Greak: Memories of Azur is a fast-paced, 2D side-scroller that follows the story of three siblings who are trying to escape from their homeland during the Urlag invasion.  In a manner similar to Trine and The Lost Vikings, you can eventually control all three characters, though the demo covers two, Greak and his sister Adara.  The game features some beautiful hand-drawn artwork, which, combined with the high difficulty of the boss fight at the end of the demo, gave me some Hollow Knight vibes.

The demo took me roughly 40 minutes to complete and covers a short jaunt through the woods fighting what appear to be zombies, followed by Lycer Fortress.  Greak has a double jump and can fight with his sword, whereas Adara has a long-range attack that must be recharged and can float short distances.  Characters can be controlled separately or together by holding a button, which is a cool feature that can prevent the backtracking usually associated with controlling multiple characters (which was the case in The Lost Vikings).  Plus, the character you aren’t controlling attacks nearby enemies automatically, so they aren’t completely helpless if you leave them alone for a short time.

I enjoyed the Greak demo way more than I expected to, but online reviews of the full game left me feeling less optimistic.  Many people found the game underwhelming and didn’t like how the characters controlled when together, which is definitely an issue I noticed during the demo.  It is indeed very easy for the pair to get out of sync.  So while walking side by side works out quite nicely, platforming with any precision quickly becomes quite a nuisance.

They also said you don’t get the third character until the final quarter of the game, the inventory is too limited (I noticed this, as well), and the story never really gets resolved.  Lastly, they also mentioned that most of the puzzling consisted merely of one character holding down a switch for the others, which was certainly the case in the demo.

The game is available on all consoles, plus PC, for $19.99, but I’ve seen it go on sale for $7.99, making the 6-8 hours the game takes to complete seem more reasonable.  Despite the mixed reviews online, it’s quite likely that I’ll want to give Greak: Memories of Azur a chance in the future.  Because no matter what people are saying about the game, that doesn’t change the fact that I had a lot more fun in this demo than I do with most.  The fast-paced action combined with lovely artwork helped Greak to stand out from the countless other demos I’ve played, though I’ll certainly be waiting to buy it on sale to justify the game’s short length.