In today’s modern gaming world, certain genres of games seemingly have a popularity rotation and consistently pop in and out of mainstream attention. Oftentimes, we find first-person shooters to bombard our social media feeds and recommended videos.

Sometimes it’s horror games that leave on-screen players and reviews leaping out of their seats, but they still have us buying them for our own gaming library. This time, it’s the return of puzzle games! With Portal arguably being one of the most popular puzzle games of its time, it’s time to dive back into the genre as a newcomer approaches in the form of Sonority!

GAMEPLAY

Sonority is a music-inspired puzzle game from Hanging Gardens Interactive and published by Application Systems Heidelberg (to whom I’ve previously reviewed one of their other published games, Ghost on the Shore). You play as Esther, a young, go-getter adventurer living in the lands of Sonority, working hard to research, discover and unlock the power, and mystery, behind music.

Esther’s current goal is to aid her friend Batama (who is a bear, as in Sonority, animals, and humans co-exist as peaceful equals) by tracking down an ancient melody that possesses the power to heal illnesses. Alongside characters like Raccoon and Zuzu, the magical stone head, Esther’s journey reveals more than just clues to an ancient piece of music. Esther learns about herself, her worth, and the world of Sonority that she lives in. It is a delightful journey that left me feeling quite hopeful by the end, something the musical aspects of the game really helped drive home.

As the game implies a heavy lean on the world of peace and harmony, protagonist Esther doesn’t possess any weapons that can maim or hurt. A simple pan flute is Esther’s go-to music instrument of choice, with but a single note to play. The majority of Esther’s gameplay-based journey revolves around encountering and completing various music-based puzzles. As per most puzzle games, a tutorial/easy solution style puzzle is presented first, but they become increasingly more complex as the game goes on.

However, to counter the increasing puzzle difficulty, Esther will uncover more wonderful and rich instruments to learn as play, allowing for greater strategic approaches to puzzles. Though the new instruments unlock certain approaches to puzzles, there is a sense of overwhelming to the new induction of items that may cause you to reset the entire puzzle and start from scratch.

GRAPHICS + AUDIO

Alongside its impressive story, music integration, and clever puzzles, Sonority is an incredibly addictive and wonderfully colourful world to traverse through. Each location has been designed with a devil-in-the-detail approach, meaning every brush, brick, tree, stone, and item has both its place and meaning. The art style is rich and shares a borderline cell-shading approach, leaving almost a Disney-esque feel to the worlds and characters, which makes you, as a player, emotionally connect with their worlds on a deeper level.

SUMMARY

Sonority is a fresh new take on the genre of puzzle gaming. Day by day, more and more indie developers are stealing the limelight from majority brands, and Sonority deserves every single ray of light it can muster! With a wonderful story and gameplay that doesn’t alienate real-life non-musical instrument players, Sonority is an immersive game you’ll listen to, and lose yourself in, for hours on end.

Written by: Brutaleo