I have been downright ravenous for good, non-VR climbing games since playing the demo for Jusant last month. Now that my appetite's been sated, I can be safely re-introduced to normal human society.

These slow traversal puzzles that require you to master a variety of micro-mechanics are my shit. The courses can be genuinely challenging, and the game skews close enough to reality that seeing an "elite" course remains intimidating well after you've familiarized yourself with the controls. Those controls will be a hurdle, too. Memorizing inputs isn't really the hard part: it's developing a sense of connection between your character's limbs and the commands you're inputting, because small mistakes are punished severely with rapid stamina loss - if you're like me you'll probably fall multiple times before the tutorial is over. Some concepts will come more naturally to IRL climbers, who will intuitively understand positioning your core to get better leverage on different holds, but you don't need to come in with any familiarity.

As it exists right now, its biggest problems are issues with ragdolling and visual clarity - on rare occasion you'll find an excellent handhold in an area that doesn't make any sense, no matter how you rotate the camera. The castle is the worst about this, but thankfully natural formations tend to adhere a little closer to what you're seeing on the screen, minimizing the time you'll spend on scavenger hunts for the right nooks and crannies. It's especially important when the game places so much emphasis on the position of each limb. Sometimes a hold that looks weak at first glance lets you position your core in such a way where your whole body is in a better position afterward (this is a good thing, btw, not a bug!). It doesn't matter if the course is rated "intermediate" when you can't find these spots that differentiate it from an elite course.

It's not the prettiest game, it frequently strays into body horror, and once you learn the mechanics you can achieve some truly ridiculous feats, but I can't really say I mind any of these. As with any good puzzle, small breakthroughs and completions are reward enough on their own, and despite how strictly you must adhere to the climbing line, there are so many ways to fuck up and fall that it still feels like a personal achievement when you make it to the end. Big recommend for anyone who's been on the hunt for a game that tries to simulate free soloing.