Ayasa: Shadows of Silence clearly wants to crawl beneath your skin, preferably without leaving muddy footprints on the carpet. Playing as a young girl exploring a collapsing world of alien attacks, atomic devastation and mysterious purple fog, you’re tasked with uncovering what’s happened. It mixes horror, puzzles and 2.5D platforming, although having several ingredients doesn’t necessarily mean the resulting meal is edible.
Gaming Heaven
There’s no denying the atmosphere is impressive. Creepy forests, unsettling buildings, grotesque creatures and enormous shadows create a genuinely disturbing world. Rather than relying on cheap jump scares, the horror builds through environmental details and an uncomfortable sense that something unpleasant is lurking nearby. The soundtrack also complements the strange, dreamlike setting, even if you’re unlikely to be humming it down the high street afterwards.
Exploration provides some incentive to continue, while the puzzles offer occasional moments of satisfaction. The visual style has personality, and the increasingly bizarre surroundings make discovering what happens next reasonably compelling.
Gaming Hell
Unfortunately, the platforming feels about as precise as attempting surgery with oven gloves. Jumps are floaty, movement can feel unnatural, and controlling Ayasa takes longer than it should. The stealth sections are similarly frustrating, particularly when monsters become unpredictable. Add occasional visual glitches and enemies behaving like they’ve forgotten their job descriptions, and things become rather tiresome.
The lack of explanation also makes the story unnecessarily confusing. Mystery is one thing; leaving players scratching their heads wondering what they’ve actually witnessed is quite another. Worst of all, the ending feels disappointingly underwhelming, especially given the expectations raised by games such as Inside and Limbo.
Final Judgement
Ayasa: Shadows of Silence has an excellent horror atmosphere buried beneath clumsy mechanics, frustrating encounters and an unsatisfying conclusion. There’s an interesting game somewhere in here, but finding it requires more patience than most people have spare. A creepy little adventure, certainly, but not one I’d rush back into.
