The game shows Shane’s story and his journey in search of self-knowledge since he’s about to  decide the most important thing in his life. Who he will become and which patch he should  follow?

In the Hazel Sky universe, characters are divided into two factions: Engineers and Artists, which cause several deductions in our heads of what kind of message the game wants to tell us. Maybe one developer had to deal with the famous choice between following his parent’s career or choosing his dream career?

Leaving theories aside, we can say that is at least unusual to see a game focusing in an authority way on a family banishment if our little hero Shane fails to be approved in the tests that are shown in the game as missions and puzzles.



Shane’s father left him on a little island, a kind of passing ritual imposed on young people, and he has to do it all by himself, such as concluding several tests that are going to grant him a return to his home, the floating city Gideon and are going to prove his aptitude to become an engineer and as he dives in the game story, he will becoming aware that exists a choice for this imposition.

In this isle, he finds several items and books with texts that tell a little about the story of how everything leads to the divided path of both professions. Books tell us about how everything started, but the text is long and has a characteristic of old writing, even that is in the future, something that can confuse the player or can be ignored.

Soon after the prologue, we meet Erin, a character that is going to be our main character’sfriend and as we advance in the story, she leads us to make inquiries, showing us a life side that Shane didn’t know about and making a more visceral dilemma. A special taste for music and for playing guitar. And this is one of the goals of the game, find all the musical scores and play all the game songs.

Gideon city shows itself after the game tutorial, soon after our flight in an airplane that we fixed. By the way, this is the first of several machines that we fix during the gameplay. The city floats on the ocean with jets and modern machines.



Conflicts between artists and engineers, a war threat, reality, and the future and several other doubts of this young man trace his destiny through Hazel Sky’s universe. Shane must complete various tests to be consecrated as an engineer such as his father and grandfather, fixing machines with curious gadgets.

As each test is complete, our character is divided between reason and his heart in this story defining his destiny in the mechanic city of Gideon, and this is the big dilemma. Another interesting thing to talk about is the stories of characters that passed through the same tests that we are passing, some can be creepy and bizarre.

The game story has a narrative with a lot of potential but fails in developing this narrative in the way that it’s told. A grand part of the story elements just make sense if the player makes a second run in the game, a thing that nowadays only more determined players do.

Gameplay

The goals of the game are simple to solve and make Hazel Sky a short game, between 3 to 6 hours, can be a little more in case the player wants to explore all the places and find all collectible items. By the way, one thing that can frustrate the players is the game style, besides being a short game, it lacks complicated puzzles, some puzzles are extremely easy to solve and completely unrelated.

So, think that you’re going to find a clue to solve some puzzle in specific books spread through the map because most texts don’t have a connection with the puzzles. Among these collectible items, we have texts, music scores, keychains, bottoms, and keys that give us access to rooms and chests that increase the exploration and give more life to the
game experience. Since we talk about music scores, the game has a dynamic for you to play guitar that is very similar to the one used on The Last Of Us 2.



The game’s controls are simple and intuitive which makes fluid gameplay and is easy to adapt to it. Exploring the scenery is the easiest way to complete tests that are going to be made in form of a project, each project has a certain way you must do it and which materials you have to obtain. From then on, the game increases the difficulty and some sceneries parts are hard to access but are essential to get the necessary material for each project.

Graphics

Developed in Unreal Engine and a 3D design, Hazel Sky has good graphics and beautiful sceneries, but when we talk about graphical finishes of characters, textures details, materials, and objects, the lack of polish is clear. The characters remind me of clay dolls, which can be the intention of the developers, but I wish it had a smoother design.



Sounds and dubbings

Not only the soundtrack is pleasant it also has an immersive environment sound and the discreet sound effects show that the studio was able to explore really well some Engine capacities relating to these recurses.

Relating to the game dubbing (in special Brazilian Portuguese, the one that we use to make this review) there are numerous flaws because in several moments we see errors in the continuity of the dialogue and in the meaning of what’s being said, this suggests the lack of a revision.



Thanks to PaiJack's collaboration for this review, both in terms of gameplay and images provided, in addition to Neon Doctrine for providing the early key to this review.

For the purposes of this review, Hazel Sky was played on the PC version with the settings specified by the developer.