I don’t mean to start this review off on a tangent, but I promise that this statement will make sense soon. I never finished Nier: Automata. It’s one of my white whale games. I think I’ve played the opening at least six times now, because even though the gameplay doesn’t always capture my attention, the story and the general soul? I love it.
Retrace the Light has that soul, both at the surface level and a little deeper, at least aesthetic wise. The gameplay styles may be different, but that hauntingly beautiful conversation about AI and robotics? It’s here in droves. Retrace the Light is a 2.5D action game, in a very similar vein to Hades and Bastion. You control an Enforcer, working for a super intelligent AI on behalf of humanity to clear Mirrormazes and destroy Mirrormares to help people suffering from psychological disorders. Yes, the game is bloated with a whole bunch of junk terms like that, and no, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on. Man, it really is a vibe though.
The most important thing is how the actual action and adventure parts of this action-adventure feel, and let me tell you, they feel good. Whilst this is very much your standard isometric-combat system, the unique selling point here is Retrace — rather than your standard sprint or dodge roll, your Enforcer has a Light Trail.
Activating Light Trail gives you a slight burst of speed and traces your path in glowing light (until your energy runs out). Then, at your whim, you can Retrace back down this line. It only affects your personal position, and you can either tap the command to instantly jump to your starting position, or you can hold it to scroll backwards and release to end up at any position in the map. Most of the game’s systems, both combat and exploratory, build on this. The first combat tutorials have you retracting to position yourself behind your opponent to unleash a powerful strike in your blind spot, and an early game utility ability sends moveable crates down your trace instead, allowing you to manipulate the environment.
I won’t lie to you, whilst the basic combat feels fine, it did take a while for my Hades-pilled brain to adjust to not having a dash. The Trail doesn’t quite feel quick enough to compare this to ballet, but once I clumsily got used to drawing lines and predicting enemy patterns well enough to position my Retrace point behind enemies in the midst of combat, it almost felt like ballroom?
Even though I’ve literally just paused Retrace the Light to write this, all of the jargon has slipped my mind, so forgive me for not using the correct terms. Outside of the main missions, there’s a hub world for you to chat to people, spend currency to unlock new attacks, read exposition text dumps, and all that fun stuff. It is all wrapped in beautiful sound design and incredibly well thought out visual choices, and even though the plotting is confusing and (purposefully) drops you in at the deep end, I still find it incredibly enjoyable.
It’s worth mentioning the wealth of gameplay adjustments you can make too, increasing or reducing the amount of manual inputs needed during combat, and allowing you to tailor the experience to your needs. As someone who feels permanently locked out from Souls-like games due to my inability to intuit parry timing (I can do it eventually, but not always before my patience is totally shattered), this kind of granular adjustment is always a win in my book, and if you don’t like it, just don’t use it and play the game on default settings.
Whilst I understand that the style and story may not be for everyone, I think many people whose tastes lie in the science fiction portion of the spectrum can find something to love here. As long as you have a tolerance for nonsensical jargon and esoteric story, Retrace the Light is a solid action game!
Retrace the Light was reviewed on Xbox Series X, but is also available on Playstation 5 and Steam.