Ever since Skyrim spread its gargantuan wings and cast its shadow of influence over us all, I've seen western-style dragons become all the rage with the youth of today. "Hey, Sally, whatcha drawin?" "A dragon." I find myself wondering, though, why dragons are portrayed as these monsters of wanton destruction whose only real purpose is to provide an objectively threatening beast for the protagonist in a story to slay at the end. I haven't seen a story about good dragons since Dragon Tales...oh God....I just nostalgia'd myself way too hard.
Before I lose my mind to the elegy, let's talk about Sol Invictus, a game wherein you are a dragon who is ostensibly there to save the...urhm...world? From the evil...uhm...rainclouds? I guess? The game itself is very simple. You fly around clear skies and look for grey clouds. You breathe fire at them until they are grey no more.
This game's biggest problem is that it suffers from something I like to call "I meant to do that" syndrome. IMTDTS is a rather infuriating affliction to deal with. As the name suggests, it's when game developers fully acknowledge genuine flaws with their game (or movie or book or what have you) but rather than try to fix them, they simply say "oh, I meant to do that." The goal of Sol Invictus is to create a "casual gaming experience." Anyone who believes that Sol Invictus accomplished that goal, I invite you to play five minutes of Bejeweled or Peggle or Wii Play. One thing all of those games have in common is that they at least challenge you in some way, sometimes very much so. In Sol Invictus, there is simply no way to fail, especially since you can just hold the "Q" button and lock onto the nearest defenseless cloud.
So, of course, the game has no challenge. Without challenge, there are few legs a game has left to stand on. Now, I've liked unchallenging games in the past, like Snowfall, but that game was, of course, all about the narrative. It challenged your sense of morality rather than your reflexes (except for that damn grizzly bear). Sol Invictus challenges absolutely nothing, so it's about as gratifying as right clicking on your desktop to make that little menu appear and then clicking away.
The game looks nice enough, so if all you're looking for is the equivalent of an Nvidia tech demo, then I've found the game for you. People who value challenge or agency or all those other wonderful things games are known for will probably be left disappointed.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay shiny.
Links
Los Cintivus: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=24659
