Masters of Light Review (VR, Quest)
Summary: A fun VR game that gravitates its focus on radiant out of this world superpowers
3.4
Star Wars
Masters of Light is a wave based action shooter VR game developed by COVEN and ALBYON, published by COVEN and set to release in May of 2024. Masters of Light supports Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, and Meta Quest 2 and uses the hand tracking feature to allow you to envelop the power of light to extinguish the blanketing darkness of shadows threatening existence. Through different hand signals and movements, you must take on the divine task of facing the darkness and ushering in the light to save the lost. Bask in your abilities and face your fears in a fun and tiring journey toward the ever expansive black hole.
The story in Masters of Light centers around star-like beings known as the Sisters of Light. The Sisters lived peacefully in their galaxy until a black hole suddenly appeared and disrupted their peace by releasing darkness. The darkness spread and trapped the Sisters in cages. It is up to you, the wanderer that was foretold to save the ethereal beings from their entombment by using your light based powers, to overcome the dark forces from the black hole. The story here is definitely intriguing and serves its purpose as a driving force to keep playing. In some levels, you can branch off into secret areas where you can uncover more lore about the Sisters and their practices. While it is interesting to watch story threads unfold, overall, the plot sort of gets lost with how typical and safe it plays out. The levels and gameplay quickly become the main focus the more you get into the game.
Masters of Light teaches you its mechanics quickly and efficiently. You have a lot of different abilities to master if you want to take on these transcendental entities. Closing your fist and punching shoots out a ball of light and it is your basic and most trusted attack. Holding your hand out with your palm outwards will shoot a beam of light which can stun enemies or you can use it to lock on to an enemy to get some guaranteed hits in with your balls of light. Completing levels will unlock new abilities like a shield on your wrist that you can hold up to block attacks or forming a triangle with your index fingers and thumbs and pulling them out will emit a shockwave, Doctor Strange style. Having command over these powers innately feels good and simply just clicks in the space of VR, instantly allowing you to come up with your own strategies to take down the waves of enemies.
Even though the thought process of blasting down bad guys comes naturally, the game still slowly teaches you how to think practically by introducing you to different enemy types and more intricate layouts of enemies in the waves. There are giant geometric prism enemies that take their time to attack before revealing their weak spot, so you’ll have to wait and block them with your shield while shooting another enemy at your other side. While locking onto a further away enemy to be more accurate with your shots might be useful, the better strategy might be to take on the small fry that are closer to you first without having to give up a hand to lock on to something in the process. The gameplay is simple, but effective. While it is very easy to get overwhelmed with all of the enemies and fast decision making, especially on the harder difficulty, it’s just as easy to jump back in to try again if you fail. By the end of the game, you really feel like a master of light while you juggle all of these foreign forms of matter with your hand movements.
You can play the game with Meta’s touch controllers or with the hand tracking feature. While playing with the controllers works good enough, using hand tracking is the better path to travel. Actually using your entire hands freely really puts you in the state of mind the game begs you to be in. As a Master of Light, it only makes sense to actually contort your body and hands in odd ways to pull off these otherworldly moves instead of pushing a button. I also ran into typical odd VR behavior while using the controllers like the balls of light being finicky and not working correctly during a fight, but they would constantly shoot out when I would rest my arm down to the side of me. Concentrating energy for the shockwave seemed to also be a bit tricky with the controllers. It never put a damper on my experience, but not being able to three star a level because you get hit due to fidgety controls can be irksome. The game feels more like a workout without the controllers because of how much more freedom you have over your movements, but not only does it work better, it also feels so much cooler.
Graphically, Masters of Light looks good and has some pretty stellar designs. The Sisters look unique as cosmic beings of luminosity and the enemies are distinct and foreboding enough, but aren’t threatening as they are just crystal like structures. The levels have an outer space backdrop painting that is noticeably not of high quality, but it still makes you feel small and insignificant within the VR space. The synth bass and rhythms within the soundtrack are elaborate and controlling. There is a bounce to the beat that hypes up the action and keeps you moving and dancing between every punch and blowback against the black hole’s parasitic army of darkness. The voice acting is good and the Sisters make you believe that they really care about their lost companions, but the dialogue can get sort of frivolous at times. Executing your adversaries releases these mystical bell-like gong sounds and pulling off your light powers feels supernatural with mystical like sound effects that’s electrifying and makes you feel like you are actually participating in this incomprehensible battle between light and dark.
While Masters of Light is a very well made VR game, that’s sort of ONLY what it is. It hits all of the typical VR notes well enough to be a full functioning and interesting game, but Masters of Light left me wanting more in an unfulfilling way. There are a lot of directions a follow up game can dive into with how vague the lore is and the light powers could be fleshed out even more. Rudimentary VR wave based designed levels are fine and fosters up strategies, but those strategies are solely based on your combat abilities. Moving stages or more explorative environments could provide that certain nuance the game needs to make it stand out from the pack.
Final Thoughts?
Masters of Light is definitely entertaining and uses its VR functions in creative ways. Fast thinking on your toes gameplay and combat encounters with continuously moving enemies makes you use your powers in a calculated and deliberate fashion. You never feel like you are in danger with unimposing opponents, but that mixed with the fun gameplay make it that much easier to dive back into the light if you ever get a game over. The frail story leaves you unsatisfied and jittery controls can cause some immediate issues with how well you are performing in a level, but the feedback of the tacit sounds and flow of the music keeps you moving and grooving throughout your galaxy hopping adventure. Given the subject manner, I wish Masters of Light was able to deliver another layer of tenacity. Even so, Masters of Light displays an exciting way to enter the VR space by giving you fun to use light powers that let you liberate the stars from the clutches of darkness.
About the Author
Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.
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