Game Review: S.O.L Search of Light

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

Coming to us by way of developer Trigger the Monster, and publisher Firenut Games, S.O.L Search of Light (Referred to as simply "Search of Light" from now on.) is a resource management, tower defense game that's available now on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. We're going to be taking a look at the Switch release today, and see if this particular search is one that's worth going on. This one is going to be quite the journey, so let's get right into it!

Even though Search of Light has a story, it's not one that I feel is ever truly told to the player. The game sees you take on the role of the only human(ish) character in this world, one simply known as "The Foreigner". Your journeys take you to a seemingly abandoned world deep underground, and you must enlist the help of robots to discover the secrets of the depths, and maybe find your way back up to the light. Though your journeys will take you deeper into the depths, you'll mainly be working to rebuild the base you discovered upon your arrival. You'll also encounter lots of enemies that will attempt to destroy those recently rebuilt defenses. Despite that not even being the deepest of stories out there, it pretty much only exists within the game's press materials and eShop description. None of that is ever relayed to you in-game, and the few robots with dialogue that you'll encounter all seem to say only the most random of statements. Normally I wouldn't fault a game that didn't bother to include a story if the gameplay doesn't necessarily require it, but you'll soon find that I don't think that's the case here at all. In fact, the non-existent story is probably the first sign that all is not well in Search of Light. Perhaps even this game is even unfinished, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let's move on and discuss gameplay next.

Describing Search of Light's gameplay is surprisingly difficult, as it brings together several genres that don't seem like they'd mix well on paper. At its core, Search of Light is a city-building, tower defense game. Your main task is to find resources to rebuild and defend your base, and to populate it with robots who will take on jobs to help you towards your goals. Resources are mainly found by exploring the depths, and that's also where you'll find more robots to flesh out your base. Then there's the resource management aspect. Everything in Search of Light requires an energy source to exist. Said energy source resembles a drop of water, and the acquiring of this energy source will make or break any run of the game. That's not all though, there are also roguelite elements here too, and the game even features permadeath if you're not careful. All the various aspects of gameplay might seem a bit odd, but they could definitely come together to create a very playable game. I'm not exactly a fan of permadeath, but I will admit that it kept the stakes always high. Unfortunately, Search of Light doesn't really stick the landing when it comes to bringing all of its gameplay elements together into something fun and playable.

Each game of Search of Light begins in the ruins of what looks to have once been a bustling city. You have a generator that powers everything in the middle of the base, and a starting robot or two to get you going. You also start with a small amount of energy, and you'll want to be careful using it as literally everything in-game revolves around it. Said energy is used to recruit stray robots, it's used to upgrade buildings and defenses, it's used to purchase upgrade plans and skills, and whatever amount you have even serves as your life bar. Recruiting a robot is a simple task of giving them one energy unit. After giving them energy, they can then be found at or near your base. From there you can use three energy units to make the robot either a worker or a warrior. This process is then repeated with each robot you find. Having multiple worker robots doesn't seem to actually speed up the building of structures, but it does seem to allow for multiple upgrades to be built at once. Warrior robots are probably a better for most players, but these robots can be defeated quite quickly by some of the game's enemies. Besides working on upgrades, worker robots will sometimes gather additional energy. This seems to be very inconsistent though, and I can't help but wonder if the mechanic is bugged.

After you've done all you can at your base, you then journey into the depths via the portal located outside your base. You're able to pick from a few locations you want to explore, but you're only able to complete one path per depths map. Each map will have additional resources, robots, or other goods, and completing one usually means that you'll be attacked by enemies on your return back to your base. Oh, and just in case you're wondering, you can also be attacked by enemies while exploring the depths in general. The Foreigner is able to take out enemies with a simple attack, but his reach is so bad that I wouldn't recommend using said attack unless absolutely necessary. More likely than not you'll use your warrior robots or tower defenses to finish the job. The final space on every map will be a boss encounter, and these are quite a bit trickier. Boss monsters will often take out all your warrior robots, and maybe even your tower and walls too. Rebuilding those requires additional energy, so the loop of resource management quickly becomes never-ending. Defeating a boss then brings about a new map. Running out of resources, or your life bar I guess, will lead to an instant game over. Your save will be deleted, and you'll have to start a new game from scratch. And that's Search of Light's gameplay loop in a nutshell.

I actually think I can go a bit more in-depth about Search of Light's gameplay, but I really don't see the point as there is one big thing I probably should've opened the review with. This game is extremely buggy, and it's almost to the point of being unplayable. Within five minutes of playing the game, I entered my first Depths map. I was about halfway through it when I fell through the floor. I was so shocked that I actually thought that I had somehow jumped into an open pit platformer-style. I went into the pause menu and got myself back to the base, but less than thirty minutes later it happened again. That's not it either. There was one playthrough where the portal to depths remained red (indicating that enemies were coming through) even though I had cleared the current wave in its entirety. I was not able to go back into the depths because it was still red, and I was ultimately forced to quit the game and restart. For whatever reason, this counted as me dying, as my save was deleted and I was forced to start my next playthrough from the beginning. That's still not all. Several times I'd pause the game and then realize that I couldn't un-pause it. I don't mean that the game was frozen, I was able to still move, but the entire left half of the screen had the pause menu stuck onto it. This happened three times in just a few hours, and each time eventually ended in a game over since I couldn't see threats from one entire side of the screen. There were other times when enemies somehow one-shotted me even though I had tons of life, and another when a boss' life bar refused to go down no matter what I did. I even had robots and building upgrades simply disappear from time to time, and enemies would sometimes get stuck in walls too. I honestly think that this game was released unfinished, as there's no way the developers couldn't be aware of all these issues. This game fought me every step of the way while I played it, and I seriously don't see myself ever picking it up again unless it gets a massive update that fixes all of its issues. Even if it wasn't full of game-breaking bugs, that permadeath mechanic is just annoying in general. Sure there are some elements that carry over in a roguelike fashion, but you're still starting from the beginning each time. It seriously feels like this entire game was created solely to frustrate players.

This is the pause menu bug in action.

This is the unchanging red portal bug.

Even though I think that could close out the review, I'm going to talk presentation a bit. The only real positive I can say about the visuals would have to be that I actually did like the look and feel of the characters and world. Admittedly nothing particularly stands out, but this isn't a bad-looking game. Problems start to show up once you start to notice how little variety there is to the game in general, how few enemies there are, and the fact that The Foreigner moves in a way that can be described as "wonky" at best. I'd also be doing a disservice by not pointing out that the graphics look quite dated as well, being something similar to an early PS3 game perhaps. Despite the dated graphics, the game sometimes runs terribly on the Switch. Bugs aside, there were times when things slowed to a crawl, and others where pop-in was all over the place. I swear that there were times when my Switch was fighting for its life running the game. While I had at least one positive thing to say about the visuals, that luxury doesn't extend to the game's sound design. I feel like it's a bit cheap of me to say "What sound design?", but that's honestly what I felt during my time with the game. There is some atmospheric music here and there, but most of it might as well not exist due to how low it is in the mix. It's more than just uninspired music. Tracks loop badly, music drops out for no reason, and there are long stretches where the game is simply silent. I'm not sure if the silence meant that the music failed to load, but a large chunk of the game just had almost no sound. There's also no voice acting here, but pointing that out almost feels like I'm just being mean.

Playing Search of Light is honestly an exercise in patience, and I don't know if anyone has the patience to see this game to its end. It's horribly buggy, and the game literally won't let me play it for more than thirty minutes before something weird happens. I'm not exaggerating when I say that about a third of my time playing the game featured at least one bug actively going on. I mentioned that pause menu bug earlier, but I didn't mention that I played a total of about 45 minutes across the three times it happened. I have screenshots in this review from when it happened too. Obviously one could ask why I didn't simply restart the game. Besides the fact that I did indeed do that whenever a bug proved to be too much, there was no point if another bug would take its place after about fifteen minutes. All in all, I just couldn't see myself playing past the initial few hours I put into it. I can't justify spending any amount of money on this game in its current state, especially not its current $19.99 asking price. I even held off on writing this review for a couple weeks hoping that an update would release that fixed the issues I had with the game. As of this writing, no substantial update has come. Maybe I'll amend parts of this review if an update comes, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that.

Just about the only thing I can suggest when it comes to S.O.L Search of Light would have to be staying away from it completely. Perhaps the "S.O.L" is meant to refer to those who naively picked it up at launch being "shit out of luck" when it comes to spending their money on a broken game. This game is barely functional in its current state, and I don't think I can give it even a soft recommendation for fans of the genre. The amount of bugs are just too numerous to look past, and the developers seem to have abandoned the game following its release. Stay away from this one for the time being.

Check Out S.O.L Search of Light on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/s-o-l-search-of-light-switch/

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​Story: C
Gameplay: D (Would be "C" if not for the many game-breaking bugs.)
Graphics: C
Music/Sound: C-
Value: C-

Overall: C-

Pros:
+ The mix of resource management and tower defense gameplay styles is a great concept.
+ Graphics and visuals look fairly impressive, and the world is beautifully dystopian.
+ The gameplay loop can be rather fun once you get into it.
+ Has roguelike elements that make subsequent playthroughs run a bit smoother.

Cons:
- The current version of the game is riddled with bugs of all kind, many of them are game-breaking.
- Bugs aside, hit detection and wonky controls make the core gameplay loop feel like a chore.
- Having to completely restart the game after death can really get annoying after a while.
- Though you'd think the game would have a decent story to tell, there's pretty much none of it in-game.
- Music and sound effects are fairly non-existent, meaning you'll be playing much of the game in silence.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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What does this even mean?!?!