Ever since I saw htoL#NiQ: The Firefly Diary (henceforth Firefly Diary) teased in gaming magazines in Japan, I was intrigued. The art style looked fantastic and I do love puzzle games. The game apparently made use of touch controls on the Vita in a unique manner. I was ecstatic when the game was announced for North America and Europe. I finally got my hands on it a few weeks ago for review and it has been quite an experience.
[pullquote]The game apparently made use of touch controls on the Vita in a unique manner. [/pullquote]
The game begins with Mion, a young girl, who awakens in underground ruins. The main gameplay mechanics are introduced from the get go. You don’t directly control Mion in the levels but control two fireflies. Lumen, the green firefly lets you navigate Mion in the light. Umbra, is a pink firefly that moves in the shadows. Umbra moves in the shadow world. You can also control the shadows to some aspect with Lumen and situations often require planning ahead so you have the means to reach areas in the shadow world with Umbra. The default control scheme is full touch controls. Lumen is controlled by the front touch screen on the Vita and Umbra on the rear one. Your aim is to get to the end of various levels in each chapter while collecting various memory fragments. These memory fragments glitch out the game and take you back to a happier memory. 
As you progress into Firefly Diary, levels get harder and the game doesn’t start out easy to begin with. Mion has no health bar and dies in a single hit. You have to meticulously get her through various obstacles with the help of both fireflies. There are tons of enemies and environmental hazards that make this borderline frustrating. Expect to die a lot. There are even trophies for dying 10 and 100 times. Firefly Diary levels involve tons of trial and error. The touch controls make it harder than it should be. There’s a section where you have to navigate Lumen through a maze quickly. I can’t even imagine doing that completely with swiping touch controls. The checkpoint system helps as it is quite lenient but still doesn’t justify cheap difficulty.
[pullquote]Boss Fights are completely different and require proper calculated movements. [/pullquote]The boss fights deserve a special mention. They are all completely different and require proper calculated movements. I really liked them even though the boss levels were some of the hardest in the game. The difficulty spikes are massive.
Visuals in Firefly Diary are great. They really look amazing on the Vita’s OLED display. Even though the game doesn’t utilise a large colour palette, each chapter manages to stand out. The memory fragment sections take you to cute 2d pixel art styled sections with Mion’s parents. This is a nice touch and a good breather in an otherwise tense game where you can die very easily. The atmosphere with the visuals and the eerie but subtle music is outstanding and one of the highlights. The soundtrack reminds me of music from The Swapper and Limbo.
[pullquote]The difficulty spikes and poor touch controls make it frustrating. [/pullquote]HtoL#NiQ The Firefly Diary is a unique experience. The difficulty spikes and poor touch controls make it frustrating. I’d recommend switching to Control Scheme C that lets you use the joysticks instead of touch as soon as possible. Had the game implemented better controls and a more progressive difficulty curve, it would be much easier to recommend to everyone. The design of each level often requires things that are almost impossible to do in a single attempt thanks to the controls.
