Ereban Shadow Legacy Review: Choosing Stealth or To Kill… Your Call.

Reviewed On: PC
Price: $24.99 USD
Developer: Baby Robot Games
Publisher: Baby Robot Games
Release Date: April 10, 2024

Please Note: A review code was provided by Baby Robot Games but does not influence the opinions in this review.

Baby Robot Games is a new studio where this is their debut purchasable game release that has been in the making for about 5 years. The team already released a game on itch.io as a student project where many of those elements were brought to Ereban: Shadow Legacy and expanded upon in many ways. Ereban was originally announced back at the Xbox Showcase during the Summer of 2022 and was going to release on Xbox and PC. After this, the game did go dark for a while and then it came back out of the shadows where some changes occurred. It was originally not going to be self published, but the team separated from its original publisher and is now self publishing the game. This meant, that the Xbox and Gamepass releases are not happening at launch, so it will only be releasing on PC for now. The potential for the Xbox version still around according to their Twitter post. Did the game live up to expectations, or is it a bit of a disappointment? Well, take a few minutes to read and find out.

The story of this game was one that I was very surprised by as I expected a good story, but I didn’t expect some of the interesting twists and turns that you come across. You play as Ayana, and are the last of the forgotten Ereban race. In the beginning of the game, you are at a place called Helios where there are SYM robots and the leader named Nascent keeping an eye on you; however, things quickly take a big turn and now you are needing to avoid them at all costs as you are now wanted.

At the end of chapter one, you escape and now work with someone named Mira who is part of a group called the Forgotten Suns. In exchange for information on the Ereban, you work with this group. They think that the light of Helios is a lie. Without any spoilers, there are some twists and turns that I definitely saw coming, while others that were terrific surprises. There are three endings to the game that take place in the final chapter where you have to make a choice about what your legacy will be; Darkness, Hope, or Light. The story was definitely much more detailed and better than I thought it would be, but what about the gameplay.

There are many different aspects to the gameplay of this title, but thankfully they are fairly easy to comprehend. This game is a stealth action adventure platformer title where you must use the darkness to your advantage. Your shadow merge power will only work in the darkness areas, so use the darkness as much as you can and stay out of the light. In a way, think of this game as a mash up between Splatoon and Aragami. SYMs are the main enemies of the game but there is also a more advanced version of the SYM, snipers and then human workers. Those are the main enemies you will come across, but the workers really aren’t your enemies. If you are spotted you will most likely be taken out; however, if you sneak up to a SYM or human from the back and are not spotted, you can choose to kill/neutralize them. There are repercussions for killing or avoiding the workers, and this has to do with the appearance of Ayana and your levels of morality. I didn’t kill many workers and the couple that I did, I didn’t have another option other than to reset the level, so my appearance didn’t really change much throughout my playthrough.

Thankfully, you have many different abilities and gadgets that you can use to help avoid detection or to help you become ruthless in taking everything out. These include a sonar to locate and track enemies, a mine to stun enemies, a shadow jump, a shadow vortex to make enemies disappear once killed/neutralized so other enemies can’t spot them on their patrols, and much more. To upgrade the gadgets, you need tech cards and other items scattered in the world; and unfortunately you have to find workbenches to actually upgrade them once you have the required materials. I personally don’t love workbenches in games for upgrades, but I understand why a lot of games use them; and at least there is usually something like a tech part close to each one for this game. The shadow powers require the shadow orbs and connection with remnants of the Ereban race that are found throughout the levels and they can be unlocked at anytime once you have the required amount.

The game is separated into a total of 8 levels, each with a varying amount of content and length. There are main objectives in each level, optional objectives that will award you with items, and many collectables to find that enhance the overall story, lore, and gameplay. Once you finish the main objectives, you end the level and are given a grade of S, A, B, etc. and that has to do with many factors. Completion time is a factor, but one that I never really was too concerned with. There is also stealth, number of kills, and finding collectables in the world. At the end of the level, you can be awarded with medals: Ghost, Merciful, and/or Ruthless. Ghost is not being detected by enemies or having bodies reported, Merciful is not neutralizing any SYMs in the level, and Ruthless is neutralizing all SYMs in the level. The game wants you to play the levels more than once to get all of the medals since you cant get both Merciful and the Ruthless ones at the same time. I personally was happy with my score in each level; but I did replay some of the levels; however, I didn’t get every possible medal. There are even more things to gameplay, but this sums it up enough for you to still find surprises in your playthrough.

The art style of this game was great in regards to the creativity of the character designs and the overall atmosphere the game puts you in. The visual designs of the levels are nice, from the desert landscapes, to the cities and palaces that you go through. Saying they are nice is a good thing, but unfortunately there really isn’t a huge amount of variety in the art and visual designs of the levels. You will see a lot of the same kinds of designs of deserts or cities, and pretty much the same puzzles with very little variety throughout the game. I do wish there was something a bit different as I kind of got tired of the same. Thankfully, the game doesn’t drag on so it isn’t too bad overall. Maybe they could have done some kind of ice based area with more blue colors, but maybe there is only so you can do with regards to developing a game like this one.

The music in the game is well crafted with some of it being composed of calming vibes, some of it being eerie and dark, while other times being more intensive and upbeat sounds. The audio design as a whole is well executed with the sounds of the SYMs moving, the different gadgets and abilities Ayana uses, and everything else in general is done well. From the get-go, I was shocked how good the whole voice acting in the game was. I wasn’t actually expecting to have spoken dialogue for this game in most of the side characters, but everyone had some kind of voice which was awesome to see in a game like this one. There is a big name in the cast list who is known for a lot of roles, including Peter Parker. Yuri Lowenthal is in the game and it was a shock when I heard it within the first 10 minutes of the game. The whole cast and crew shine through in their own roles; but my favorites are definitely Ayana, Set, Nascent, and the SYMs.

My PC specs are based on a HP Victus Gaming Laptop, so it isn’t super powerful, but in no way is it weak. The system houses an Intel Core i7-12650H, 32.0 GB of RAM, a SSD, and it is a 3050TI system, so it is more than suitable for this game based on the system requirements that were posted on Steam. I personally had very minimal issues when it came to my PC handling this game and I was very happy with that. The framerate did fluctuate on occasion during my playthrough however it typically was at a level that is higher than my eyes are used to of 60fps. The performance as a whole was solid with the occasional dip in graphics quality that never lasted very long, maybe a few seconds here or there. There are settings to tweak the quality if your PC is struggling to keep up which is nice. I tried to keep the game running as close to the max fidelity I could and it worked just fine for me.

The game is definitely not without issues. I have already mentioned a couple of gripes with the game, but there are other issues. Most of them are minor inconveniences, sometimes called gameplay enhancers, and then there are other weird glitches or bugs that could have been because of the pre-launch build I was playing. These kinds of things include but are not limited to, incorrect or placeholder text, falling through corners of levels that aren’t actually there, the game freezing and having to force exit and restart the game, and occasional detection issues for some of the SYMs. Another issue I had is related to the score screen at the end of the level. When you leave that screen you can’t go back and see it ever again unless you replay the level and get a different total of neutralized SYMs or worker kills. You can always see your completion time, score, collectables obtained, and the medals you already got, so it isn’t that bad. I just kind of wish there was a way to see if you missed like 1 or 2 SYMs or if it was more like a whole group that was missed in the level. None of these broke my love of the game, or made me stop playing, but they are annoying when they are in the adventure.

I play a lot of games every year, and I especially love playing indie titles and smaller games on top of AAA titles. Ereban is definitely in the indie category where they don’t have everything perfected but for a studio’s first game that is not just a student project, this game is absolutely a gem that shouldn’t be missed by stealth and action adventure fans. Ereban has great momentum when the story gets going, the mostly wonderful gameplay, terrific voice work. It does fumble a tiny bit on enemy variety, level creativity, and the bugs that I experienced. Some of these issues can definitely be patched out later, but then there are others that are at core of the game where it is not possible to change. Is the game perfect? No, but the game is absolutely worth playing through for the 6+ hours you can easily sink into the game.

Review Score: 8/10