Look back at yesterday. You were just there, weren’t you? It was real and it was important and it was everything, literally everything, if your world. Now you’re here, in today, and yesterday is back there. Already a fuzziness begins to inhabit what was your thinking, breathing, all encompassing day, and you want to keep it strong and true. But the past is water in your hand: the tighter you hold on, the faster it seems to slip away. Our lives are the ever flowing river of joy and sorrow, of success and failure, and we are but imperfect archives of all we have done and all we have meant. OPUS: Prism Peak looks at the frailty and importance of the past, to tell a tale of nostalgia and regret, and what it means to keep things pure while learning to let go. While it isn’t perfect, it is beautiful.

Literally the only screenshot I have of the titular Peak without spoilers.

Eugene doesn’t want to go home. He’s spent his life escaping from the world that was his past, living far from his childhood town and trying to bury himself in work and the future. But his grandfather’s funeral calls him back, and he must return to honor the man who taught him so much. Eugene’s plan is waylaid when his car suddenly brings him to the Dusklands, a world where things feel slightly alien and he’s almost the only human. Almost. Eugene finds a lost, amnesiatic girl, who only knows two things: she must get to the top of the mountain, and they must avoid the destructive and consuming force known as the Shade. Aided by a handful of benevolent talking animals, Eugene will shepherd the girl back to her abode, and, in the course, help discover the truth about her, himself, and what it means to reflect and grow.

When I had an opportunity to interview Scott Chen about OPUS: Prism Peak a couple years back, I was intrigued but ultimately ignorant as to what the games were all about. He spoke of starting with a word or phrase and building the gaming world around that idea. He mentioned about players having fulfillment from the game, not accomplishment, and that always struck me as something very different. For so many gaming titles, it’s about what you can do and how it essentially “wins” in the end. Score points, discover secrets, max out combinations and so on. Yet to have a game be fulfilling – to help fill up the cup within us that grows bigger and bigger with age – you need something substantial, something that moves you. If a game satisfies you, fantastic: there are a huge number of excellent titles being made every day. But this goes beyond that.

When you enter into the world of OPUS: Prism Peak, you can quickly get fooled by the game’s mechanics into finding something polished yet ordinary set out before you. Eugene’s primary interaction with the world is through the lens of his camera. Much like Mark from RENT, Eugene has made a living taking photos of everyone and everything to capture the moment in permanence, to allow others to be in the spotlight instead of himself. As a result, when the game begins, you have the basics on hand to help accomplish the task of photographing things. There’s autofocus and everything you want to shoot will be in the ideal light. It’s simple to snap a picture of a street sign or statue that you come across and you’re rewarded by a short piano sting and then some text to confirm that what you photographed was, in fact, important.

Yes, there’s a whole bench available, but sitting HERE makes you uncomfortable!

The advancement of the camera goes in tandem with the progress that Eugene is making in his own journey and what his self-discovery brings to the forefront. Suddenly he gains more control of the camera through deference to the very nature of the Dusklands and his attention to the land. He gains manual shutter speed control for better light exposure. He can pick up manual focus to really pay attention to what matters. Eugene even ends up with some lenses to change the color and the saturation of his photography, with part of it being important for progression and part of it being important because why not find color and beauty in what you do? Eugene re-discovers his passion and his own confidence through more and more photos as he traverses the Dusklands.

But you still need to take these photographs and make sense of them. Most pictures will interact with a discarded journal you find that outlines, but doesn’t explain, what you’ll be finding along the way. The talking animals who you photograph need to see for themselves what they look like, from your point of view, to rediscover who they are and what they mean. There’s a series of murals that you discover that give a disjointed but critical history of the Dusklands and how things came to be, and you need to carefully consider the captions left inside the journal for which mural photo belongs where. Not to mention there’s always the possibility that something you see is actually very important, but it doesn’t present as such. The vending machine is meaningful to someone, but it isn’t you: does that make it worth capturing?

This latest from Banksy is a criticism of…uh…England. maybe.

The further along you get, Eugene’s perspective begins to shift, and the very nature of OPUS: Prism Peak changes along with him. The girl, who we learn is named Ren, needs help from the mysterious Seer, whom everyone speaks of with a different tone, a different view of what he means to them. A friend, a companion, a leader, a scallywag, a coward and a hero. No one is wrong in their interpretation, and you absolutely need to pay attention to what the others think and have to say. It’s not enough to take photos of the animals and their surroundings, you have to read, carefully, what is said in some of the pictures. When the animals who know the Seer share their ideas, pay attention. It’s the little details that you receive that pave the way forward and help Eugene see what is really in front of him.

As the gameplay is mostly walking, talking and photographing, the moments of varied control and reactions have their ups and downs. On the plus side, the methodic way you have to put together photographic puzzles feels natural and intuitive to the pacing of the story. You’ll have to get the right photos to the right beings at the right time, either face-to-face or through the mysterious fire bowl that appears in each area. These photo selections help the spirits move the game forward for you, but also give Eugene deeper insight into what everything in the Dusklands means to him. Being able to get vague hints and select the right picture to unlock additional information and content is wonderfully satisfying. Inversely, when you miss an opportunity to capture a photo, the shame and disappointment conveyed by the game is gut wrenching, demanding that you do better if you’re earnest.

But OPUS: Prism Peak also incorporates moments of high stakes, fast response gameplay, and these don’t fit as well. With one major exception towards the end of the game (where the soundtrack is INCREDIBLE), most of your QTE segments come too fast with too little direction what to do. You almost always end up “dying” at least once, which can be important to moving the plot forward but still doesn’t fit into the overall moments of gameplay. Because these moments involve needing to photograph something as fast as possible, it’s counterintuitive to the measured, careful moments of the entire rest of the game. It’s the gold leaf on top of a piece of chocolate cake: it’s visually appealing, but doesn’t enhance the flavor and, on occasion, gets stuck in your craw. However, I wouldn’t remove these sections of the game (as they are important); they just aren’t my favorite.

But they DO end up with some of the most cinematic moments in the whole game.

From an artistic standpoint, Prism Peak is a gorgeous masterpiece. The crafting of the Dusklands as you transition from magical realism to complete cosmic disassociation is wonderful, and the graphics pop and shine from moment to moment. The distortion that comes from the world seeming to shimmer and fade before your eyes sits heavily in your heart, and the way that certain objects come into focus when enough attention is given is impossibly important. From the factory that lies empty and abandoned to the town inhabited by ghosts and regrets, Eugene’s journey in the Dusklands is one full of detail and tidbits that can be equally appreciated as either photographic moments or merely observations. I adore that billboards, roadsigns and magazines are done up in the Dusklands’ glyphs that give everything cohesion and meaning, even if you can’t initially read them.

This visual beauty extends to Eugene and Ren as well. We have to witness this pair go through a parade of experience and emotion together, each reacting and feeling something different as the story unfolds and we try our best to understand what it is that’s happening. Eugene never gets a chance to be in front of the camera in his current form, but, though dips in and out of time, we see snapshots of his life and how he has been shaped into the man who now watches over a lost child. Ren, comparatively, is deeply affected by the influence of the Shade and the power of the Dusklands, and seeing her sprite gradually lose opacity and tangibility gives urgency to your journey, even as she does her best to play it off as something incidental.

That…that’s no moon! Oh, wait, no, it’s the moon. Sorry, it’s been a while.

I often wax poetic about the soundtracks that I get to enjoy during my gaming adventures, and I’ll do my best to focus on what OPUS: Prism Peak’s music means to me. There is such a deliberate, careful scoring for each moment that you truly feel like you’re alive in the tone and the world of each section. Even when things are truly foreboding and ominous, you never feel afraid, only distraught or hopeless. The happy moments are shot through with melancholy tones as the piano compliments the strings and occasional horn. There’s an electronic ambience throughout, as you feel the sounds of the Dusklands positively charged with anticipation. It’s not just that the music is good or appropriate: it’s that the tracks feel bespoke for what is happening, and there’ll never be another great match for the sounds as what you are seeing and feeling right now. 

Every track lives in a world where you are a part of something special and, oftentimes, intimate. Aren’t We Friends? uses a lonely harmonica to accent Eugene’s struggle to face his past and what his choices meant to those he left behind. Don’t You Break Her Heart reverberates against a startling admission that leaves everyone uncomfortable even as they fight to move forward. As  REBEL FRAME rips through your headphones, you can thrill at the final QTE climb towards your destination, desperately timing your photographs to stay alive. And as you finally crest the Prism Peak itself, Sarah Àlainn’s voice reaches out across the heavens to encircle your heart as you struggle with the unapologetic I Am Farewell Itself, I Am Life. It’s an incredible score that stands on its own as one of the best modern soundtracks, and the music simply destroys you the more you understand.

The music and soundscaping are perfectly complimented by the myriad of voicework that went into this game. Fully voiced in four different languages, the apprehension, the terror, the angst, the sorrow and the hope of everyone comes across in fully voiced beauty. The tones of Eugene’s self-loathing and gradual rise to courage and maturity are heard throughout, and each voice has its own special tone, its own direction. I don’t think I would have cried nearly as hard as I did if I had merely been reading what was on screen, but being able to feel the emotion heavy in Eugene’s voice as Ren brings him back into his life is  beyond what I was able to hold onto and maintain. It’s been a long time since a game really made me weep, and the surprise tears from connection were welcome, if painful.

This feels like it’s said right before grandpa gets trampled by wildebeests.

Lastly, let the story happen. OPUS: Prism Peak shows the truth of where Eugene is and what has happened long before Eugene realizes it, and that’s more than okay. It’s not a mystery to be figured out, but a wonderful walk through a life where you’re entreated to what it means to live, to hurt, to love and to lose. You’ll realize some of the truths about what has happened before Eugene does, and you have no choice but to watch a car crash unfold, slowly and deliberately, as he takes in the truth about where he is and who is walking alongside him. There are moments where you’ll want to stop. You’ll want to disconnect from the game. Maybe it’s for self preservation, maybe it’s because it becomes too much. I understand. Don’t endanger your own mental health. If you can, though, hold on. 

Rolling credits on OPUS: Prism Peak was one of the most bittersweet moments in my gaming history. As much as I want to go back and try to ferret out the other endings, I need to take a beat and allow myself to feel it all. I want to listen to all the voice notes that were unlocked after finishing. I want to figure out where I can do better, photograph more, respond more appropriately to really see all of the loved ones who made up Eugene’s life. But I also want to do better. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and realize that I’ve been outside of every photograph of my life. OPUS: Prism Peak is an awakening disguised as a game. This is SIGONO’s finest creation yet. I implore you to come experience the Dusklands for yourself. Follow the embershine petals: the path ahead awaits.

OPUS: Prism Peak is available now on Steam and Nintendo Switch 2.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of OPUS: Prism Peak was provided by the publisher.