Heaven’s Vault (Switch) Review

Once in a blue moon, I find myself resigned to the thought that the game I’m playing would be better served in a different form of media. Heaven’s Vault, despite boasting some of my favourite interactive moments on the Switch, ultimately lands in that most disappointing of categories in my mind. Its triumphs in interactivity are too often dulled by its dreary mechanics, and as a result, its captivating world feels stifled.

Heaven’s Vault is a gorgeous, often fiddly, window into a much larger world. Its science fiction flourishes are masterfully paired down by focusing on the more mechanical elements of its mysteries, a love letter to letters themselves. Translating lost ancient culture remnants is a thrilling and unique way to engage with a game but can’t quite carry the game across the finishing line.

Perhaps the most distinctive quality of Heaven’s Vault is its casting of you as a genuine archeologist. Aliya Elasra is definitively not Nathan Drake, a change of pace as welcome today as it was when the game first dropped on PC back in 2019. The guns and masculinity of other pseudo-history focused titles is stripped away entirely in Heaven’s Vault, replaced with a methodical exploration of language and meaning. Aliya is fully faceted too, equipped with quippy dialogue and player-driven desires and degrees of empathy.

Summoned to the extravagant, ethereal university, she calls home by her former mentor; Aliya is drawn into an intriguing plot regarding a missing co-worker and a mysterious brooch. In the opening hour of the game, it’s here that Heaven’s Vaults strengths and weaknesses solidified for me. The world, and its implied lore and gritty details, is overwhelming in the best way possible. I was instantly reminded of why I adore large scale sci-fi/fantasy worlds like Star Wars; an ocean of possibilities opening before you as Aliya wades into it.

The problem is how you wade in. The deciphering of ancient text is equal parts thrilling and frustrating, but in such a way as to be quite rewarding. Piecing together meaning from the small fragments you’ve solved before, recalling certain symbols when translating more extensive sentences and the feelings it evokes are all unmatched. You’re doing more than just translating; you’re interpreting the events of the past, prescribing meaning to those long gone. And it’s beautiful.

These bouts of translation are peppered throughout some somewhat lacklustre exploration segments though, an unavoidably dry run of sequences that highlight the world of Heaven’s Vault but do little to inspire investigation of it. There are several stunning locations for you to explore, all interconnected by a kind of cosmic slipstream through which you travel on a tortoise sailboat. These are manually controlled to an extent, with momentum propelling you along lanes that need to be navigated to reach your destination.

Once you arrive, you’ll be treated to a decent variety of biomes and cultures, rendered beautifully in 3D. These places are inhabited by a relatively well-realised cast of characters, moving through the world as 2D images which leave small echoes of themselves behind them. Given the game’s emphasis on the passage of time (there is an extensive literal timeline in the menu), these small flourishes to the visuals feel important and form an overall aesthetic that shines no matter how slow exploration feels.

The implementation of the lite-adventure game style world exploration feels lacking as often you’re merely moving Aliya from one spot to another with little to do. When investigating certain items or locations, or chatting with the other NPCs, you’ll be prompted to choose the kind of response you wish to give, and this too feels a touch wonky. Aliya’s sarcasm is often quite biting, and the preview text does not adequately prepare you for how brutal she can be to someone who you might be fond of. Likewise, almost all dialogue feels essential, so the choice for which bit to hear first is superfluous at best.

Heavan’s Vault isn’t a particularly intensive visual experience, largely elevated by the quality of the art direction and not the raw power of its graphics. As such, its port onto the Switch is a hugely successful one, some minor texture hiccups notwithstanding. The vibrancy of the locations, the smooth transitions between animations and the outstanding audio design are all still present on the handheld device with no noticeable downgrades from my perspective. From time to time an NPC will clip into a cutscene as the world around you continues during conversations, or a texture may take a moment too long to pop but on the whole it is a beautiful experience on the hardware.

While I was hard-pressed to find a time in Heaven’s Vault where it didn’t look or sound quite stunning, many frustrations hindered the flow. A massive, sprawling new fantasy world to explore is a treat, but the game does little to onboard you to its rather complex lore. This is made worse by a dialogue system that moves entirely too fast for its own good, often losing well-written exposition or character moments amid poorly placed subtitles and timed response windows. A lot is going on in Heaven’s Vault, and while the game is happy to go at its own pace during exploration or translation, the narrative sometimes left me behind.

It all leaves me feeling less than thrilled about a game that contains some genuinely ingenious game design. The careful translation and understanding of a lost language is fantastic stuff, pushing and pulling on the right parts of my lizard brain to make me feel just as much as I’m thinking about these meanings. This mechanical joy is paired with phenomenal art direction and overall commitment to aesthetics in its tone and score that I am still thinking about now. But is it actually all that fun to play?

For me, the answer is a begrudging no. I love the concepts and world of Heaven’s Vault, but I know deep down I would have loved them more as something other than a game.

Rating: 2.5 / 5