Lila’s psychedelic world is in grave danger. It’s up to you to stop the Conductor’s minions and save all things musical and magical.

Lila’s Sky Ark is a colourful, whimsical and puzzle filled world of music and bizarre creatures. You play as Lila, seemingly the only human-like creature in the entirety of the strange little world the game takes place in. The daughter of a witch and a giant one-eyed robot with some amazing half of sunglasses accessories to keep him looking fresh.

It cannot be understated how lovely and simplistic the visual design of the game is. Pixelated style games are a dime a dozen these days, and a lot tend to miss the mark. Thankfully, with Lila’s Sky Ark there is just enough nuance with the decision of the colour palette and boss designs, as well as general enemy design, to really paint a unique world. Realistically, out of all the NPCs, characters, bosses and enemies, Lila herself is the least interesting to look at. Thankfully, despite her being the focus, there is so much happening in the world that it never detracts from the beauty around you.

Lila’s Sky Ark is a game clearly paying homage to early Zelda titles, with a dungeon crawling, top-down style of gameplay. In playing this homage there are a few other direct links to these earlier titles. The game will direct you on where you should be with a small fairy, somewhat reminiscent of Navi in Ocarina of Time. There is many other small connections to dungeon crawler adventure games of earlier years. Giant animals acting as guardians of the distinct areas. A giant cat god boss. Powered up gauntlets to lift heavier objects, holding a pair of boots to be able to sprint. Lila’s Sky Ark holds its unique style, whilst also writing a love letter to the genre that it is based on.

In this uniqueness, comes the combat of the game. You have no intrinsic attacks. All of your damage comes from picking up different items in the environment and throwing them at enemies. These range from simple items like boxes, rocks and jars. To special items like a roped dart from plants, or explosive eyeballs of titans. Freezing fruit bombs or homing balls of energy. The variety of interactable items that you can use to battle off enemies is quite large, and you’ll find what you enjoy using more as you progress further through the game.

You’ll get a backpack early on, which will act as your ammo pouch essentially. You can store any items that don’t require you to have gotten an early upgrade to lift heavier objects. There will be upgrades available for the backpack across the game which will allow you to carry a greater variety specialised throwing items, to make fights easier to do.

Unfortunately, the combat whilst allowing for a varied approach to engaging in it; it’s thoroughly unfulfilling for the most part. General combat against enemies in the overworld is generally a case of throwing a couple of pots or boxes in the area. That’s if you feel the threat of them at all. For the most part, I found it significantly easier to just avoid all enemies and continue on, keeping hold of my powerful throwables exclusively for bosses. Thankfully the boss fights for the most part are just the right level of challenging for the relatively finesse lacking combat style.

Boss fights are all gimmicked in some shape or form and have a unique way to approach them. Most of them will require you to use all the upgrades you’ve gathered to complete them successfully. Some will fill the screen with projectiles, others will require tight and precise gameplay. For the most part, after seeing the fight once, you’ll be pretty right to clear it on a second attempt, but if you find yourself struggling with a particular method of the gameplay, there will be at least one if not two or three bosses that will punish you.

Lila’s Sky Ark is not a game that is going to keep you busy for too long, unfortunately. Despite what seems like a relatively deep game at first glance, unfortunately is a little less so once you get into it. An easy four-to-six-hour experience, with about seven or eight for full completion, Lila’s Sky Ark is a game that would be good for a flight or a road trip, but not something that is going to keep you occupied for days on end. In a world where Zelda clones are around every corner, Lila’s Sky Ark may find itself struggling to make a deep enough memory with most people, due to its somewhat forgettable story. The majority of the interest and intrigue happens through letters that paint a much darker and nihilistic view of what led to the events and situations of the game.

The problem with this, is unless you care to get into the deeper background lore, you’ll only get the relatively light story. Whilst it’s serviceable, and the musical aspects of it is somewhat engaging and unique. The enemies all being parts of an orchestra, with the ultimate big bad guy being the Conductor is actually a really nice decision. The fact that the empire is all musicians, and they are trying to destroy the world being protected by giant animals is almost as bizarre as the crows being the vendors, and a giant alchemy pot hiding beneath a random hole in the ground. There is a zaniness to the world that really carries the lacklustre aspects that end up surrounding it.

Lila’s Sky Ark is a lovely little love note to many games within the adventure dungeon crawling world. With direct homages to Zelda, and even Dark Souls, with a unique style of combat and a zany world. Lila’s Sky Ark is a relatively concise game, with a floaty combat style and a decent amount of collectibles to gather for the completionists of the world. Whilst it is far from ground-breaking, this is the perfect game to pick up for a trip or for something to fill a lazy afternoon.