REVIEW : The Lightbringer (PC)
Grab your boomerang and join us in playing The Lightbringer, a 3D platformer with dense stages full of challenges.
It appears that we are in for a thrilling journey.
The Lightbringer is a straightforward narrative of a child who, with the help of his sister, seeks to clean up his world of corruption. But, unfortunately, you get a boomerang early on in the first level. When you combine that with the fact that it’s a 3D platformer, you might think it’s similar to TY the Tasmanian Tiger, but it’s a lot more limited experience overall.
Its intricate stages, which you’ll have to rotate constantly, reminded me a lot of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, only this one is more action-oriented, as you can double jump and use your boomerang to ward off slime-like opponents. Overall, it’s a tried-and-true recipe that also feels like a welcome change of pace.
Playing The Lightbringer is intuitive and straightforward; you simply run and hop about while holding a shoulder button to aim in place and rotate with the right stick. This makes targeting a breeze significantly since you can charge your boomerang toss and release it whenever you want.
The adversaries are slime creatures that can be hopped on when you’re unarmored, but you’ll have to employ special techniques to take them out, like hitting their exposed rear or activating them and dodging out of the path before they explode. There are also bosses, which I found much more straightforward than the actual levels, but they’re still fun.
Outside of fighting, you’ll be dealing with wind-up levers, attaching finding cogs, being blown around by fans, and monitoring moving machines and platforms while carefully timing your jumps, all of which adds up to a fascinating campaign packed with beautiful and tightly-packed stages. Now that I think about it, the images are charming and straightforward, and the atmosphere is spot-on, with a decent soundtrack, pleasant effects, and your sister’s (kind of) rhyming couplets narrated throughout.
Progressing through The Lightbringer’s campaign is as simple as completing each level’s goal, but you’ll find plenty of collectibles along the way. When you complete a stage, it’ll display a Completed banner, which is rewarding. In addition, each level has several green gems, a few red crystals, lore unlocked by ringing bells, and some health-up potions that I don’t believe are essential to complete the stage. Finding everything is difficult, though, because some of the things are skillfully hidden.
That brings me to the first disadvantage: The Lightbringer may benefit from a map as the stages become more complex. I even returned to the beginning place by accident after taking a false turn on a few occasions. Another annoyance is that some elements are susceptible, making it quite aggravating to fall off a bridge that appears to be connected but isn’t or slide to your demise when a platform moves a little. This is especially true when you consider that if you run out of hearts, you must restart the level from the beginning, which can take up to 15 minutes or more in some cases.
