Loved the vibes of this game and found it greatly improved once I had the idea of giving it my own soundtrack through a streaming app on the Xbox while I played. The visuals create a setting that is right up my alley.

The biggest downfall of the game is that the controls and object responsiveness are not very good and sometimes it's really difficult to tell what you can intereact with to solve the puzzles.

Also it is possible I somehow completely missed a gameplay component that would make traveling faster but even once I got the speed booster and felt like a had fuel to burn traveling between sections was very time consuming and monotonous. I did not expect to feel like I was legitimately sailing in real time nearly as much as I did.

Does very little to iterate from the first game. Part of FAR: Lone Sails appeal was how much of a surprise its meditative gameplay and apocalyptic journey was.

Doing the same, but with arguably less context, blander landscapes, and even longer journeys breaking up the small snatches of gameplay? Sadly this time it's a little too much of a snoozefest.

It's one thing to copy the formula from your hit game, but to do an inferior sequel in every aspect? It's a shame, as this is by no means a bad game, but I can't help but think fondly of my time with Lone Sails. Changing Tides just isn't it.

Beaten: May 23, 2022
Time: 5 hrs
Platform: Xbox Series X

Changing tides is lesser than its predecessor for me, and I can point out exactly why: The game, as a whole, is less intuitive. The puzzle solutions, the whole drive contraption, even the mechanical design of your boat all feel a bit more complex than they should be, too hard to understand at a glance. Which sucks, because there's some cool things here too.

The new look is gorgeous, even a bit prettier than the first game (though without the sense of industry having killed the world), there's a bit more freedom in how you move, there's some cool automation for loading fuel? Hell, the change to smaller teal accents for interactables is a huge win for the visual cohesion. It's not like it's a lazy game, there's just a bit of a wall between me and what I want to happen. Instead of running up and down my ship loading fuel and pushing against buttons to make sure they're locked, I'm fiddling with the fire hose because if I'm not careful I'll shut off the engine instead of just cooling it.

I'd say go for the first one, and if you're coming from that one, it's worth a shot. Maybe it'll work for you better than it did for me.

A strong sequel that iterates on the ideas of the first game. It’s hard to have the same impact, and some of the new mechanics can feel a bit too fiddly times, having to make minor adjustments to the sails, so frequently.

Some sections drag on slightly too long or repeat slightly too often, it’s odd when a short game can still feel too long, but it’s all worth it for the moments when you progress past a puzzle and a new “thing” is revealed and the feeling of triumph, and the beauty of the moment hits in such a special and unique way.

Lone Sails was an interesting puzzle adventure game that took place on a 2D plane. You micro-managed various things on your vessel while acquiring upgrades to pass new obstacles. Changing Tides is exactly the same thing but on a boat instead.

There is no store or character building at all and that really sucks. I can tell the world in Far is sad and clearly post-apocalyptic, but the game gives me no reason to care about it other than the puzzles. You start out swimming this time and learning the basics. Jumping, climbing ladders, moving objects, and picking them up. You then acquire your ship and learn how to manage your fuel, sails, filling with air or water for submarine controls, cool your engine, and use your boost power. You acquire these over the course of the game, but fuel management is key. Don't use fuel unless you don't have wind which was the mistake I made. I wound up with tons of fuel at one point without realizing that's the most I would ever get and that was 2/3 through the game.

Gathering fuel is done by collecting junk laying around. This isn't often and sometimes you will hit a buoy and below these are caches of fuel. Don't get lazy and skip them, but sadly the game never tells you to look out for these either. Each upgrade requires a giant puzzle of a level and they were never hard or complicated. Mostly it's pushing a lever to drop an object to place into a machine. They're fun, but not hard. While you're sailing there will be long stretches of nothing. Sometimes not even music. This can get quite boring as the micromanagement of the ship gets tiresome after a while. It was fun at first, but I felt like this was the main gameplay loop and not the puzzles. Overall there are only four upgrades to get so about 4-5 puzzles in total. You spend at least 2-3 hours just sailing and micromanaging your fuel and sails.

Once in a while, there are cinematic platforming moments in which you just follow a linear path which was neat because it's the only action in the game. I just can't care a lot about this series without some kind of back story or context. Games like Limbo, Inside, and Little Nightmares do this well with storytelling from your envirnment. There's not much to tell in open oceans with just wasted buildings. Even the puzzle areas had murals that supposedly told a story, but it really didn't mean anything. There's only one neat moment at the very end of the game before the credits roll and that was it.

The platforming itself is fine if not slippery. I constantly found myself wanting to twitch jump around the ship and I would constantly fall down holes, get stuck on ladders, or not get to where I wanted because of the slippery jumping and physics. It's also a bit too floaty. The puzzles are the most enjoyable part of the game and it's a shame the boating is so tedious and boring most of the time with nothing going on. If it were cinematic or more interesting of a management system I would really like this idea. I didn't care for it in Lone Sails and it was doubled down on here.

Overall, Changing Tides looks good for what it is and has a nice art style, but you will quickly forget this game. It's about 3-4 hours long and I can't stress enough that there's way too much boating and not enough puzzle-solving or platforming.

This game has vibes. That's about it. Otherwise it's a lot of fiddly sailing with occasional oops out of fuel gotta go manually drag boxes to the ship or gotta solve a simple puzzle that is made harder by the vibes and the extremely zoomed out camera (which can be zoomed in but it's not great).

It's boring as heck, but also active enough that you can't multitask.

It is very pretty though.

A very meditative game that relies a whole lot on it's vibe to get by. Some of it works, some of the areas you'll be exploring around while sailing will be enchanting, especially when the music hits just right.

Unfortunately, there are many times when the vibe just doesn't hit. Then you're left with a dragged out boat maintenance game that just feels tedious and boring.

Mix in a few puzzles that are fairly boring and repetitive and it's really just a shame when one of the moments that has everything come together perfectly returns and you're back to being reminded of what the game could do.

I can definitely see this whole vibe working for others though and this being a personal taste thing so I'd still say give Far: Changing Tides a shot if you're into games that are more about vibes than its gameplay. It might be enough to get over some of the lulls and tedious gameplay that just didn't click for me.

No me ha convencido más que FAR: Lone Sails, aunque han introducido las partes submarinas pero a cambio de quitar todas las terrestres de la primera entrega.

Los puzzles siguen siendo caóticos y demasiado fáciles, poco más que altos de un par de minutos en el camino absolutamente lineal que son ambos títulos. La historia sigue estando fatal contada. Eso si hay algo que contar, que ya empiezo a dudar. Y lo mejor sigue siendo el manejo de la embarcación, pero que a los 20 minutos ya prácticamente lo has visto todo y aún siendo juegos de 2-4 horas se terminan haciendo demasiado largos.

Shelved for now and rating withheld, which is sad considering it was one of my most anticipated sequels but as far as follow ups go this is particularly weak and uninspired. FAR: Changing Tides is a game content on just sticking with what worked the first time around, but what worked then was reinforced by it's nature as a singular experience and all the element of surprise still safely tucked away under the hood. All of that is gone.

Here it immediately feels like retreaded ground, at around halfway through I felt like I saw nothing new besides the flooded locales and deep sea diving portion of the game which, gameplay-wise, just feels like padding. Going scavenging underwater for fuel resources is such a timely, repetitive endeavour compared to just finding them on the road in the first game.

The aesthetic too, Im not sure why exactly but it just doesn't seem to be working in its favour at all. Looks less painterly, more bland and almost lends it an unfinished quality, like there should be more layers to it... At the end of the day, with a 4 year gap between FAR: Lone Sails and this what we got just wasn't enough. A very disappointing, safe, unadventurous, boring sequel affair.

Maybe I'll pick it back up one day and appreciate it a lot more now with my expectations thoroughly dwindled, here's hoping!

This sits in the “just right” Goldilocks Zone in a lot of different ways for me. Its instructive iconography is subtle enough to make me feel smart for figuring out its light puzzle platforming but intuitive enough to never frustrate. Its moments of wonder and aesthetic beauty are balanced with enough interactivity that I still feel like a I’m playing a game and not watching a glorified video. The demands of its survival-type loops generate a pleasant sense of pressure without a stressful consequence looming if I fail to keep them going. And maybe most importantly, it’s long enough to explore several different ideas but short enough to stay fresh and avoid any padding.