Greak: Memories of Azur Review

Playthrough Highlights

As I was playing through the entirety of Greak: Memories of Azur, I’ve quickly come to discover that the game isn’t afraid to use every single mechanic at its disposal. Which I saw it as a telltale sign of the dev team putting in some serious effort into designing the abilities of the three playable characters and the platforming slash puzzle parts of the game that force you to utilize their abilities in perfect tandem to proceed.

Greak is the first character that you will take control of for the first parts of the game. Equipped with a rare sword made from Laurean sword and a crossbow, he is the main damage dealer of the party as you unlock more and more attack moves and upgrades to increase your damage output. His crossbow, both stock and upgraded versions, can also be used either as a ranged weapon to hit enemies from afar or to restore your health from health drops that are too far from reach. He also has the ability to crawl through small spaces and tunnels that lead to other secret parts of the map, something the two remaining playable characters lack. Assuming that you have enough crossbow bolts, of course! Overall, Greak plays like the typical sides scroller brawler that we are all too familiar with.

Greak’s sister Adara, on the other hand, is the master of the arcane arts and takes on the role of a ranged attacker instead. Adara’s attacks is split into two primary projectile types, a smaller and fast-firing, but weaker blasts to charging her bolt to become larger and more powerful, albeit slow-moving and takes a long time to charge up. And if you are not careful and standing at a ledge, it also has some recoil that pushes Adara back. Unlike Greak, Adara does not have the ability to double jump like her brothers, although this can be circumvented by simultaneously moving together in a group. Instead, Adara can hover over large distances for as long as her magic meter allows. Allowing her to reach certain platforms that is otherwise too far for Greak to jump over to. Additionally, Adara is also able to swim and dive underwater. Able to stay underwater for much longer periods than Greak and giving her more time to empty out treasure chests for items.

Finally, we turn to Raydel. The eldest brother of the lot and quite possible the most nimble and powerful (in my opinion) melee fighter of the lot. Compared to Greak, Raydel isn’t a particularly heavy hitter, nor the nimblest. But he more than makes up for it with his long melee attack range. Allowing him to hit enemies from a further distance without fear of taking damage. Raydel is equipped with two items that can further boost his attack capabilities when used correctly. The first item that Raydel has is a shield. While he cannot dodge roll away from enemy attacks like Greak and Adara, he can still negate damage from direct enemy attacks. And also bypassing dangerous areas for Greak and Adara to cross, positioning his shield either horizontally or vertically to escort his siblings to safety.

The second gadget at his disposal is the grappling hook, which easily makes Raydel the most agile character in the entire game. In addition to double jumping, Raydel can aim his grappling hook to grab onto ledges and other areas to launch himself into higher areas of the game. The grappling hook can also be used for combat purposes as well. Hooking in enemies from far away and dish out massive amounts of damage to them up close. The only weakness that Raydel has compared to his younger siblings is being unable to swim. Forcing either Greak, Adara, or both of them to help him navigate across bodies of water.

With these characters with their own set of abilities, strengths and weaknesses to cover each other, the family must traverse across the lands of Azur and must work together to overcome the different challenges that is cleverly designed by the dev team.

Throughout my playthrough of Greak: Memories of Azur, I found myself put in several situations where there are platforming and puzzle sections of the game where I had to travel together as a group by syncing their movement together and double jumping in hard-to-reach areas and even abandoning one party member to trigger a pathway from across the map. It requires a fair amount of backtracking and trial and error to figure out the optimal strategy for all party members to progress through an area.

In addition to that, since this is a strictly single-player experience, you are forced to think on your feet during combat scenarios. As enemies of all types can spawn in without warning, you may have to immediately drop whatever you are doing and switch between different characters to get them out of trouble. They aren’t completely vulnerable, however, and can fend for themselves while stationary against single entities.

Boss fights, on the other hand, can prove to be a more dangerous encounter. As a majority of them having access to AOE attacks and abilities, grouping Greak, Adara, and Raydel together is a fatal idea and sporadically spread them out to reduce their chances of getting hit. Only switching between them when the boss is either close by or when one party member is recovering their health. There is, however, an option in the settings menu where you can toggle invulnerable party members when they are not in use. While I recommend the more casual of players to leave this option on, the added challenge is much more when you flip between different the three siblings and delivering a brutal combo of attacks and the power of family.