Review: The Star Named EOS Is Short and a Little too Sweet

The Star Named EOS is the latest game from Silver Lining Studio, and like Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery before it, the game tells a very personal story of art and connection in between puzzles set in panoramic scenes. Said puzzles aren’t intended to be taxing, and I had a few issues with the slightly saccharine story, but if you can tune to the game’s wavelength you’ll find a very pleasant story with some lovely visuals here.

The game plays from the perspective of Dei, a young photographer following in the footsteps of his mother by recreating (very literal) snapshots of her life. Most levels in The Star Named EOS start with a letter from Mom as well as a photo, which you will need recreate with what you have available in the scene. There’s some decent variety in the puzzles, though perhaps a few too many leaned on finding a code in the level and inputting it elsewhere. Sometimes you’ll find what you need after a few puzzles and simply have to arrange it, but sometimes you’ll need to get a little inventive. My favorite was one that involved holding cutouts against a poster to recreate a camping scene in the middle of a city. Complete the photo and you’ll move to the area depicted as you piece together what happened to Dei’s mom.

My copy of The Star Named EOS came on Switch, and while it ran perfectly and looked good I did find the point-and-click gameplay a bit clunky with the analog sticks. It was nothing huge, but searching out specific clickables without adjustable sensitivity was definitely more irritating than it could have been with a mouse and keyboard. This only got worse when I had to go back and forth between several screens to check the sequence I was inputting, so if you plan to play the game you should make things easier for yourself by bringing a notepad and, if possible, playing on PC.

The environments and art in general have a lovely, slightly painterly style and the game makes use once again of Silver Lining Studio’s panorama tech. There are also a few cutscenes interspersed, usually where another character appears, and the designs there have this slightly Ghibli-ish quality to them that was pleasant. I especially liked the areas set in a train or a city cafe, which seemed like they might have had a mid-1900’s aesthetic going on, though I don’t know if the game is expressly set then.

There’s a smidgen of replayability, should you want to go back and collect a few more bits of writing by photos of specific objects in levels, but otherwise you’ll be done within a couple of hours. This will depend on how easily you take to the puzzles of course, but generally the game has a breezy pace that doesn’t get bogged down despite the sentimentality of it all. I would say, however, that the pace left the story feeling a little too “broad strokes” at times.

Our protagonist Dei, for example, can come across as a little flat because we don’t really know all that much about him. We’re told several times that he’s very talented at photography and is clearly very close to his mom, but I didn’t get a sense of a real character beyond that. There’s a part where a character says she envies how insightful he is, and it just felt very weird and unearned. Dei feels like a blank slate everyman meant to be projected onto, but the story feels like its meant to be personal in a way that didn’t quite click together, at least for me.

[Note: The next section will contain spoilers for The Star Named Eos]

The Mom is similar, we get that she is clearly very idealistic and committed to her job but with such little information about what she’s doing and why she’s doing it the game kind of fails to convey the gravity of it. We don’t really see what she believed was worth risking her life for, and I think that would have been a more concrete story beat for Dei learn that too. As it stands, it’s not hard to come away from The Star Named EOS with the rather unflattering read that Dei simply replaces his lost mother figure with Nat, a character who appears towards the end, rather than coming to any realization or expressing any growth.

The Star Named EOS has a fairytale vibe to it like the start of a Pixar movie, but the same breezy pace and lightness of detail can also make the story feel flat or overly sentimental. Still, there’s a pleasant and affecting time for those who can slow down and enjoy it.

The Star Named EOS is available for the PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC.