A great puzzle game which hams up the story a little too much at times but ends up being charming and cohesive by the end. With Pikmin like boss fights a couple times and lemmings scenarios aplenty this is a wonderful thing that’s not too long roughly 10-15 hours. I think it should be lax on the expectation of getting goldies to progress but otherwise it didn’t outstay its welcome for me. The soundtrack is amazing too like it’s too perfect almost at times and hits so well at the end big PS2 era vibes from this one and I was so happy when I unlocked a track selection for levels. Yeah there’s unlockables and things to tinker with but the puzzles are at the heart of this - and they’re all pretty good to great but I think they stumbled for me a little when they introduced the follow the leader mechanic - half because stick drift and inconsistency for me - other half it felt less engaging than earlier things. Again though the later Core boss fights pulled me back in to both gameplay and story. For some it probably hams up the narrative angle too much but it was just right for me. With user created stages and a stage creator to boot your mileage could vary wildly on this one - I’ll hope these servers stay up in perpetuity unlike Little Big Planet 3.

I would like to score this game higher, but I can't think of a lot of other games that have outstayed their welcome this much. Humanity is a brilliant study of the evolution of humankind from a thought to a society, and it is very impressive in how it ropes together the themes of what makes us human with the designs of the puzzles.

Unfortunately, and I'm not exaggerating, this 15-hour game is 10 hours too long. I get it. You don't have to hammer in the same point 13 times before letting us move on to the next stage of humanity; Just two or three would have sufficed. I am exhausted and tired and wish to never look at this game again. At the same time it was extremely thought-provoking, and the readiness of the hint system is a must for people like me who are very stupid. I would also like to clarify there is no way I would have made it more than 2 or 3 hours into this game without the hints . It feels absolutely impossible at times.

I actually think if this was about a third of the length it is it might be on par with Portal - however I don't know that I fully recommend this game. It is truly genius in its design and the ending had me almost tearing up as humans were finally created, but also more than half the puzzles in this game could have easily been scrapped without changing a single thing about the quality or narrative. So a reluctant hurrah for this one, and let's move on.

it could be tempting to say this is a “modern take on lemmings” and call it a day, but i don’t think that’s quite it. humanity is a game very clearly of that early, experimental lineage that defined playstation throughout its first decade. it is to games like intelligent qube, kula world, and nobody can stop mr. domino what shovel knight is to some of the most beloved 80s NES titles. just that alone feels special, a product of a bygone era that by all accounts should not exist in our current dogshit aaa-core milieu. but it is by the same token that this was, at least personally, a bittersweet experience. major players, and especially sony, have lost all interest in fostering this spirit, so we’re left to pick up whatever crumbs we can get. at least there are still a small few out there carrying that torch.

It's possible to look at a level of Humanity for ages. The visual concept of bipedal figures swarming or moving like schools of fish remains striking throughout the game's transformations. The soundtrack is also pleasantly abstract, which works well at both regular speed and fast-forward. That's a good thing, as the major downside to the game can be how much it relies on trial-and-error and restarts. However, the variety of levels and challenges ensures that issue doesn't dominate the game. Some levels are genuine brain-twisters and the boss fights (yep, it's a puzzle game with boss fights!) are always a spectacle.

It's like a mix of Lemmings and Captain Toad.

Now this is how you do a puzzle game.

I'm not a fan of puzzle games, but something this smart will grab me. I know I'm "only" giving it a 3/5 but that's because I'm generally not interested in puzzles. It's not how I prefer to engage with games. For someone who enjoys puzzles, I can totally see this being a 5/5.

It's very satisfying to pull off the tasks you are given. Running around is smooth, the control of the camera you have works very well, and there's quite a variety to the ways the game shows you its ideas. All wrapped up with a pleasant visual presentation. There are also a lot of tools that allow the game to pace itself well. Speeding up time, freezing it, retrying while keeping your inputs in position, etc. are all very welcome. It's the lack of those types of things that kill my enjoyment of other puzzle games very easily.

I did not finish this, but I'm stepping away. I believe I'm about 1/3 through. I might get back to it at some point, but it does take a lot of mental energy to get through a couple levels. Lots of brain power required here!

Quando la semplicità può portare a grandi risultati.

Humanity è fatto così. Gioco dalle semplici meccaniche e dalla semplice realizzazione tecnica. Semplice, ma non banale.
Così come ogni casa è costruita partendo da semplici mattoni, Humanity è costituito partendo da semplici meccaniche e semplici texture che, messe insieme da sapienti menti creative, danno vita ad un puzzle game sorprendentemente versatile, che saprà intrattenere anche i più appassionati del genere.
Stesso discorso va applicato alla direzione artistica, la quale, specialmente nelle parti finali, regala coreografie geometriche impressionanti, al cui confronto non potremo far altro che sentirci insignificanti.

Quel che si può dire della storia, senza privare il paziente (o pazzo?) lettore del gusto della scoperta, lo suggerisce il titolo stesso: Humanity sarà una grande riflessione filosofica sul concetto di umanità, in cui verranno posti quesiti sulla sua essenza e sul suo percorso verso un imperscrutabile destino.
Sebbene ciò non sia una novità nella narrazione videoludica, rimane comunque uno spunto interessante su cui riflettere nella vita quotidiana.

La semplicità è anche relax. Certi enigmi risulteranno parecchio difficili da risolvere, ma la sperimentale ed armonica colonna sonora attutirà ogni nostro stress, rendendo il processo di "trial and error" per nulla svilente, anzi, si verrà incentivati a provare e riprovare ogni livello fino a trovare la soluzione più ottimizzata e funzionale possibile.

Il protagonista, un frammento di luce pura a forma di cane, dovrà guidare l'umanità al termine del livello per completare il puzzle, e per farlo avrà a disposizione una serie di "segnali stradali" da posizionare in giro per la mappa. Il controllo di questo personaggio sarà dunque di vitale importanza per la corretta fruizione del gioco; per quanto, pad alla mano, comandare questo lucente cagnolino sia piacevole, risulta altresì super limitante, dato che non sempre potremmo raggiungere comodamente ogni anfratto del livello, anche quando servirebbe un tempismo preciso. Tal cosa può essere vista come "difficoltà aggiuntiva", ma in realtà è solo una "difficoltà artificiale" che non aggiunge niente di più all'esperienza complessiva.

Da apprezzare, inoltre, la modalità "area personalizzata", in cui sarà possibile, con un editor ricco ed intuitivo, creare dei propri livelli da condividere alla comunità, in cui far sfoggio di tutta la propria creatività.

Se cercate un esperienza rilassata ma non per questo facile e banale, Humanity è ciò che fa al caso vostro. Uno dei migliori puzzle game degli ultimi tempi. E pure in VR. Nice.

"Woof woof!"

This game is a difficult ask for $30, if you are subscribed to a PS Plus Extra feel free to try it out. It starts out amazing, but later mechanics can be very frustrating and too trial-and-error. The game is lacking a lot of QoL features, and the soundtrack is super hit or miss too.

Mechanics
The big advertised aspects that made me try the game, leading infinite streams of people through fun puzzle platforming challenges in real-time, get sidelined in later chapters, and I didn't find a lot of the new stuff as enjoyable. There's far less platforming, which was my favorite aspect of the game.

The game starts out with puzzles, but later on, it often turns into trial-and-error when combat starts to be involved. Sometimes, enemy movements even happen during the middle of the stage, and there's not enough warning when it happens. Other times, it feels like RNG whether or not you win a combat, and some missions are extremely unforgiving, making you fail the level or lose access to Goldies if you lose even one human.

In many levels, time is stopped while you place commands, then you start time and see if it works out. These stages become more tedious than hard when enemies are involved. Instead of discovering the solution to a tricky puzzle, you're retrying over and over, adjusting your commands tile by tile until you find the exact setting that either avoids or defeats the enemy, and then reaches the exit.

In some time stop stages, you can position some humans before starting time. However, these starting positions of humans are not saved, so you have to re-do them each time you retry.

Goldies
Goldies start out as bonus humans that you have to safely guide to the exit without letting them fall. This mechanic starts out super fun, and you're often sending something so valuable flying through the sky and hoping they make it. Some of them are very challenging to collect and bring to the exit, especially in real-time, and it was great fun in early chapters.

But later on, Goldies become required to unlock the exit to complete many stages, defeating the purpose. It's not bonus anymore. Some required story stages only have 1 Goldy, and you must get it to clear the stage.

Some later stages have extremely trivial Goldies, directly on your path or right next to it. I've even found one that was placed a couple tiles in front of the exit. It was just... free.

Other Problems
You can see how the enemy humans will move. They have arrows and stuff just like the ones you place, but in black. However, you cannot see these arrows unless time is moving. You need to start time, and then you must enter free camera mode. Otherwise, you can't see the enemy arrows. I went through the entire game not realizing that this information was available because of this issue.

During time stop stages, the start button is a physical location you have to run to. When you retry, you get teleported back to the starting position and then have to walk back to where your error was, fix your error... and then walk back to the start button. This should've been streamlined somehow.

Soundtrack is very hit or miss, and the music selector is bugged; when you retry a stage, the music resets back to default.

Some combat or physics RNG can cause you to randomly win or fail a stage without changing anything. If a Goldy enters an intersection between two streams of humans, it might get diverted into the other path. It might not. It's random which way it goes, and I've had to restart stages until I get the desired outcome.

HUMANITY is not a bad game, but it's just very rough around the edges.

This is probably the oddest game that I've played on any PlayStation platform. The gameplay is just weird and not my usual style of gaming. The graphics though are exactly what you would picture a PS5 game to look like. The controls do work, but they can be finicky at times while maneuvering to the finish of each level. This is a game that I only recommend to those who have a high patience level and can tolerate some finicky controls. To everyone else, play a different game like Marvel's Spider Man 2 instead. 3/5.

Osvícení Lemmingové pro 21. století. Hravá a nápaditá puzzle hříčka, která se odvážně pustila do práce s přesahovými a nadčasovými tématy vývoje lidstva. A to vše bez tradičního děje, pouze skrze mechaniky, stylizaci a pár dialogových vět před některými levely.

S ohledem na živost a proměnlivost mechanik, by bylo ochuzující být konkrétní "kudy a jak" se to vydává, ale pro představu platí, že cílem je pomocí příkazů vést davy z bodu A do bodu B. Lidé jsou zobrazeni jako odosobněná masa ovcí, se kterou můžete nakládat dle svého uvážení a slepě následují vaše příkazy a dostat jich dostatečné množství lidí do konkrétního bodu; potud ona spřízněnost s Lemmings. Někdy programováním sady kroků budoucích, jindy dynamickým situačním úkolováním... Ano, je to generické a nicneříkající, ale byla by škoda se ochudit o překvapení co vše a jak dokáží tvůrci s jednoduchým "z A do B" vymyslet.

Nejde o logický mozkovar, spíše než jeden koncept rozpracovaný v průběhu několika desítek úrovní se stoupající komplexitou a obtížností variováním téhož, se to mění pod rukama čili se mnohdy tak trochu začíná odznovu s jinou mechanikou či vychytávkou. Zda je to výhoda či ne, je na vás, oba přístupy k logickému žánru jsou validní. Když nic jiného, je to variabilní.

Jakkoli to není až taková výzva (dokonce jsou zde i úrovně, které můžete splnit zcela mimoděk, ani nevíte jak), tak přeci jen jsou zde i komplexní výzvy, kdy už nějaký čas ve své hlavě "chápu co mám udělat, ale sakra, jak s tím co mám k dispozici?" přemýšlením strávíte. Většinou jsou to však bonusové podmínky (dostaň do cíle i “©Oscary®”) jednotlivých úrovní či dobrovolné výzvy "úroveň XY splň za těchto konkrétních omezujících podmínek".

Za celou herní dobu (cca 15 hodin při splněním veškerých achievementů) nenarazíte na žádný zásek, kdybyste bezmocně dlouhé hodiny bloumali jako tělo bez duše a nemohli rozlousknout zapeklitý problém. Mě jeden drobný potkal, ale ten byl způsoben mou nepozorností, nikoli obtížností daného levelu. Mozek vám to neuvaří, ale ani netečností mrznout nebude.

Díky pojetí, stylizaci a tématice jde o první titul, který bych si s gustem opravdu rád zahrál ve VR, který to hodně propaguje. Stejně jako editor úrovní a galerii uživatelských levelů.

Není to nejobtížnější ani nejoriginálnější puzzle indie titul posledních let, ale to co dělá, dělá sakra dobře, chytlavě a nápaditě.

I remember playing lemmings on my psp and only asking for it because I had played Pingus on my family pc. Since then I haven't really played a game that hit that same itch in my goop loot goblin brain.

A lot of the levels were easy but getting all the goldys were what took it up a notch. At first I was a bit apprehensive on the real time levels where you are in full control but they grew on me overtime. A lot of the chapters with "combat" i did not enjoy as much. These felt a bit tacked on and as if the game was not built for it. I wish more of the combat sections were like the final red core boss that were more like a bullet hell dodging game then a puzzle game with some combat.

Overall it was a great time and I hope we see a sequel in some way. The platinum was fun, and it was cool how they incorporated things such as game stats and skins as an unlock for getting collectibles.

Ein paar schöne Ideen für Rätsel und neue Mechaniken die im Laufe des Spiels immer wieder andere Ansätze erfordern lassen keine Langeweile aufkommen. Die Puzzle sind teilweise sehr knifflig, was zu Frustration führen kann, aber dafür spielt man diese Spiele ja auch ein bisschen. Die Inszenierung ist in ihrem simplen Stil irgendwie faszinierend und hat durchaus einige sehr schöne Momente.
Insgesamt hatte ich viel Spaß, ich weiß allerdings nicht warum dieses Spiel auf der PSVR2 gelandet ist. Meiner Meinung nach bringt VR keine weitere Komponente zum Spielerlebnis - Schade eigentlich.
Ich kanns allen Rätsel Fans empfehlen

Die Platintrophäe ist sehr straight forward, alle Rätsel bestreiten und pro Sequenz ein Level mit kleinem Kniff lösen.