Another strong point in Lylian is its music. Lylian doesn’t have the best music ever composed for a game, but its music lends the game a very creepy atmosphere that can absorb you into the game and make you feel as if you were there with Lylian as she tries to escape from the asylum she’s been imprisoned in. The music’s creepiness can sometimes make you forget that what you’re playing isn’t a horror game, but more of a psychological thriller. Yet, even with it’s creepiness, it actually does add to the thrill of helping Lylian escape from the asylum, and it makes you want to find out why she’s really there.
Lylian has a few characters who are all original. The comic at the official website introduces these characters, so playing the game fresh from the beginning, without prior knowledge, makes it feel as if you were just thrust into the middle of things; but if you read the comic at the official site, a comic that is not only well drawn, but interesting in itself, the story becomes much more intriguing. You’ll see that Lylian is crazy, but not necessarily crazy enough to warrant being in an asylum, then again, you might disagree with my statement and believe that she should be in an asylum, but that she was placed in the wrong one. Even though the story is well written and has original character, even the bad guys are pretty original, and even a little whacked out, the bad guys are still bad and seem to be motivated into just doing evil. While recent games (i.e Mass Effect) are giving the bad guys actual reasons to be bad, the bad guys in Lylian, while fun and original, have that vibe of just being evil for evil’s sake.
Lylian isn’t a great game, but it is a game that is as much a work of interactive fiction as Heavy Rain and Mass Effect are, but without the large budget. Where Heavy Rain and Mass Effect had interesting gameplay to carry along the story, Lylian has an interesting story to carry along the gameplay. Even at 5 dollars, Lylian is so short you can’t help but feel a little ripped off, it doesn’t have much replay value, aside from a handful of collectibles. Still, if you aren’t too emotionally attached to your 5 dollars, and want an interesting story and don’t mind decent gameplay, Lylian is a great game.
