Review | Seed of Life

LifeisXbox’s Seed of Life review | When I first looked at the Steam page of Seed of Life, I definitely saw a lot of potential. How could you not, with the amazing-looking graphics portraited in the trailer and screenshots, together with what sounded like an amazing adventure? Of course, I had to see for myself whether or not Seed of Life was worth all the fuzz I was creating inside my own mind.

Seed of Life is an action-adventure game that includes platforming and puzzle components. In this particular game, you’ll be taking on the role of Cora, the last known survivor of Lumia, a dying planet. It all becomes a story based on light and darkness, in which Cora has to save her home by activating the Seed of Life. Let’s help Cora find The Seed in this brand new game developed by MadLight and published by Leonardo Interactive.

ℹ️ | Maui played Seed of Life for 6 hours on PC. This game is only available on PC.

What we liked!

• Abilities | Cora starts out with no abilities at all. Soon, you’ll discover a Talisman, which you’ll be carrying around on your back. This Talisman will show you how much health and lumium points you have left, but more imporantly, it holds six ability spots. It also has some sort of compass on it that points you in certain directions, but I found this function counter-intuitive and ended up barely using it. Gathering lumium from the start is very important, as it is the source required to use your abilities. On your journey, you’ll need to look for capsules, and these have the abilities you need to progress in the game. The first ability you will unlock is the Vision Capsule, which shows you hidden paths, objects, and points of interest. The Light Capsule comes next, which will provide light in dark areas so you can easily progress in, for example, caves. The Sprint Capsule allows you to run faster and jump further distances. I feel like this was an unnecessary ability since Cora should’ve been able to run and jump bigger distances from the start, but I do understand the developer’s decision to make it an ability. The Regeneration Capsule is extremely helpful when you’re quickly losing health, or when you’re about to die and can’t get to a waypoint in time. The Magnetism Capsule allows you to interact with strange objects floating in the sky, and the Manipulation Capsule allows you to manipulate and move certain objects. I found these abilities to be quite refreshing and using them was a lot of fun. Combining them was even more fun, and even though it took a little getting used to, you figure them out rather quickly!
• Graphics and sound | Cora’s world is very beautiful, there is no denying that. The developers did an excellent job creating a gorgeous game, and considering this is a two-person studio, their work definitely deserves a big applause. MadLight studios describes Seed of Life as a ‘breathtaking sci-fi setting in a dystopian future’ and I feel they did so accordingly. The balance between light and dark is a job well done in Seed of Life and bring a beautiful aestethic to the game. You travel through a crumbling world where you only meet aliens, despair, and a dying world. You won’t meet a single other human being, and I never once missed interaction with other humans. On top of that, you also get an enjoyable soundtrack that fits in with the science-fiction vibe the developers were trying to create.

Somewhere between

• Vague and general quests | The guidance in Seed of Life is minimal. You basically have to figure out where to go by yourself, but it’s pretty linear so it’s not too hard to make out what to do next or what path to follow. Still, I think the lack of guidance might be less convenient for other players who heavily rely on it. Alongside this is the problem with the vague and general quests like ‘collect all capsules’. Of course this is important, but this is so very general that I didn’t feel like it served an actual purpose. Simply put: the quests were too general or just too obvious. There were subquests at times, but it just didn’t really sit right with me, and to be honest, I barely looked at the quests. When I was at the lava river, it was kind of totally obvious that I had to cross is, so an objective saying to cross is, what just plain ridiculous, as was the other ‘guidance’ provided throughout the game.
• Story | Cora’s home has been invaded by mysterious guests. Thanks to their visit, the sun is dying and her entire world is fading into chaos. Since the invaders took the planet’s life force, everybody left on the planet will face a certain death. The aliens who came ended up staying, absorbing what’s left alive. It’s up to Cora to find The Seed, an alien device capable of generating the essence of life the planet so vastly needs. That’s it for the story, which will be told to you in the beginning of the game. It sounds interesting, and there’s even a small ‘plot twist’ in the game to keep the story entertaining. So all in all, I wasn’t too mad about the story. However, the lack of connection to the main character (Cora) and not really seeing any personal growth for Cora messed up everything a bit for me. A story can be good, great even, but if you feel no connection to your character, and if your character shows no emotion whatsoever, it’s hard to actually feel intrigued by anything that is happening. And I haven’t even mentioned the voice acting yet …
• Simple puzzles | Seed of Life provides some puzzles along the way, but in reality, they hardly require the player to think. It’s all very obvious, and even though they are a nice addition sometimes, I’m not entirely convinced that the puzzles that were implemented reached their full potential. I would’ve loved to see more puzzle-elements, and definitely some tasks that required more effort to solve. Seeing as the description reads ‘challening puzzles’, I feel like there wasn’t much challenge to be found.
• Semi-open world | Freely explore a beautiful and vast world where secrets are hidden in every corner and environmental challenges will test your skills. This is what the Steam page reads under ‘semi-open world’. Unfortunately, I have to disagree a little here. Sure, you can wander around this beautiful world, but you probably won’t be doing this too much. In reality, the story and gameplay is pretty linear and you’ll find yourself roughly following the path the developers created for you. You see, exploring often means dying and losing whatever part you explored in the game. You only have 100 health points and these run out quickly, especially since a lot of Lumia is toxic, dangerous, or just kills you within seconds. Before getting to the Regeneration Capsule, I suggest you don’t wander off too often.

What we disliked

• Voice acting | If you have read my reviews before, you know I always appreciate it when developers put time and effort into creating voice acting throughout a game. This must be the first time that I did not, in any way, enjoy the voice acting in a game where said effort was put into. I’m not sure how all of this went wrong, but the main character, Cora, just sounds so bland and flat. From the moment she started talking, I did not feel any sort of emotion in her voice, even if she was telling a sad story. It’s a real shame, honestly, because it ruined part of the story and the overall experience.
• Technical issues | I had a few more technical annoyances along the way that really put a damper on the overal experience. For example, Cora’s movement felt uneven and unprecise at times. Camera angles were all over the place, especially when you were in smaller environments, and this caused me to fall and die more than once. On top of this, the lack of precision was a total disaster. In platforming, precise jumping is so very important, and there was none of this in Seed of Life. I died a lot in this game, and even though it was often my mistake, it happened quite a lot that it was due to the lack of precision in jumping, bad camera angles, and overall technical issues.
  
  

How long to beat the story | 4 to 7 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | 4 to 7 hours
Similar with |

LifeisXbox.eu is the largest Belgian Xbox centered website, your reading time is greatly appreciated! Please consider sharing this review with your friends on social media, that means a lot for us! If you are Dutch-speaking also consider joining our Dutch exclusive Facebook group Xbox Gamers Belgium. Feel free to use quotes for PR purposes.