Wisp Eira’s Tale: Fun Game For the iPad

If you’re looking for a game to help you relax and simply lay back and enjoy a few minutes of serenity, then Wisp hits that spot right on. Although, it’s marketed as a puzzle game. There really isn’t any figuring out involved. Wisp: Eira’s tale has you control the wisp, a glowing ball. The game is played by making Eira ascend through touching the screen, and moving her left and right by tilting the iPad either direction.

The objective of the game is to collect three crystals that are scattered about each level. Getting in your way are pools and floating orbs of ooze called the corruption, and then there are spider webs and breakable walls. For the most part, you have to avoid the corruption by not getting in contact with them. There are shrines on some level that act as power-ups. For example, the fire shrine lights Eira on fire allowing you to burn through spider webs. The earth shrine makes Eira heavy and slow and allows her to break weak blocks of walls, and the ice power-up lets you temporarily freeze the corruption, but you have to be careful as moving too fast and hitting a wall will end you.

The game is simple, and perhaps this is its downfall, too. It’s a great game, make no mistake, but the levels could have a bit more creativity to it. It’s just a little too straight forward, and once you’ve mastered Eira’s delicate ascending and swaying, there won’t be a level too hard. One more short-coming of Eira’s is in its lack of variety. The music, hauntingly beautiful in its celtic way at first soon becomes repetitive acoustic background noise. Pretty, but no oomph. And it’s the same case with the visuals. Pretty at first, but seeing the same type of architecture and color as you move through the stages can prove repetitive.

This, however, is me being particularly nitpicky. Let these not deter you from giving the game a shot. It’s a great game, with great gameplay and good ideas. It’s just not the kind of game that you can play for hours on end. But for short bursts, it’s just what the doctor ordered. Once you find your rhythm in the game, you can get lost in the sweet haunting music. Just don’t expect to spend an entire day’s time on it.