Hue Review - One of the most beautiful games I've ever played.

 By Sam Coles:

There are some games where you can relax and be amazed with its art style and music that was the feeling I got when I played Hue. I don’t usually like to play indie plaformers due to the overabundance of them on Steam etc. Hue however has a wonderful soundtrack, graphics and great puzzles to solve which can get tricky.

You play as the titular Hue where you start off in a seaside town saturated with a grey tone with all life sucked out of it, you get hints about what happened when Hue’s mother has left letters scattered throughout the world which are voiced well as you play. The story is about Hue’s mother mostly and how she found a way to manipulate colour in the world which plays into the gameplay and this is story telling done well in games when it attributes to the gameplay rather than random fluff to pad out the game or stopping the game all together.

Hue is a 2D platformer where you do the usual running and jumping over treacherous and dangerous obstacles which is standard fair like other games but it has a unique gameplay mechanic but utilising colour. How this works there are various colour blocks, platforms and hazards that you can manipulate by making them disappear or reappear. This great because there are some fantastic puzzles which get fiendishly tricky in the latter half of the game and sometimes the solution can be staring you in face but it does require you to think for a minutes.

Graphically the game looks superb it evokes the shadow puppet theatre look with silhouettes with only one detail which are the eyes. It’s black and white with most objects except for the colour specific platforms and doors throughout each stage. The music is worth a mention because it’s subtle yet beautiful with a soothing and sometimes haunting piano musical score, which makes me want to buy this soundtrack.

The only nit-pick I have with this game is that the jumping can be a bit floaty and Hue can run a bit slow but I can see why they made the pace of the character that slow it’s not a game that you rush, it urges you to take your time.

Hue was a nice change of pace from my usual gaming, it was nice and relaxing where for once I didn’t have to shoot anything, it’s a game that required using my brain and rewarded me when I was successful. It’s short but it’s as long as it needs to be, I would highly recommend getting this game.