Second Stone: The Legend of the Hidden World

Second Stone: The Legend of the Hidden World is an action adventure RPG with platform game elements which takes players to a fantastic world full of mysteries. It is the debut of indie Finnish studio Skyward Entertainment, which was inspired by the Crash Bandicoot and Banjo & Kazooie series on the one hand, and The Legend of Zelda series and Bloodborne games on the other.

The game was one of the projects that received financial support from Epic Games under the Epic MegaGrants program in 2022. French company Ubisoft also helped release the game.

Plot

In Second Stone: The Legend of the Hidden World, we find ourselves in a magical fantasy world that has its own alternate, dark version. As a hero haunted by visions, we try to discover the secrets and treasures of a forgotten era.

Game mechanics

Second Stone: The Legend of the Hidden World is a TPP game, in which the action is observed from behind the protagonist's back (although the production often changes the camera perspective). Following the patterns of action RPGs, the gameplay combines exploration with puzzle solving and, above all, combat. From time to time we also come across challenges straight from platform games.

Encounters with enemies - including powerful bosses reminiscent of FromSoftware studio productions - are demanding and even the numerous spells learned by the hero during the game won't ensure victory.

Character development here takes place by collecting Mana Beads, which we place in the title stone to unlock new abilities and increase the avatar's statistics. The game gives considerable freedom in the personalization of the hero, allowing players to adjust the style of the game to their own preferences.

Technical aspects

Alex Moukal was involved in the development of Second Stone: The Legend of the Hidden World. The Italian composer has become famous mainly for his YouTube channel, where he analyzes game music and publishes his own arrangements of these tracks, but he also has compositions from trailers for such films as John Wick 2 and Avengers: Endgame.

The title was developed using the popular Unreal Engine, developed by Epic Games. The developers dropped the realistic visuals in favor of graphics closer to cartoons and the Fable series.