Review: Europa

Europa is a beautiful indie gem with its illustrious visuals and environmental storytelling. While the gameplay might be lacking in some parts, the narrative journey certainly makes up for this aspect.

This game tells an emotional story with stellar voice acting from the narrator Earl Fisher, who plays the kid protagonist’s father. As we continue through the game, we get more information about the lore by picking up notes, and the plot has a great flow with twists and turns towards the end. It also tells an environmental message but it doesn’t strike at the heart enough to be effective.

Europa (PC [Reviewed], Switch)
Developer: Helder Pinto, Chozabu (Alex PB), Novadust Entertainment
Publisher: Future Friends Games
Released: October 11, 2024
MSRP: $14.99

Flying through the air is bliss in Europa. You get a real thrust of power from the jetpack, letting you leap high distances. It controls very well too. You’ll be able to get collectible crystals from the top of wrecked buildings in the environment and find other secrets around each level with the jetpack.

Most of the game involves you collecting objects like a flicker of light energy or interacting with mechanisms in each area to move forward. They’re fairly easy to spot most of the time, but it still feels rewarding to spot everything you require, especially with the exhilarating flying mechanic.

Fun, yet easy puzzles in Europa

There are some puzzles here and there. There’s a fun, albeit easy, puzzle, which has you rotate blocks in a clockwise manner to reach three areas of the map. Additionally, there are platforming challenges that involve blocks disappearing after each second jump. Europa won’t challenge you, but they’re rewarding to complete just like finding each object in the levels. I’m not usually a fan of puzzles in games, but even I have to admit, it would have been great to have more difficulty in Europa.

One of the weakest parts of Europa is its enemies. They seem thrown in as the main character only gets dazed, not knocked out by his foes. There are turrets that fire projectiles at you but they’re fairly easy to dodge. Whenever they do occasionally land a shot, it feels so weird when a huge projectile hits the child and it barely phases him. Some stingrays shock you and do nothing else other than being a mild inconvenience. The enemies are just annoying and ruin the flow of the gameplay. It gets repetitive too and can be quite annoying to get interrupted when you’re trying to push an object into the correct place.

While the enemies do get repetitive, the game’s environments do manage to change up the formula when you head into a new biome. There’s enough added to the mechanics to keep Europa fresh for its 3-4 hour playtime.

A stunning game through and through

The game runs surprisingly smooth, and throughout its 3-4 hour length, Europa didn’t have any noticeable bugs, framerate drops, or any other graphical issues. There are big environments with little pop in here and there, and some particle effects hang around the character’s jetpack that pop on screen. Europa does something very similar to Journey, in which you can see the end goal, the human civilization on a floating island, on almost every level. As you proceed through the story, it gets closer and closer, leading you up to the wintry top of the mountain.

Europa is gorgeous. The visuals are bright, the torn architecture and robots that remain from a war years ago stand out, and the artistry of the game’s skylines like the Northern Lights-esque night are breathtaking. There are some wonderful set pieces as well like seeing the island of Europa in the distance, flying sections with a colossal robotic creature, and visages of a war gone by. It certainly gives the fantastical vibes to Studio Ghibli’s work, especially Castle in the Sky.

While not as compelling as Austin Wintory’s Journey soundtrack, Europa has a stirring score to complement the beautiful visuals. The piano-led music leads to how you’re supposed to feel in the moment, and towards the end, it genuinely gave me goosebumps in my arms.

Europa is a delightful work

Overall, Europa is a wonderful indie title that is a breath of fresh air from the triple-A fare of this busy season. The art style is striking, the storyline is intriguing, and moving around in the sky is satisfying. While the game can be repetitive at times with its annoying enemies (that only stun your character), Europa is worth your time if you want to take your gaming slow for a few hours. It is fairly short at 3-4 hours, but there are collectibles you can try to find that can extend your playtime.

[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]