I've played enough of this game to know that:
1. I'd rather play this on the switch while curled up in a blanket
2. That's exactly what I'm gonna do
3. The devs deserve the money they'll get from me double-dipping and then some

When I first saw the game, I immediately thought it was perfect for a cold winter, so you could snuggle up under the blanket and play it (more possible if you have a Steam Deck or Switch, of course, but still) and immerse yourself in this atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands.

I was lucky enough to be able to test the game and I loved every minute of it (and as you can see, I spent more than 20 hours in it, and I'm still going to play more): once again, inkle has come up with something completely new for them, while keeping the core intact: it's hard to put the game down, even after it's finished.
And what a game it is. It's the only one you'll need this year in the "See that mountain? You can climb it" genre, with nuanced traversal across layered, hand-crafted maps. With many stories to tell along the way, at the intersection of reality and myth.
Through a discovery of new paths and shortcuts by deciphering maps that tell their own stories. With sounds of a beautiful piano and violin. And sometimes these sounds transform into a rhythm game, accompanied by Scottish folk music that I never tire of. With charming, gorgeous views like paintings (and a photo mode can help with that) on the background.

I highly recommend it.

Ah yes, Scottish Celeste.

My wife says it’s like Death Stranding but in Scotland and with much better music.

My wife’s boyfriend says it’s just Celeste with RTX on and more relaxed mountain climbing.

Yes mountain climbing. That’s how they relax in Scotland.

As someone who loves the Scottish highlands and has wandered them myself, I feel like this game was made for me. It’s a stunning game, and a love letter to the Highlands and islands and it's really well put together. It’s really amazing and it’s literally an escape.

It’s a journey game where you’re having short interactions with the environment and people you meet to open up new choices and paths. Time is the enemy but you don’t have to take an optimum path, just press on with purpose. It’s also not that big a deal how fast you get there or if you miss the deadline- it’s all about the tale of the journey, what you saw and who you met. These games are designed to be played multiple times to see everything- I think I saw about 15 of 30 peaks in my playthrough and that was with a fair bit of both meandering and of not investigating things further when I felt the need to push on. It’s fairly easy to see new things each run if you just take whatever turning feels best at the time!

The game is fairly light and cosy, looks and sounds lovely and really makes the most of the setting. Every hill you see has a story and a name, and is climbable if the twists and turns of your path take you there. The scenery changes through the day and you’re using clues you find to try to identify peaks and hidden shortcuts to get from one valley to the next. I especially enjoyed the running scenes where you jump to the beat of lively Gaelic folk music.

The music and the art style are so great. The environment is its own character and I really love that I’m not hand held through the adventure. The map fragments to me work better than a super obvious map system. It makes me use my brain and memory. This is also a game that gets better on replay! Maps and items carry over run to run, and more and more shortcuts and routes open up on repeated playthroughs!

It took me about 2h for my first run, I felt really refreshed afterwards and I’ve played many times since when the mood is right. I’m sure many other people will keep going over and over as well I have! It’s a great game. I even recently replayed this while I was on the way to revisit the highlands and this just made me fall in love with Scotland even more. Highly recommend.

10/10

What a beautiful experience.

This game captures my favorite feeling in games - a true sense of exploration, where I am navigating my own way through an unknown world, discovering secrets mundane or (in this case) something approaching magic. I have seen it framed as "the exploration of Breath of the Wild put into 2D," and I don't think that's wrong.

On top of that, it has an evocative score (with occassional rhythm game), great voice acting, and a narrative consistent with the studio's track record.

Thank you to Inkle for making this gem that will stick with me for a long time.

A highland song sounds great in premise, a gorgeous hand painted 2D hiking adventure in the scottish countryside. But the actual gameplay is not nearly as magical as said premise. Your character gets tired instantly during climbing sections or regular running but then there are these actual scripted running sequences where you suddenly don't have this limitation. As a result the game is not immersive enough for a realistic climbing sim but also too restrictive for a fun relaxing climbing game. The exhaustion effects that requires you to rest further compounds the annoying mechanics, especially since the frequent weather does not allow you to sleep without proper shelter. The end result is that you constantly feel limited while trying to explore, and the many pathways that you can take make it hard to explore everything as backtracking with these limits is highly annoying.

So you feel like you're missing things or taking wrong paths but going back is a nuissance. Thus you push on untill you reach some cliffs that you can't mount due to being too steep or high requiring you to turn around anyways. The game's systems just make exploring not fun and roads are so convoluted that you get lost all the time. There's also a time limit to get the good ending so the game also makes you doubt your paths that way. You could say this gives reasons to replay it but frankly the game is annoying enough to not even want to beat it once. You could say i'm just not getting the game, and i'm sure that i am, but to me a game needs to be fun and all these exhaustion, weather and other systems just make it not so.

I'm certain that the game has a captivating story to tell and i'll be sure to watch a longplay of someone who knows which paths to take on youtube. The game is voiced with some great talent but in the 40 minutes that i played i wasn't gripped enough by their story to slog through the systems that didn't click for me. The presentation did though and it's the reason i picked this game up. The art is simply gorgeous though and the soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal. So if you're more patient and just want to relax/unwind, then i'm certain this game will be ideal for you. To me the systems try too hard to hinder you to be enjoyable so i'm not recommending it. If you do though be sure to pick up the bundle with the OST or just buy it seperately as it's a great piece of music.

Alright. A playthrough of A Highland Song is done and dusted. To see everything the game has to offer, you will likely need to play through this three times. Possibly four. But, to see the core of the game's story, a single playthrough will be fine. I thought this was an interesting and oddly challenging game with a very artistic approach to storytelling and a nice mix of gameplay elements.

The story is kind of what the game's Steam page says. You play as Moira, who has received a letter from her Uncle Hamish asking her to show up at the lighthouse he lives at before Beltane, which is a Gaelic festival that marks the beginning of Summer. Beyond asking Moira to show up, he is vague on why it's important to him. However, Moira has never really been anywhere outside of eyesight of the house she lives in with her mother and longs to see the ocean, so she runs off to do exactly that. Get to the lighthouse as per her uncle's request and also see the ocean and presumably a bit more of the world.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3284951105

To do so, Moira will have to travel over, through, and/or around a plethora of mountains. Being mindful of the fact that she has been basically nowhere in her life, almost this entire journey will take her through parts unknown. However, to help her do so, she will find maps featuring a specific landmark to look for; many objects that either have a direct use or can be left places as offerings; and will also find markers, buildings, and shortcuts that will all serve a function, whether it is simply getting out of the rain or further developing the story. As you travel, you will try to make it to as many peaks as possible and will also try to figure out what their names are. The peaks will also allow you to see more of the area you are about to travel to, and so hopefully you won't be travelling completely bereft of knowledge.

Traversal up, around, and through mountains is obviously a key aspect of this game, and it's where platforming comes into play as you jump and climb, trying to overcome obstacles and such on your way to the peaks (or through caves, and simply to marked paths and shortcuts). This is a pretty uncomplicated system, but there is a stamina meter, and this does make things more challenging. Not all climbs can actually be made without your stamina pool emptying and you literally falling. And you can take damage. In fact, not only do you take damage from falling, but sliding down a section of mountain out of control will hurt you. Additionally, weather factors into this, with both rain and snow draining your health meter potentially. Resting will bring your meter back up, but you will need to find appropriate places to do so. Simply trying to rest or sleep out in the open will actually reduce your total health meter. Whereas doing so in shelters, houses, and so on will restore both your available health and any reduction in the health meter itself. You can actually die, btw. When that happens, you get some more story fragments and are deposited into the closest area peak, which you were probably trying to get to anyway, with full health, which is a nice way of giving you a helping hand every so often.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3285076465

The biggest challenge, however, simply comes from not really knowing where you are going. Finding your way from your house to the lighthouse can take you in a variety of directions, and you can never be too sure if you are even going the right way, or in a way that will get you there in time for Beltane. There is a mini game featuring the maps you find, wherein, as mentioned previously, you try to find a landmark highlighted on a map you find by looking out over the land from any of the mountain peaks near said location(s). You then try to find the actual location on foot to confirm that the map was correct. This does functionally keep you moving forward and also guarantees you are always trying to observe the terrain as best you can. In addition to this simple world building, you can also meet a handful of NPCs, who have stories to tell. Don't be afraid to feel lost. That feeling is really a central gameplay mechanic. You'll find your way eventually.

Finally, there are a number of sequences where you will run with deer, jumping where they jump, and just enjoying a sense of being completely free. These sequences incorporate a rhythm game mechanic that you will be introduced to when you start the game. The game will ask you to sync your button presses to the beat and will store that info to be used for these sequences, wherein your jumps will be times to that beat. However, every jumping post is clearly marked, and each of these running sequences features its own unique song, which are all really well done and eminently listenable in general.

The graphics are almost understated and yet are incredibly vibrant and evocative all at once. Very detailed with zero ambiguity, but pleasant and almost soft in appearance. This game has quite a number of very cool looking areas. The graphics really do serve to enhance the story and the gameplay both. This game is also fully voice acted, and the cast did a fantastic job. Everyone was believable and approachable. There were no flubbed lines and the actors really bought into the emotions they were asked to convey.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3285172420

I used an Xbox X controller throughout my playthrough. I think this is a game where using a controller is probably ideal. I experienced zero technical issues. This game ran perfectly and performed immaculately.

I received this game as a gift, but you will certainly get your $17.99 retail price out of it if you are willing to playthrough this several times. Even one playthrough though can be considered worth it. My playthrough took about four hours with one restart about a half hour in, but depending on the choices you make, I can see that being up to six or seven hours. Definitely a real, quality Indie experience that pretty much anybody can enjoy.

A very charming trek through Scottish landscapes and folklore. I lost my Mom last month. She grew up in Scotland, was very outdoorsy, hiked a lot, listened to Celtic music. We went on a trip around Northern Scotland in my early teens that I cherish a lot.

So this game brought up a lot of memories in the best way. It's a game about getting lost and finding your way.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

---{ Gameplay }---
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

---{ Audience }---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma

---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{ Grind }---
☑ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☑ Short
☐ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{ Bugs }---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☑ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

---{ Comments }---

It's hard to fairly review this game because it's unlike any game I've ever played. Where else can you get an adventure/platformer with rhythm mechanics? But the game meshes the genres together seamlessly in a journey about a girl discovering the edges of her world and, through it all, learns what and who she is. You play as Moira, a young Scottish teen setting out to brave the wilderness in defiance of her worrywort mother in order to meet up with her Uncle Hamish who has promised Moira that if she can reach the sea by Beltane, he will show her something wonderful.

From a purely objective standpoint, the gameplay isn't complex. For most of the game, it's a fairly standard 2D platformer wearing the pants of a non-action adventure, and you are tasked with simply getting from point A to point B. It is an open world, however; there is far more than one way to traverse it, and there are clues you find along the way that open entirely new paths to explore. There are items to find, people to meet, and special locations, all of which influence the way the journey and the story ultimately play out. And then for some travel segments, the game turns into a simple rhythm game where you have to time jumps to the song that starts playing. These segments appear to be procedurally generated, too, as I heard different songs and got different rhythm maps when crossing the same stretch of terrain.

The art style is simple but thematic. The main character's graphics aren't AAA quality, but the Miyazaki-reminiscent simplicity and fluidity very much works for this kind of game. The landscapes are gorgeous from a distance, and from up close they become a sort of watercolor painting affect that has a certain charm to it. The only thing I would say is that when you find more modern set pieces like a dam or a chair lift, the mechanisms don't seem to fit in with the naturalistic style of the rest of the art. Of course, maybe that was the intention.

Where the game really shines is in the music. The entire soundtrack consists of Scottish tunes that ooze the sensation of freedom and adventure with every note. Even the simplistic nature of the rhythm mechanics are deeply satisfying when played alongside one of the dozen or so songs, running through fields, jumping hills, and keeping up with your deer friends. Between the vast number of ways to reach the aforementioned point B, the large number of completionist goals, and the revelation that the story changes based on how (and how quickly) you reach your destination, there is a fair amount of replayability in this game as well for people who want to know every aspect of Moira's world as well as Moira herself.

Like I said, this is very much a unique type of game, and as such, it will probably only appeal to a niche audience that enjoys such unique indie experiences. But for those who fall in this niche, this game will likely become a memorable favorite for quite some time.

The idea, the art, the music - all very good. But the gameplay is so frustrating...

First, you need to find a hint for a path, then you need to climb a peak to mark the path. If you do not find a hint... you can wander the same mountain for an in game day. If you aren't fast enough, it'll be too late in the day to move to the next valley. If you take more than 5 in game days, you already feel like you have lost.

You can look around somewhat, but in the end you have to choose a path without knowing where it leads to and spend time and energy you hardly can afford.

The sprinting mini-game is fine: press the right button at the right time, with enough of a window to see what's expected of you.

The main game isn't a fair test of ability but pure luck on a timer. Learning by losing isn't a great game design choice when it takes 3 hours to get there.

A Highland Song starts with a beautiful melody and thoughtful quotes that set the tone for the adventure at the very beginning.

The voice actors are well chosen(I love their scottish accent!) and I liked listening to their storytelling while hiking through the mountains and ruins.
Exploring the peaks and learning about the story felt interesting and had a nostalgic note, although it sometimes felt a bit random until you can fit the puzzle pieces together.

The rhythm runs took me by surprise and I had a blast every time it was time for one.
Seeing the deer waiting to run with me excited me for that reason!
Listening to the music during these runs was also satisfying and a little bit challenging.

As I was exploring the world, I of course noticed that Moira was not invincible, and I was fine with it, BUT it got annoying quickly how often she had to stay still to recover, to catch her breath, or take shelter to rest, especially during rainy weather.

I didn't mean to rush through the adventure and wanted to take my time with it, but it always felt like it was holding back, and since the map is huge it did make a difference if you have to rest all few seconds.
That was by far the biggest letdown for me while playing the game.

While climbing to various peaks Moira discovered maps and items which she had to pinpoint and then check out the marked spots or give offerings to the peaks.
It was a fun experience so far, but not that easy to always take the right guess on which peak you are standing.

I got lost countless times and since there seems to be no general map that shows the area as a whole, it made it even harder to navigate, especially when clouds came up and shrouded the peaks in darkness.

I am not done with the game by far and already spent many hours in it, looking forward to completing the game and Moira's journey.