Another Sight | Steam | Review

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​Is it just us, or does it feel like too much emphasis is put on looks these days? While modern PCs and consoles push resolutions in the millions of pixels, there’s a lot to be said for a game which focuses on achieving a distinct visual style, more than just pure visual firepower. In those rare cases, how a game looks can enhance or even define the experience, bringing up the quality of the product overall, rather than just being something which might be pretty to look at, but is otherwise bland.

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​by James
Michael
​Parry

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@James_Parry

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Developer: Lunar Great
Wall Studios
Publisher: Fish Eagle
Platforms: Steam
Players: 1

One such diamond is the rough is Another Sight, a 2.5D puzzle-platformer which boasts a bold, almost impressionist art style when you play as one of its two protagonists. While not quite blind, as first impressions might suggest, Kit - short for Catherine (but no one calls her that) - is a young girl whose story begins with her lost in the murky bowels of Victorian London. Kit’s vision of the world is reliant on sound, with elements being highlighted by a guiding droplet of water or, more likely, a distant meow from her furry cat companion Hodge.

Visually, Hodge’s perspective offers a standard view of things - though the levels themselves do have an otherworldly element to them - while Kit sees almost complete blackness, save a rainbow-coloured sphere around her, which expands and contracts slightly depending on how much of the environment she can sense.

This can lead to some frustrations during platforming segments of the game, which are admittedly light, as you struggle to encourage Kit to jump from one ledge to another, as she’s only able to jump when she can “see” where she’s going to land. Ironically, the end result of this inaction is more often than not for her to slip down into a bottomless pit - hardly putting her best foot forward.

It’s really the puzzle elements - introduced by the opposing perspectives of Kit and Hodge - and beautiful visuals that’ll draw you in here.

Comparisons to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland are certainly easy to draw, in terms of setup, but the game is very aware of this and has Kit namecheck and dismiss them fairly early on. The curiouser and curiouser part of it all is that Kit begins to bump into famous historical figures, each having an effect on the landscape that’s relevant to their most notable skill, for example an impressionist painter imposing a screen filter.

The gameplay itself is a little less robust, with most levels just having you backtrack between one contraption and another, but the fact that the two protagonists navigate so differently brings more variety to working through each level’s challenges, which get progressively more elaborate as the game goes on.

Though Another Sight is pretty to look at, technical issues do show through occasionally, with the transition from gameplay to cutscene being a particular stand-out culprit of “dead eye” syndrome. Really, the story could’ve been told without hopping between the two, which makes you wonder why developer Lunar Great Wall Studios made that creative choice.

On the topic of narrative, the story unfolds gradually as you explore a fictional subterranean London. It’s not immediately clear whether Kit is really there, or if a lot of what she’s seeing (or sensing) is actually a dream, but the unravelling of this particular question is central to the overall plot, and its various twists are enough to hold the experience together.

That said, it’s really the puzzle elements - introduced by the opposing perspectives of Kit and Hodge - and beautiful visuals that’ll draw you in here. Perhaps not enough for those in search of any truly unique gameplay experiences that might have been conjured up by this particular odd couple pairing, but, regardless, if you’re after a puzzle game with a bespoke visual twist, you can’t go much wrong.

Pros

• Delightful visual styles give the everyday world character
• Kit & Hodge’s different perspectives reinvigorate levels
• Accessible keyboard controls & added controller support

Cons

• Switching characters can be a bit choppy at times
• Easy to get frustrated by Kit’s slow pace, especially when you know the way ahead is safe
• Puzzles may be a bit basic for some

7/10