Degrees of Separation (Switch)
Hot and cold are practically the prototypical example of two diametrically opposed forces, fire and ice unable to mix for long before one has gotten rid of the other. As opposites they appear together constantly in video games, and Degrees of Separation continues the trend of keeping ice and fire separate… except here, that separation is both the tool of play and the main obstacle the two central characters wish to overcome.
Ember and Rime live alone in the world, Ember in a vibrant warm forest and Rime in a frozen over castle. One day these two meet at a bridge between their realms, but as they come together, they notice they are not just separated by location, but by a barrier that prevents them from so much as touching each other. However, the castle of an absent king may hold the key to bringing them together, and by collecting his scarves they can unlock new parts of it that may help them finally escape their loneliness and come together despite one being a representative of fire and the other ice. Even if the game had not a single word of dialogue, you could likely imagine the course it would take and the visuals do a decent enough job nailing in both their separation and desire to be together, but Degrees of Separation can’t help but constantly talk during the experience. Solving the puzzles needed to acquire the king’s scarves is a natural way for the two to grow more familiar with each other, but the woman narrating the game has to chime in after every scarf you grab. It’s almost impressive how many times she can reword the same generic idea of the two growing closer by working together, although she will at least occasionally cover some other topics like the history of the king or how a new location is making the two lead characters feel.
Degrees of Separation is meant to be played cooperatively with another player even though it is entirely possible to complete the game on your own by swapping characters when appropriate. Collecting the scarves requires solving puzzles where Ember and Rime must influence the world differently with their powers. No matter where they’re positioned, Ember and Rime will both have half of the on-screen real estate devoted to their element, the heat of Ember’s world allowing for beautiful natural backgrounds to shine under a warm glow while Rime’s world turns most everything blue or covers it with snow, meaning that the intended contrast between their worlds is visually communicated well but at the cost of almost all of the icy versions of locations appearing incredibly similar. Their influence isn’t just a visual one, as the environment reacts differently depending on which half it finds itself in. The clearest case of this is how Ember and Rime impact water differently. Ember’s heat means the water remains normal, the fire girl unable to swim but capable of walking across the bottom of any water-filled area. Rime, however, freezes any water in his realm, only able to run across the top of it. Bafflingly, despite this being such a clear mechanical distinction between them, there are moments where the game breaks its rule of having the two realms entirely separate for a few puzzles, Ember and Rime needing to meet at the dividing line between their worlds so Ember can run across the edge of the ice behind him.
Most of the other heat-based fundamentals are more consistent though. Many lifts are powered by lanterns on chains, Ember’s world causing the lanterns to rise and Rime’s causing it to fall. Air vents that can be used for a boost up to a new area are only active near Ember, and Rime can push objects around in the snow on the ground to build up a giant snowball he can stand on or use as a puzzle element. These differences are fairly intuitive and the first level of the game is mostly built around getting you accustomed to them, but later stages will each feature a new gimmick to influence how you interact with each other. Perhaps the least interesting one is the fiddly staff mechanic. Ember and Rime gain staves for one level that they can use to turn the ethereal barrier between them into a platform of light either can walk across, but because the barrier adjusts constantly to your current position, most of the scarf puzzles in this stage rely a lot on getting your characters in the exact right spots to make a properly angled platform to walk across. The sidescrolling platformer levels of Degrees of Separation are fairly long since they are essentially hubs for at least 20 scarf puzzles each, meaning that any gimmick that’s getting focused on will have to carry a lot of the game’s overall experience. Not every puzzle must be completed to unlock the final area of the game, but you can’t just skip an entire level and hope to have enough to finish the game.
Others levels have gimmicks of varying success, the strength in most of them being that you’ll often be asked to explore that area’s mechanic in new ways before it’s entirely abandoned. One level has an explosive charge form in the barrier between the two worlds, the characters blasted away from it if they touch it simultaneously. Most of the game is about looking at the full area you find yourself in and using the heat and cold to manipulate it in such a way that Ember or Rime can get to wherever a scarf has been squirreled away, but the explosive asks for a lot more timing based actions on top of the focus on positional awareness. Another level features the two having a ball and chain affixed to their feet that both limits their movement but can be used as a weight or tool if cleverly taken advantage of, but much like the explosive charge, this mechanic introduces new wrinkles to the puzzle solving while not really having anything to do with the separation between the two. It’s more of a general addition to the co-op style of puzzle solving and it mixes with certain aspects of the heat and cold mechanics so that the split nature of the world is never outright forgotten. It might have been more interesting to continue to explore the ways fire and ice could impact puzzle-solving, but ignoring the general concept of the game, new gimmicks usually provide a decent mix of easy and difficult puzzles that tie to their mechanics.
Many of the scarves in the game are acquired by puzzles that involve identifying the series of events necessary and executing them properly with your partner, but there are some timing based ones and ones that break the boundaries of what feels like their intended area. Most new puzzles start by zooming the camera out to show you the information you need, but the most complex puzzles sometimes ask for a degree of out of the box thinking that really isn’t encouraged outside of these outliers. Some scarf puzzles, on the other hand, are so easy a single player can probably do it without help, and others might just have only one player actively participating in the solving. Working together on a solution with the other player and puzzling out what might work is still enjoyable enough, but for every few that feel like you’ve found a clever use of the mechanics or managed to really synergize with your partner, there seem to be plenty more simple ones that don’t really test your logic solving skills so much as your ability to keep the temperature barrier from being too touchy. Some occasional awkwardness with the way the characters jump and how they pull themselves up from ledges also harms the much larger puzzles at times, but overall, the mix of puzzles seem to come together into a decent enough package.
THE VERDICT: There is a decent concept at the core of Degrees of Separation, a world split into hot and cold halves featuring well across many of the puzzles even if the level specific gimmicks choose to explore unrelated mechanics. Some added abilities like the explosive charge are an interesting addition while they last while others like the staves show how fiddly the split between Ember and Rime can be as it adjusts to their new positions, but for the most part the puzzles focused on positioning turn out alright while speed focused ones tend to be a little less interesting. There are definitely some clever and satisfying challenges to overcome, but for the most part you’ll be dealing with fairly plain designs that don’t often test your cooperation with your partner well or are a matter of proper execution rather than problem solving.
And so, I give Degrees of Separation for Nintendo Switch…
An OKAY rating. Degrees of Separation is a cute enough love story despite the narrator’s efforts to nail in the obvious progression of it, and the visuals, at least in Ember’s summer world, look lovely, but the cooperative puzzle solving seems like it needed a lot more mechanics related to the two disparate heats to really shine. There are definitely some creative puzzles to be found in the mix, although some are more complicated than clever, but most of what you’ll find are decent explorations of the baseline mechanic or latest gimmicks with more that are too easy than too hard. You can definitely feel the attempt to accommodate single player play at times as one player might find themselves in the back seat, just providing their character’s realm passively as the other has to carry the weight of the puzzle solving. Overall only puzzles like the ones involving the staves or deft use of the jumping and ledge climbing really turn outright bad because of the slight awkwardness to them, but they are present enough that Degrees of Separation feels like it never maintains a strong stride even when it begins to strike on more interesting design ideas.
Degrees of Separation does provide some conveniences like easily being able to teleport around the large levels and being able to skip some scarf puzzles, but it feels like what Degrees of Separation needed most was either a stronger difficulty curve or consistent mechanical progression. A new level brings in a new gimmick that it spends most of its time exploring and it can only get a few complex uses out of before the next stage has to reset things to a lower difficulty level as you get used to the new style of play. The fundamentals are always there and contributing to ensure the game never gets too aimless, but Degrees of Separation could have used a greater degree of consistency between levels so that more elements could mix together into more satisfying puzzles to solve. Degrees of Separation is a co-op game though, so depending on who you play it with it might be spectacular or incredibly frustrating despite its low difficulty, but that personal angle mostly finds an unobtrusive platform for cooperative play here rather than something that feels like it really brings out the best in the pair playing together as two separated characters.