Himno Review

You may be carrying a sword and resemble a futuristic knight but none of that matters in Himno. Your weapon will remain unsheathed throughout your experience as it appears Himno is choosing to go down the more peaceful route of platform games. With so much darkness on show it’ll be interesting to see where Himno might take you.

Himno is a 2D platformer with no real start or end point, because the levels which are called districts are randomly generated; so no play-through will be the same. Himno has a simple menu to begin with, when you start you’ll find your character is in some kind of labyrinth with no directions to where the exit is; luckily for you there are no obstacles as such or enemies in the way to stop you finding the exit. That’s part of the charm of Himno, there’s no pressure of urgency in what you have to achieve, add in the ambient music and everything just feels calm.

Whilst your unnamed character carries a sword they will not use, they do have the ability to jump and dash. These two skills will be needed in abundance as you will often need to jump to higher platforms or dash to lower levels. One technique you will need to perfect is jumping of walls to move up, you will need to learn how to use the dash to your advantage. This is because the platforms you can access are placed over water, which if you fall into will result in you having to start from the beginning. The idea is that you need to navigate your way across the platforms until you find the exit which will take you to another district, this carries on until you fall into the water or get bored. There are wisps that can be found which can help you in a few different ways, one wisp increases the size of your jump whilst another, arguably the most useful, is a wisp that will show you where the exit is.

There’s no goal as such in Himno, besides making your way through as many districts as possible. There is a levelling up structure in place whereby jumping and dashing will give you experience, collecting yellow orbs and green gems also increases experience. The only benefit this seems to unlock is that wisps will follow you, for example you’ll see some text along the lines of Level 10 above a wisp, if you’re at level 10 then that wisp will follow you. When you fall into the water you are taken to another screen where you can take one of the wisps with you ready to begin Himno again. The jumping and dashing in Himno works fine and there are no issues with collision detection.

Himno is a dark game, so there will be moments where you may be jumping into darkness not knowing whether you’ll land on a platform or fall into the water, this element definitely adds some risk to the calmness you would have been enjoying so far. Himno does record some statistics for you, with the idea being to encourage you to try to beat your last run.

Himno is a pleasant but limiting experience. It’s one of the more relaxing games you will come across, the infinite amount of procedurally generated levels gives Himno a fair bit of longevity, but that depends on your motivation to play Himno for a long period of time accepting there is no reward. There’s not much besides jumping and dashing in Himno, but if want to play something that will offer a relaxing and calming experience then Himno is worth a few hours of your time.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Bonus Stage for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to press@4gn.co.uk.