Stray Blade
Stray Blade
Game
Game2023
Strayed Lights
Developer Embers
Strayed Lights is a colourful action-adventure featuring epic boss fights and a unique parry-based combat system. Shift between colours to repel attacks and strike back. Explore a dreamlike world as you restore your light that was torn by shadows. From the Steam store page
206 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Mastodon, Bluesky, Lemmy) · newest Oct 25, 2026 · last updated Nov 4, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
74
Fresh
138 positive · 48 negative
95% range 67–80%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 138 | 48 | 0 |
| Mastodon * | 1 | 0 | 10 |
| Bluesky * | 3 | 0 | 5 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 1 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
195 of 251 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
74% recommend · 140 yes, 48 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 188 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (400 of 499 positive).
Players praise the game's visuals and color-swapping parry combat. [1][2][3] Some find the combat repetitive and enemy variety lacking. [1][4][5] The game is short, often recommended on sale. [6][7][8]
Liked
Representative posts
- [15]
I really tried to like this but I can't shake the feeling that it's wasting my time. All the core elements are really solid, great art direction backed by a wonderful colour palette, interesting core gimmick, largely well-designed bosses and enemies, I want to emphasise that I like what this game is doing! The problem is that it feels like the map was scaled up to twice its original size at some point in …
- [1]
Decent action-adventure game with great visuals, unique color-swapping parry system, and a relaxing soundtrack. The combat system was somewhat fun, but barebones as you do not get any new combat abilities throughout most of the game. Enemy variation is at a minimal with the same encounters but sometimes mixing up the enemy type. Energy orbs hidden throughout the world can be collected to increase your energy …
- [3]
Strongly recommend this game. Strayed Lights enjoys a wild color palette, strong soundtrack (shoutout Austin Wintory), tight combat mechanics, and a surprisingly zen atmosphere. The two-color parry system is both unique and intuitive, lending itself to some blistering combat encounters. Story is pretty minimal here; come for the action and not the plot on this one. Strayed Lights is primarily a boss rush (a few …
- [5]
Struggling with what to give this game. The Good: It is visually stunning and does some fantastic visual story telling without a single word. The Bad: This game crashed a lot and I mean a lot lot... I played it on a steam deck where it says it is supported... Thankfully I never once lost any progress and it did a good job of restoring exactly where it crashed. The gameplay was also pretty mundane. It had an …
- [2]
A short, straightforward, and visually-pleasing experience. Strayed Lights is an wordless, atmospheric action game about growing up and confronting your inner demons. The key combat mechanic involves color matching your opponent while parrying blue or orange attacks, which heals you and fills your energy bar. Purple attacks cannot be parried and must be dodged. Combat is at its best during boss fights (which all …
Summarised from 34 of the 208 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 13, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Strayed Lights sits at 74% positive across 186 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Reactions
60 of 206 · most liked firstDecent action-adventure game with great visuals, unique color-swapping parry system, and a relaxing soundtrack. The combat system was somewhat fun, but barebones as you do not get any new combat abilities throughout most of the game. Enemy variation is at a minimal with the same encounters but sometimes mixing up the enemy type. Energy orbs hidden throughout the world can be collected to increase your energy efficiency but the game has no backtracking system once a level is complete which is…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really tried to like this but I can't shake the feeling that it's wasting my time. All the core elements are really solid, great art direction backed by a wonderful colour palette, interesting core gimmick, largely well-designed bosses and enemies, I want to emphasise that I like what this game is doing! The problem is that it feels like the map was scaled up to twice its original size at some point in development, and I don't mean the breadth of its scope, I mean in the scale of its…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Strayed Lights Last set of that marvellous game. First hour was quite difficult but after that, no more problems. #virtualphotogrphy #strayedlights #vprepost #vpsupport
positive · AI labelView post →Strayed Lights Another game that went under the radar of a lot of people. #virtualphotogrphy #strayedlights #vprepost #vpsupport
positive · AI labelView post →vast amounts of nothingness with an enemy every once and a while this game decided to make PARRY its entire personality, not a fan 4/10 combat uses the shoot um up bullet hell two color method where you can only block attack A when your this color and attack B when your this color. its slow to respond so im only ever hurt when trying to block swap color. can dodge for days!!! 6/10 looks nice - no map - no way point i picked up 2 rings out of 6 no idea what they do poked a purple egg, go find…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Visually, very pretty. ... And that's it. Parrying and matching parry colors is the game's general combat premise, but it feels... so painfully flat. No, I didn't get lost at the start. I'm not unfamiliar with the vagueness of the soulslike genre, and parrying is one of my favorite playstyles, with Sekiro shooting up to one of my all-time favorites. So I went into this feeling hopeful, and I found my way to progress pretty quickly, and... there's just no impact or excitement to anything going…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I liked the visual style, but that's about the only positive thing I have to say about it. Combat is "sort of" like Souls - at least a portion of it, but in a very primitive way. You have your energy bar, which fills up each time you do a perfect parry - and when it's full, you press a button to execute the enemy. Kind of like posture, but in reverse. There's a melee attack, but even the tutorial itself tells you that it's weak. So it's parry and sometimes dodge all the way, all the time.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Pros - Good concept. - Environment Design and Art carried the game. - Music is okay-ish. Cons - There's no SFX for some things. - Needs a bit more polish, imo. - Enemy attacks are too fast to follow sometimes. Especially when you have to concentrate on changing the colors at the right time. Bugs - Sometimes when I press the keys, it won't be reflected onto the screen. - Encountered a few crashes here and there.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A short, straightforward, and visually-pleasing experience. Strayed Lights is an wordless, atmospheric action game about growing up and confronting your inner demons. The key combat mechanic involves color matching your opponent while parrying blue or orange attacks, which heals you and fills your energy bar. Purple attacks cannot be parried and must be dodged. Combat is at its best during boss fights (which all feature a single opponent), but falls short on the two-mob trash packs between…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →-took 4-5 hours to complete game including afk time -Wasn't really challenging -combat system could of been a whole lot more interesting but mostly all you do is parry, -Walking sim in between bosses, with a few mobs along the way. If its on special go head and buy it, the game looks good and is a chill experience, but at the moment it isn't worth full price
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A game to be beaten in a couple of hours or a weekend! It's short yes, but also beautiful. Definitely recommend it during sale. Pretty vistas, some decent exploration and some big boss battles make up the game. Only gripe with it is that the "Intense" difficulty (3/3) is designed for a cat. I have decent reflexes but that difficulty was too much for me. On the other hand, the Balanced difficulty felt a little more forgiving than I'd like. I was making a few mistakes that I shouldn't be…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Massive frame drops for no reason, regardless of settings or game area.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am in love with this game. I completed the "normal" difficulty in one stream. Sweet story, fun gameplay, pretty visuals and beautiful boss designs. But I have to admit....... I restarted on the highest difficulty in my offline time and I find myself sinking HOURS into it. I am completely & absolutely addicted to the challenge this game provides. It has my vote for Outstanding Visual Style Award for this year's Steam Awards ♥
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Whilst I think there's potential, and whilst this sort of game is normally right up my alley (I loved Worldless for example, but also more well-known games such as Sekiro). - Crashing, this is honestly the main point, without it, I'd probably keep going, but in just 90 minutes, I've had three crashes. - Sound design, or rather, lack thereof. It's incredibly bland, with barely any meaningful combat information being communicated through it. The lack of differentiation results in a game that…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Im going to start off by saying that I think the dev team has a lot of talent and I cant wait to see how they take their experience with this game and use it to make something in the future. The art team especially went crazy in this game, and it is beautiful as a result. However, This is not a game that I can in good faith recommend to anyone else. Let me explain This game suffers from a number of serious issues that i will go into below This Should Have Been A Boss Rush In my…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Strayed lights has a very unique and abstract story, simple but very beautiful visuals and an interesting Sekiro-light and fun combat system. The enemies have exciting combos that have quite a steep learning curve and the main character is pretty and adorable. The game has some similarities to the Ori series which are very pleasant and the environment reminds me of a surreal, beautiful place that you see, when you meditate. However, I can't help myself but have the unbearable urge to…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Strongly recommend this game. Strayed Lights enjoys a wild color palette, strong soundtrack (shoutout Austin Wintory), tight combat mechanics, and a surprisingly zen atmosphere. The two-color parry system is both unique and intuitive, lending itself to some blistering combat encounters. Story is pretty minimal here; come for the action and not the plot on this one. Strayed Lights is primarily a boss rush (a few brief levels serve as interludes, with minor enemies to practice against). Each…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A case where the developers' ambitions outpaced the capabilities of the game engine. I was hard-pressed to find a performance balance that I could satisfactorily maintain. Still, I got it on sale for a song, and it was well worth the short-lived time I spent playing it. It can be completed in two or three play sessions. The soundtrack is quite good, too. I recommend playing it on Easy and enjoying the wordless narrative since the parrying mechanic gets old quickly.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Should have been a bosh rush. ✔ block/parry + dodge based combat ✘ invisible walls ✘ walking, walking and trash mob combat ✘ I hate switching colors to block - why aren't there two block buttons (one per color) instead?! ✘ I guess I am getting old, because switching colors + block on Hard seemed impossible (unless you know enemy patterns by heart)
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is visually appealing and the gameplay is fun but a little repetitive. There is no one telling you what the story is which I love because it leaves you to your own imagination. One of the annoying things about this game is that enemies besides the bosses are very limited along with their move-sets. After about 15-30 minutes into the game you see all of the enemies you'll see in the game. Now this game is pretty short but It does seem like it drags on just a tad. But one of the best…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i think the fact that less than half of the people who made it past the tutorial boss did not make it past the first boss. the gameplay is okay but the design decisions are incredibly frustrating. what i'm mainly talking about is that after two attack combos (which are the only real way you do damage since attacking does pretty much nothing) the boss jumps away for at least 5 seconds - or in the case of phase 2 to an entirely different area that you have to run to. it's impossible to keep any…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I would say this is a solid showing if it were a solo dev or a student project or whatever. But I just couldn't have fun with this. The tutorial is extremely slow, taking 20 minutes to show you how to walk, walk walk, crouch, walk, jump, walk, run, run, run, parry, parry, parry, parry, parry and parry. The opening was bizarre - Your negative/upside down guy split your ember brain into shards and sent minions into the multiverse? What? Levels are quite linear once you start down a path, only…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just beat Strayed Lights. It was beautiful, visually and musically. The main game mechanic was fun, too. Though it was pretty short (5 hours) and it lacked some depth. Worth an on-sale pickup, I'd say.
neutral · AI labelView post →beat depression out of people good game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'm more the type to punch without thinking in games but Strayed Lights allowed me to discover a new way of playing and it was super fun! I found the color-switching mechanics of the enemies really interesting, it keeps you focused. It was not too simple and not too hard, really the perfect balance too keep the game relaxing and enjoyable, I play to have fun, not to get angry. Also, I find the art direction amazing, the landscapes were colorful and simply gorgeous and all that coupled with…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Well, glad I didn't buy this. Let me start with, the art style is beautiful, the artist didn't get paid enough. OK now that I've said the 1 good part, I'll move on. This game is 100% parry timing, that's it. The game play mechanic rewards you for parrying at the right time by giving you health. Very boring, very dry, very old fast. Game play is, run around corner, ooh new monster, learn parry attack pattern, be done, rinse repeat. YAWN! The person who though this would make good game play…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Struggling with what to give this game. The Good: It is visually stunning and does some fantastic visual story telling without a single word. The Bad: This game crashed a lot and I mean a lot lot... I played it on a steam deck where it says it is supported... Thankfully I never once lost any progress and it did a good job of restoring exactly where it crashed. The gameplay was also pretty mundane. It had an interesting color based parry and dodge mechanic that it used for combat, but every…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I had a good time with this title. Short and sweet with a decent combat challenge (due to the interesting mechanic color based parry mechanic). It's not a souls level of difficulty but some of the bosses will keep you on your toes even if you're playing on normal difficulty. Pros: - Interesting art style - Engaging parry based combat Cons: - Basic plot - Achievements are a pain (minor gripe) - For a game scored by Austin Wintory I expected more from the music. All in all if you…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game on a whim and I'm genuinely suprised at how great of an experience this game was. The atmosphere and visuals are absolutely gorgeous, the character designs are great and the boss fights are amazing and fun. I can barely find any negativity with the game. I love the unique combat, It's not something I've seen before and I'm an avid souls-like fan. I feel like I've played 80% of them. This is definitely a must play for those who love gorgeous visuals as well as souls-likes.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →[Game Bundle] With Soulslike These... You Need Enemies. $7: * Tails Of Iron * Arboria * Hellpoint $15: All above, plus: * Clash: Artifacts of Chaos * Stray Blade * Remnant: From The Ashes * Strayed Lights 84% Positive on Steam * [COUPON] Remnant: From the Ashes - Subject 2923 DLC - 70% off Coupon *(Humble Choice members save even more)* * [COUPON] Remnant: From the Ashes - Swamps of Corsus DLC - 70% off Coupon *(Humble Choice members save even more)*
neutral · AI labelView post →A small and enjoyable experience, exactly as long as it should be. The color-swapping is an interesting addition to the usual dodge/parry mechanics, and while they it was a bit of a struggle for me to get used to juggling both, once it clicked it came very naturally. The controls also were very tight, which is something a lot of Soulslikes fall prey to, especially from indie developers. Combine that with fun bosses with neat mechanics, gorgeous character animation and environmental setpieces,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →CW // Curvy, Nudity, Anthro An anthropomorphic take on a creature I saw in a game called "Strayed Lights."
neutral · AI labelView post →It was a joy to play this game. The music atmosphere was lovely, thought a tad quiet at some points. Very much a guided story-line on where to go while still having the freedom to choose the order etc. Ori of the blind forest aesthetic, with a souls like style of combat and bosses, though much more lenient & not as punishing. Different difficulties allow for the player to decide how aggravating or easygoing the game is. The last 3 bosses' fights were *chef's kiss* and it was super satisfying to…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lets start with the good things about this game, The graphics are phenomenal. A beautiful and colourful world with adorable characters that are unique and likeable. No chapter/world is the same, with each of them having a unique feel to them The boss battles are all different and keep you on your toes for the entirety of the battle. Even if you restart the fight after dying the boss is not guaranteed to hit you with the same move first during the second attempt. There are plenty of…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Truly an underrated game. Highly recommend this fun game. You start off as a ball of light but slowly gain powers like fighting/comabt. The start is slow so give it a chance as once you've done the tutorial its a great game. You colelct orbs as you go through the areas. The combat is fun as its challenging to change colors depending on the bosses. Basic enemies are easyt o take down but the level bosses are more fun and challenging as they are massive and scary looking but the idea isnt just…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game. Especially fun if you liked parrying. The game is quite abstract and has no dialogue.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game has beautiful graphics and a decent gameplay loop premise. However, don't purchase it unless you're a professional streamer. The dodge mechanic will make you invulnerable about half the time, and the other half you'll get hit anyways. The guard mechanic - which is mandatory to advance - seems to operate on a random number generator for when exactly you need to activate it, and only works for what appears to be a 0.1 second window. I'm just a casual gamer, and I only ever finished any…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Harder than Sekiro, but in a good way. The correct way to play this game is on Intense difficulty. The timings are very tight, but once you get it, parry/deflect is extremely rewarding and feels great, similar to Sekiro:Shadows die twice. The added difficulty comes from color juggling. The boss fights are very interesting, unique, cinematic and mechanically challenging, but also sometimes frustrating. The basic boss fighting game-loop consists of encountering attack patterns once or twice,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Should have been a boss rush... and even their animations seem "snapy/sudden" for a few of them. Outside of the bosses we have the same 3-4 enemies (sometime solo, sometimes duo) that feel out of place in this world. The Orbs (Upgrades) were neat since you now have a reason to look around while walking from one area to another (just like the lizards in Shadow of the Colossus). But talking about areas... locking them makes sense "lore" wise but there is absolutely no warning whatsoever which…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The controls are terrible; hit and block are at the same site of controller which is at least not optimal but but when I was at last 4th boss I kind got used to it ;). Sprint and dodge are under the same key which makes it terrible, imagine holding B(sprint) and looking around with right stick, terrible terrible. 2 levels at first stage have super ugly and repetitive terrain which isn't a good thing to keep player playing game if he sees this ♥♥♥♥ at the start. I never really played too much of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →dang! what a sweet little pickup of a game. soulslike fan, $2 and truly the game is honestly really unwinding and relaxing. the combat is mostly rhythm so once you pick it up, you will probably fly through bosses even on challenge mode. it sucks the game was as short as it was but honestly not a bad pickup at all. the devs did a really good job on this game and it deserves more hype forsure. a world filled with colors and all around just a nice cinematic experience tied in with just vibes to…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Steam Deck experience here. The game crashed a couple of times and killed my Deck once, so I had to shut down and reboot. I also couldn't launch it on a day, after switching Proton version it worked again. Overall it runs pretty bad with major drops in framerate and stuttering with really no recognisable reason. I tried different settings, proton version and tinkered around quite a bit. Considering the deck runs games like RDR2 or Elden Ring just fine I guess it's because of bad optimization.…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good gameplay concept, mediocre storytelling, some clunky movement, incredibly easy, very short, and overall unpolished. Have seen a lot of comparisons to Sekiro, the combat feels nowhere near as good as Sekiro. 2/10 Only worth it if you aren't paying full price
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Definitely a buy it on sale kinda game. Its short. However it is visually amazing. The game really is focused on parrying rather than attacking. Normal mode felt fair, I can imagine the hard mode being quite difficult.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This genre may be fun for some but the entire mechanic of the game is: - Switch to red - Parry - Switch to blue - Parry - Dodge unblockable attack - Repeat 10 -20 times per enemy - Push Q to insta kill them once your energy bar fill up from enough parries Play that for 12 hours straight and tell me it's fun. The devs really dropped the ball with this one. It could have been an interesting game but instead of gaining and upgrading specific elemental powers to use vs specific enemies/bosses,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game; Really nice visuals, and story mode is nothing short of beautiful... But in the most poetic way I can mean this: The game stole my heart, and it's not giving it back. And I'm not saying this in a "This is a bad game" kind of way, or a "This game is unsatisfying and leaves something to be desired" way. I'm saying this in a "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, why isn't there more?" Kind of way.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great atmospheric game with a contemplative feeling and an innovative way to fight mobs. I highly recommend if you like this type of combat/pary/dodge games. Also, amazing soundtrack.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →looks pretty, but it's just parry: the game. QTEs disguised as real gameplay
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →its not a bad game, but its a boring one imo. this is more of an exploration type rather than a game, the combat is very bare bones, just parry parry parry and win
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is not very long BUT it was an interesting game to play. The game is solely based on parries and counters with fast paced combat and quick hand eye coordination. With the starting hard difficulty adding more non-parry able attacks with faster changing of colors to parry, the game is good for what it is. There is NO dialog in this title, which makes it hard to follow and find where you need to go BUT again being a small and linear game makes it a bit challenging. I started on the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Not recommended for the following reasons: No story. No combat balance. No map. No music. No direction. No introduction. Extremely bad animation timings or no animation timings at all. Simply put, the game is only as good as the aesthetics. This game is entirely built in parring, qte's and the developers idea of perfection........I mean this literally. PERFECT TIMING. There is ZERO forgiveness on errors. And the final battle? Divided into 2 separate sections and you are going to die within 8…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It is a wonderful game. I love the story and how it is transported! The fighting system is a bit weird at first but it pretty is easy to learn and the fights are quite satisfying.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I don't usually comment on games ,but this is a hidden gem ,loved the game and the world this Starayed Lights 2 could be a top game if it will be longer more complex ,because the idea and the world are fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →HARD MODE WARNING: The game doesn't tell you this but hard mode doesn't just make enemies do more damage, it decreases their telegraphs to basically none so you have to memorise the combos since they become unreactable. Shame too, since the game is way too easy on normal, but still very enjoyable despite that and its short length.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →✨🦷STREAM ENDED🦷✨ RUBINITE IS SO DAMN GOOD! I NEED THE FULL GAME NYOW AHHHH! Strayed Lights was aight :3 We raided over to @patan-chan.bsky.social for some chill art vibes :3
neutral · AI labelView post →Not for me. I loved Sifu and I mostly liked Sekiro so I'd say I enjoy difficult combat games. However it seems like the devs looked at those games and thought "Hey, let's make it so you have to push another button to matchy match a color while parrying/blocking to get the max benefit." Just seems like an unnecessary and not particularly fun mechanic to me. I also found dodging to be very unintuitive in that some things I thought I could easily dodge I would end up getting hit by while other…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I enjoy this game very much. I enjoy the art and creativity of this game, it honestly reminds me of the time when I was battling my demons and knowing I was able to overcome them and this game absolutely has those vibes to it. Definitely worth the play.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Honestly, this is a pretty amazing game. I did not expect it to go this hard in literally every aspect. Played it on the hardest difficulty and the combat was challenging but very fun.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dang, soooo disappointed. This game "looks" great, but plays very not great, and is pretty buggy, especially if you use a controller. I bought it for $4, and am writing it off as a lesson learned.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I usually don't like games that require parry I'm terrible at it, but thus game deuterium requires it but is not impossible like I feel some other games are. About halfway through and really liking it so far
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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