With the rise of online gaming, we get treated to less and less couch cooperative games. Sure, online gaming gives you the option to connect with other players in ways that we never dreamed of back in the days of the classic consoles, but the tradeoff is the inability to play games with your friends or family locally due to limitations or lack of resources. You’re required to purchase multiple systems, TVs, and everything else needed to complete a setup, even within the same home (as someone who has done this, it’s not cheap). When a game comes along that offers local co-op, and at times almost requires it, it’s quite refreshing. This is the camp that the newly released adventure game Degrees of Separation falls into.

It opens by introducing us to our heroes, Ember and Rime, two mysterious beings that live isolated lives in their respective areas of the world until a chance meeting brings them together. From the onset, it’s clear these two are on track to follow a Romeo and Juliet-esque narrative, with unique contrasting abilities that alter the world around them in real time. With Ember controlling fire based abilities, she can melt away ice, set off explosives, and explore underwater areas; Rime’s ice based abilities essentially bring the opposite to the table, and the two will have to work in tandem to solve puzzles within the semi-open world.

The gameplay revolves entirely around collecting black scarves that are hidden throughout the five worlds, each with their own unique mechanics. Each puzzle will require you to think outside of the box, often through trial and error using both characters’ token abilities, some of which require pinpoint timing and execution, with the majority being cut and dry. The puzzles are well designed, but fall on the repetitive side fairly early into the adventure, with the interactive options being quite obvious, such as pulling on a rope, using levers, or simply freezing a waterway. The biggest challenge is determining which of the characters needs to do what, as the abilities I mentioned previously happen automatically when the character inhabits a specific area of the screen. Around the mid-point of the game, the challenges become a bit more taxing, but thankfully 100% completion is not a requirement to progress, as you can usually continue walking in the event you can’t solve a puzzle here and there.

The visuals are by far the standout element containing beautifully rendered levels with staggering amounts of detail. This becomes even more breathtaking as you move the characters around on the same screen, due to the way the screen splits leaving each character stuck in a version of the same level that takes cues from their element. While both backdrops are impressive, Ember’s forest backdrop feels a bit off, simply due to the fact it appears ripped from the forest areas of FernGully opposed to what I would associate with fire. Since I come from the Midwestern part of the US, I can speak to the fact that Rime’s version of the world looks spot on for what some would call a winter wonderland and others would call Hell frozen over. There are some minor visual design choices that broke the immersion for me, with the biggest issue being the static animations associated with jumping, which I can only compare to Stuart from Mad TV sans the “Look what I can do” catch phrase. Oh, and Rime has a man bun. I don’t think that needs further explanation of why it shouldn’t be a thing, but I found it hard to take him seriously with one of the worst fashion trends of my lifetime.

As I mentioned in the opening, this is a game that is clearly designed from the ground up with co-op in mind, so much so that it’s a downright chore to play solo. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the bulk of the game when playing with my wife, but the solo gameplay suffers due to an almost complete lack of AI interaction. This results in you having to essentially complete many of the puzzles twice to progress, with the AI only stepping up when you attempt to inhabit the same area of the screen, resulting in the AI kicking in, making the secondary character jump out of your way. Needless to say, some of the puzzles that require you to work in close proximity of the other character become frustrating to the point that it’s almost unplayable unless you can recruit someone to step in or hook up a second controller (yes, I had to do this).

Spanning five unique worlds, the game has a decent amount of content for the price of admission. It’s an experience that will be cheaper than dinner and a movie and will give you some quality bonding time over one of the more romantic options on the market thanks to the touching story following the protagonists’ budding romance and extremely simple controls (you move and jump… that’s it. I mean it; there are literally no other commands to memorize aside from switching characters if you play solo). The game clocks in at around three hours for a quick playthrough, with the option to revisit past worlds for those seeking out any missed scarves.

If you’re like me and struggle to find a sitter, I can’t recommend Degrees of Separation enough for a quiet date night in, even if you want to play it in front of the kiddos thanks to the Disney style design and story. On the flip side, this could be a huge disappointment if you have yet to find the fire to your ice.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Beautifully Rendered Environments
• Couch Co-op Play
• Controls

Cons

• Repetitive Puzzles
• Single Player
• Rime’s Man Bun
• Wonky Jump Animations

Degrees of Separation was developed by Moondrop and published by Modus Games. It launched on NS, PC, PS4, and X1 February 14th, 2019 for $19.99. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Degrees of Separation, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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