Greak: Memories of Azur

A truly original game in its genre but enjoyable, but unlikely to remain in your head over the years due to some gameplay flaws.

All in all, there’s a lot to like about Greak: Memories of Azur. Combat is fun, traversal is engaging and the tale is told well, with the plight of the characters really sucking you in. There’s a little too much fetch questing going on for my liking, and those respawning enemies can do one, but on the whole this is something worth checking out.

Greak: Memories of Azur is the very embodiment of a game of two halves. It looks incredible, there’s no two ways about it, and when playing as a single character, the gameplay is extremely good. It’s in the later stages when trying to manage three characters at once that annoyances creep in. Overall, Greak is a good game, but there are some control gremlins to overcome.

It's a shame that for how great Greak: Memories of Azur looks and sounds, it’s brought way down by its artificial difficulty from its poor escort controls and mechanics. I should want to play more the further I get into a game’s world, but instead the longer it went on, the less I was enjoying it, simply wanting it to be over due to its controls. Controlling multiple characters is much more frustrating than it should be, especially given how stunning its visuals are. I wanted to love Greak: Memories of Azur on its gorgeous aesthetic alone, but find it hard to recommend at its current price point due to having to constantly babysit multiple characters for a ten hour playthrough.

Greak will probably caught your attention thanks to its beautiful aesthetic, but it will soon show the signs of a design approach that just don’t fit its rigidly single player nature. Handling 2-3 characters simultaneously without the help of an A.I. would always going to be a drag. Additionally, the story is short and gives the impression that it’s only the prologue of a larger story that we may see in a sequel.

Greak: Memories of Azur has a lot going for it. I just wish that its core concept of controlling three characters at the same time worked better. Too often, instead of being helpful, your siblings just end up getting in the way. If you can look past these sections, though, you’ll find a beautiful game with some great puzzles and a lot of heart.

There are brief flashes of something special in Greak: Memories of Azur, but, sadly, they're mired by sloppy execution and a litany of irritations that seem to have been implemented by design, rather than by accident.