The Lion's Song

 PC
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. COGconnected
    Jul 23, 2017
    72
    The Lion’s Song is a game that leans hard on its storytelling and pulls it off in fine fashion. The tale is intriguing and demands attention, while the element of choice adds some replay value for good measure. The story and novel visuals may not please everyone, and it’s definitely no Kentucky Route Zero, but for fans of the traditional adventure game looking for some more things to click on, The Lion’s Song is a fine choice.
  2. Digitally Downloaded
    Aug 9, 2017
    70
    It is the small, seemingly insignificant details of The Lion's Song that will make you smile the most as you explore the four episodic chapters of the game. It's purely story-driven stuff, but with wonderful characters, all dealing with very real (and easily relateable) creative challenges, this is a game that provides players with a real look into the human psyche, and where the world's great ideas and art come from.
  3. Meristation
    Aug 7, 2017
    70
    The Lion's Song is an episodic graphical adventure of point and click without puzzles but with conversational decisions that will transport us to the Vienna of the early twentieth century to take us through three main stories full of art. Adult and complex plans that deal with the capacity for self-improvement, to fulfill goals and dreams and to overcome barriers to achieve what we are most passionate about. Simple gameplay and graphic style using pixels that will surprise us pleasantly, seasoned with sound effects and very remarkable music.
  5. Adventure Gamers
    Oct 9, 2018
    60
    Well-versed in early 1900s Viennese culture, The Lion’s Song practically plays itself, so the main draw of this four-part interactive anthology is its beautiful sense of time and place.
  6. CD-Action
    Feb 13, 2017
    60
    The Lion’s Song resembles brilliant Kentucky Route Zero more than traditional adventure games, which means that you rather soak in the experience than solve puzzles. The problem is that after having spent a couple of hours with the available two episodes I still can’t predict whether The Lion’s Song will blossom into something really good or just barely decent. [02/2017, p.49]
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 30 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 30
  3. Negative: 3 out of 30
  1. PublicNuisance
    Mar 18, 2019
    9
    I was a bit hesitant about The Lion’s Song because I don’t always enjoy point and click games. Lucky for me it’s a narrative game not a puzzleI was a bit hesitant about The Lion’s Song because I don’t always enjoy point and click games. Lucky for me it’s a narrative game not a puzzle game. The difference being that you aren’t spending your time trying to find keys or figure out the order in which to press buttons. Instead you will be advancing the story through dialogue choices with the odd time where you will have to figure out a correct answer to procede but it is never difficult.

    The story was fantastic and really tied together nicely by the end. You will follow a different protaganist each chapter and in the final chapter will see how their stories tied together and concluded. Each chapter you usually get to interact with one of the other characters showing you a different perspective of their story. The audio was very well done as well, I could listen to the soundtrack any time. The game doesn’t have any voice acting but I don’t mind that. I would rather no voice acting than bad voice acting.

    I played the game on Linux. It didn’t crash on my once. I noticed no glitches or bugs. I played version 421_20576 from GOG. There were no graphics options at all. Not even reoslution. It is a pixel graphics style game so it was never going to look modern but it would have still been nice to have the option to sharpen it up a bit with AA or something. The game doesn’t support manual saving but luckily the checkpoints aren’t very far apart and are clearly marked. The game never lagged on me at all and didn’t need much horsepower. It used typically 1-2% of my CPU and while playing my system used about 1.5GB of RAM total. Alt-Tab worked fine with the game.

    I recommend The Lion’s Song to anyone seeking a good story. You owe it to yourself to at least check out he first episode which is free on Steam. Each episode takes about an hour to complete, a bit less or more depending on the player. I paid $13.99 CAD for the complete season but would easily say it is worth $25.

    My score: 9/10

    My System:

    AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 18.3.4 | Manjaro Mate | Kernel 5.0.1-1-MANJARO    … Full Review »
  2. JungoBungo
    Jun 28, 2021
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. I would love to meet the people who didn't go into this game with any expectations and then to ask them why they thought it was good. The Lion's Song is a string of mediocrity at best, thrown under a pile of lofty ideas.

    Episode One is on the rails, it's an adventure in the sense that you're doing a lot of nothing that has a minimalistic payoff for this character. Spoilers, most of the episodes are you seeing how your choices with one character impacted another because in their own episodes you didn't do much. This is mostly an issue for episode 2, and 4, which aren't that bad but 1 and 3 are a hot mess.

    One is awfully boring because you're unsure what you're actually doing. Once I completed episode one and redid my choices I didn't feel like anything had changed. Spoilers, nothing changes much in episode one based on your decisions in episode one or involving your character. You need to wait for episode 3 for the payoff of your character not involving your character to be poorly thrown in.

    Episode 2 is interesting with very wide ideas. I'd also like to point out from a narrative perspective episode 2 is bad too. While it's interesting that how you interact with those around you reveals bits and pieces of yourself and those you're painting, none of that matters. The ending I got, along with the lines I got, ultimately reveals that I'm in love with a critic I've barely met and there was never any romantic exchange between the two and that my character is falling apart. Mind you the only hints you get are that you're not in a good place mentally. The idea that our lead was even romantically pursuing anyone should have been in the game in some actual visible way. That's the big ending I got by the way, that my character painfully wanted to be with this woman he's spoken to twice.

    Episode 3 is insulting. It's "Let me throw this big idea in here so no one can argue it". For anyone who thinks this is negative for the sake of being negative, let me ask you. When in any moment alone or when limited to their own thoughts does Emma ever even remotely identify as Emil? The answer is never. Because Emma identifies and only sees herself AS EMMA. It isn't until the game exposes that she's a woman dressed as a man that the idea that she's either gender-fluid, non-binary, or trans is ever even brought up.Not once does the character themselves EVER have this conflict. If a character, Emma in this case, dresses up as a male solely for gain or a purpose it's very insulting to assume they're different. Emma's reasons for dressing as Emil are solely so she can be treated and respected as a mathematician. None of the later parts of this matter because the narrative is that Emma and Emil exist alongside one another and are constantly changing and altering their state. Except Emma is dressing as Emil, that's it. There isn't a moment where the two ideas ever become more than that until the game makes you throw out a choice that "Emil is just as much Emma as Emma is Emil." And that comes out of nowhere. So out of nowhere that the creators of the game either deadman the hell out of Em in episode 4, or they forgot that they made the revelation that Emma wasn't quite identifying as Emma. There's also the chance that it's a poorly written mess and in an adventure game the writing is most of what I want. What's most frustrating is that they correctly pin that Emil wasn't real and it was a fake identity IN EPISODE 4.

    Episode 4 has it's problems but it's mostly to highlight the problems with the overall other 3 episodes. It shines when it's in it's own element, and falls short horribly when it has to fix the problems of the previous episodes. Each character has a 'phase' that runs along with the episode they're reflecting on.

    Episode One's reflection is with that main character's brother. The parts of that SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN EPISODE ONE. I don't KNOW this woman, and I have zero attachment to her. I don't know anything about her and by the time it's revealed who she is and what her goals are, we're quickly told that she just fails.

    Episode Two's Reflection is meh... It's less interesting than the people who are actively reflecting on it. Your main character breaks up with his girlfriend, goes to war, your mentor dies. But you had little to no attachment to any of them so who cares.

    Episode Three is either empty as hell or I made the wrong decisions., It's literally just "The five year old who is your only friend grew up." Also everything was good for her, the people around her can piss off.

    There's alot of unanswered questions and awkward moments that should be accounted for, but I'm guessing they were hoping for a second season. But Lord no. This isn't a fun Adventure Game, this isn't a fun graphic novel, it's surface-level fine and functional but as soon as you dig deeper you'll realize that's all it is.    … Full Review »
  3. El_Manco
    May 20, 2018
    8
    Otro de esos juegos bonitos. Vale la pena apostar por este tipo de juegos, aunque no sea para todo el mundo. Magnífico.
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