch would move along a track and you would have to follow it through the mist. Straying too far would result in death so you either needed to stay within the torch’s coverage area or light your sword and hope for a few stationary sconces to light. While also this goes on, a creature or two or ten of the mist are attacking you. The game does a fantastic job of changing up the rotation of things to do between fighting in and out of the mist, basic platforming, outrunning mist that engulfs an area, or some light exploring. Nocturnal also has an abundance of checkpoints so failing will not set you too far back.
As you make your way through the mist, Ardeshir can pick up the game’s only currency, ashes. He will get them from defeating enemies and going all Link on the fine pottery littered throughout. Ashes are then offered up at Phoenix Statutes to purchase upgrades ranging from more health, faster speed while harnessing the flame, or increased duration of the fire on your sword.
There are only so many upgrades and more than enough ashes that you should have most, if not all, upgrades by the time you reach the final boss.
No game is without issues though. Prior to receiving a PS5 review copy, I grabbed the game on the Nintendo Switch (I get most platformers here). Obviously, the PS5 is a more powerful system but Nocturnal did not seem like it needed any extra oomph to get going. Load times on the PS5 were practically non-existent. I was waiting at least 10 seconds between deaths and level transitions on the Switch. Normally, I would not even care but the game had a few sections where I almost cleared and died. Nothing is more halting to your momentum than waiting for what feels like an eternity to retry. As I said, not a deal breaker but more of an annoyance. The issue that made me stop playing completely on Switch was that Ardeshir handled like he was running underwater. He felt very heavy and this became an issue when you have to undertake some precision platforming. Hopefully, this is just a patchable fix because I would hate for someone to miss out on this game because they only have access to the Nintendo Switch. The final issue and this might be one specific to me was that the game teased exploration but then went nowhere with it. A number of times it will appear that you have branching paths that can be explored but once you chose, you could not backtrack. There is no in-game map so it is unclear if both paths just lead you to where you are going or not but I always was annoyed when I chose one way over another and quickly realized that I was just heading where I should be headed.
Nocturnal is an excellent platformer that pays a nice homage to Prince of Persia. It is on the short side for completion but finishing the game does unlock a speed run mode that you will track both your time and deaths. I would suggest avoiding the Switch version of the game at the current time but it is a cheap enough game that I am sure can be patched and enjoyed everywhere.
