PS4/ONE Steven Universe: Save the Light

The game is a perfect recreation and extension of the show’s world, right down to the UI. And that’s exactly why it's so disappointing that Steven Universe: Save the Light is one of the buggiest, glitchiest games I’ve ever played.

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....

Steven Universe: Save the Light is simply a mess from a stability standpoint. I lost count of the number of times the game froze in the middle of a battle, necessitating a restart, or just out-and-out crashed entirely. Some of the glitches were cosmetic, like a battle effect continuing to play out in the background after the fight was over, or a sound effect getting stuck on a loop. At one point, I had to listen to Greg Universe endlessly repeating “I FEEL A JAM SESSION COMING ON” until I restarted the game.

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....

The bugs aren’t just of the small, relatively forgivable variety, either; I was held back from progressing by major glitches. It took me an hour to get through one small section of Save the Light because I kept running into busted battles and having to restart. Instead of learning how to play the game better, I felt like a quality assurance tester learning how to avoid breaking it. Each battle and new interaction filled me with a dreadful anticipation: Would this be something else that killed the game?

How bad did it get? The game couldn’t even get through the end credits without crashing to the PlayStation 4 menu.

Zum Vergrößern anklicken....