Ereban: Shadow Legacy is a third-person stealth adventure game developed by Baby Robot Games. The game was an enigma to me leading up to its release, and even after finishing it, I am still a little curious about the vision of the game itself. On one hand, it has some of the most accessible and smooth stealth gameplay and mechanics I have ever seen. While on the other hand, the adventure these mechanics on felt weighed down by its narrative. Resulting in an experience that I did enjoy the majority of, but I feel as though it faltered in areas that did not need to exist.
Developer & Publisher // Baby Robot Games
Platforms // PC
MSRP & Release Date // $24.99, April 10th, 2024
Reviewed On // PC & Steam Deck
Ayana and Helios
Ereban: Shadow Legacy starts with Ayana, a descendant of the mysterious Ereban bloodline. She finds herself marooned on a planet after being on a space station belonging to the corporation of Helios after crashing into it. It is here that she finds herself in a conflict between a resistance that is fighting against Helios. As well as Ayana exploring the planet for the meaning behind her kind no longer existing.
The narrative element of the game is both bloated and confusing. I cannot remember why Ayana was on the Helios space station before it crashed. While it’s also convenient that the same planet that it crashes on has so many links to the Ereban bloodline.
There are many characters that feel inconsequential to the overall setting, especially Set. Set plays a major role in the narrative, but the narrative even chooses to abandon him during a crucial part of the story to focus on Ayana’s personal journey. With a whole slew of different side characters that only feel thrown in to get Ayana into certain locations. Such as a prison area where you are tasked with finding a character named Mika. Who helps cause a battle to break out with other imprisoned people. There is a lot going on in such a short timeframe and it feels like a lot could have been cut.
The game also has Ayana written weirdly. At times, she can either be somewhat kind, overly sarcastic, or not wanting to be bothered to even talk to someone. Overall, the narrative experience of Ereban: Shadow Legacy was not enjoyable to me. But the game’s stealth gameplay helped me push through the five-and-a-half-hour experience.
Slithering in the Shadows of Ereban: Shadow Legacy
Ereban: Shadow Legacy features one of the freest flowing and most enjoyable stealth gameplay I have ever experienced. You have a mix of the basic stealth elements of hiding in the shadows, and behind any cover you find. With the ability to take down foes to give yourself more freedom to navigate an area. But where the game takes it to the next level, is with the ability to merge into the shadows. This turns you into a little orb that keeps your movement silent and allows you to move along any surface. This mechanic is incredibly fleshed out, due to how every level is designed. This is mostly due to the lighting in the game being very realistic.
Shadows Show the Way
Every level has various buildings, ledges, trees, and other structures that cast shadows from a set lighting source. While enemies wield flashlights to ensure you cannot just sneak up on them easily in this form. This leads to every single chapter being laid out like a puzzle with many layers. You have to not only figure out where to go but also find various ways to use shadows to get around. While also either avoiding enemies or taking them down discreetly. It is incredibly satisfying just figuring out where to go, what to do, and how to do it.
For example, in one of the later chapters you are smack dab in the middle of many different buildings, streets, and fences. Figuring out how to maneuver between each building while taking down robots in between without getting caught felt amazing. Some levels do not keep certain decisions from earlier levels, however. Like one open-ish level that had a variety of objectives to tackle. I liked having more stuff to do aside from a linear run.
My favorite usage of the lighting and platforming was always the flying platforms you had to stick yourself to and use them to land on other higher vantage points. Or move in their shadows to other locations. It is all very well knit together, with an awesome enemy variety with secrets, gadgets, and upgrades to find.
Simple and Varied Enemies and Tools
There is a handful of enemy types in Ereban: Shadow Legacy and the game uses them very wisely. You have the standard robot that has a light that shines from its head, so you have to take it down from behind. As well as other advanced types like a robot covered in UV light that you cannot sneak up on during shadow form.
The sniper robot adds a whole level of fear to the game. This is due to how accurately it can spot you if you are not in cover. You have to move with the shadow form and stay behind cover to avoid getting sniped nearly instantly. I found myself more drawn to taking down these foes first. Especially since Ayana can kill an enemy in one attack with a stealth takedown. But if you are caught and cannot escape, Ayana will be taken down by one hit from a robot.
Gadgets For the Assist
However, in every level, you can expand upon Ayana’s survivability with permanent upgrades and gadgets. The first you get is a sonar visor that pings the location of every enemy. But with upgrades, you can have it ping the locations of upgrade materials to unlock and upgrade more abilities. Like the ability to hide bodies in the shadows or dashing forward while in shadow form.
There are so many ways to take advantage of the stealth, like the SYM mine gadget that stuns enemies. If you throw it near an enemy and they get zapped while in a group of enemies, they will be alerted, and you can move around more with that distraction in play. There are even upgrades that can instantly warp a foe into the shadows. It was a lot of fun experimenting with these on every level. But I feel like I never really needed them, especially the visor. They are a form of safety net that allows for more experimentation if you are not good at being stealthy.
Lore, Stats and Endings Aplenty
You can also find a whole slew of different data pads that have in-game lore. Where I think Ereban: Shadow Legacy is the strongest in its writing for these data pads as opposed to the personal narrative. For example, there’s a data pad that speaks of these people known as “The Enlightened”. It piqued my interest in the world more than most of the cutscenes in the game. Because they helped flesh out the world I really loved playing in. Suffice it to say, but the gameplay side of the game is its strongest aspect and is highly replayable due to every section having stats that show if you were aggressive or stealthy. With other stats like your time in each chapter and if you were detected.
There are also different endings to get that are not influenced by your play style. Which I found to be a good idea because if I had to mold my playstyle just to see a different ending cutscene of a story I was not entirely invested in, I would have enjoyed the gameplay even less. But overall, this is the meat of Ereban: Shadow Legacy and it was so excellent that it enticed me to finish, and I am already craving another playthrough.
Bugs, Crashes, Weird Animations
Sadly, Ereban: Shadow Legacy is by no means a fully polished game. One of the most consistent issues I had was with crashes. In some of the chapters, you come across this relic that unlocks more powers for Ayana. But before it does, you have to activate it and it starts a cutscene for the story. Like clockwork, this would crash my game. It would only happen once in each chapter they are in, and the checkpoint system is very generous, so I only lost maybe a few minutes to this crash. But it’s too consistent to ignore.
I also encountered a few instances of falling onto an item in some zones and being stuck in an infinite falling animation.
When crouching onto a ramp or other vertical surface, Ayana’s legs would clip through her body like so.
And in the final level, Ayana had this yellow hue to her luminescent attire instead of blue. Going into the shadow form does not make it yellow either, so I was very confused by this.
But outside of all of this, Ereban: Shadow Legacy still ran wonderfully. I experienced no stutters or framerate drops on my PC consisting of an RX6600, Ryzen 5 5600G, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, m.2 NVME SSD that made every reload from a checkpoint happen in a flash. I also played it a little bit on my Steam Deck, and it is not supported, and lowering all the settings does not help it run any better. So, if you are looking to purchase the game for portable play, it may run better on other non-proton-based PC handhelds.
Closing Thoughts on Ereban: Shadow Legacy
Ereban: Shadow Legacy is a game that tries to do a lot, but is only at its best in being a great game to play. While having a story component that feels mostly unnecessary to the experience and is not going to be what I recommend buying the game for. The shadow form mechanic is so interwoven into the entire game, from the enemies to the gadgets, and upgrades in-between. With so many awesome open area levels and expertly designed closed-in ones, I loved my experience in Ereban: Shadow Legacy. I just wish there was less noise, and more allowing me to just slither around and enjoy its gameplay endlessly.
Special thanks for the developers for providing the review key.
