I thought I was in for a cozy, chill, little puzzle-solving game geared towards kids. I was wrong. This is not a fun relaxing game for kids. It started simple enough, but I quickly got frustrated when the fights got harder and all I had was a stick and no shield. In fact, the fights were so intensely difficult that I went right into my violently angry voice in my rage against it. There's no way kids could do this with any success. The soothing music and gorgeous and lively environments were not enough to tame the rage in me after every one-hit murder I endured. I had to put on immortal mode after my eighth death in ten minutes just to enjoy the game and not throw the controller into the TV screen.

When I found more and more pages of the manual and found more interactions with indecipherable symbols instead of English, I realized the made-up language NEEDED to be deciphered. Thanks to the reddit user who figured out that it's based on English, but with text built like Korean. The language would have been easier if it had simply been a pigpen cipher, but it was phoneme-based, and each stroke changed the sound/meaning. It's not learning a cipher at all, it's learning a writing system! Who has time to stop playing the game long enough to decipher hundreds of pieces of dialogue, story, and instructions, let alone figure out the language itself in the first place?? Three cheers to the reddit user who figured it out, and three more cheers for the other reddit user who built a tool to write in and decode it, stroke-by-stroke. And three more cheers to the person who made the interactive map of the whole place.

Thankfully, with enough pictures, the manual wasn't IMPOSSIBLE to decipher, and I figured out a (very) few things on my own. But I still had to look up how to do SO MANY things, and I still struggled. There were key pages of the manual that I was missing, and even after finding them, I still struggled to figure out what's necessary and what's extra (I can't even get started on the extra stuff - there's hidden passages with absolutely no indication, and d-pad codes that seem insanely random if you didn't look them up).

The fast-travel spots are few and far between, which made doing the cleanup after beating the game (I got both endings) too tedious to bother. Would have loved little pencil marks on the maps when discovering hidden passageways, if only to keep me from spending hours figuring out how I got to certain spots once but couldn't find the right path again.

Overall, after putting on god mode, I enjoyed the game enough to keep going. The music was lovely, the environments were gorgeous and engaging, and there was plenty to do! I highly recommend finding the deciphering tool made by a reddit user (it's linked on the reddit entry from the person who discovered how to decipher the language), and keeping that and the interactive map handy at all times. I had over 20 tabs open on my browser, but those two were the real MVPs (whatever that means).

And I definitely recommend going in knowing this is like... I dunno...
Souls Jr.

Gameplay : 9/10, Le livre guide est une idée formidable et les éléments cachés dans le jeu sont un énorme plus dans un jeu déjà très agréable dans la simplicité qu'il parait donner au premier abord.
Visuels : 10/10, Selon moi le gros point fort du jeu, il est magnifique. Les différentes ambiances en fonction des régions sont top, les lumières sont incroyables et font beaucoup pour l'ambiance.
Ambiance sonore : 8/10, Très sympa !
Jeu : 9/10, Le jeu à vraiment plusieurs niveaux de lectures qui se dévoilent et qui rendent l'aventure passionante.

(Reseña sacada de mi cuenta de Steam: APolChrome)

Tunic... una sorpresa sin ninguna duda. Es un juego poco convencional, misterioso, que no te explica nada. Y siento que eso lo hace increíble. Estamos en una etapa de los videojuegos donde todos los juegos con mundos amplios tienen que indicarte con pelos y señales todo lo que tienes que hacer. Pero Tunic no lo hace. Y eso lo hace quieras o no distinto. Empecemos.

Tunic es un juego sobresaliente. En todos sus apartados es genial. Quiero empezar hablando del gameplay y todo lo que le rodea. Que pasada es el título jugablemente. Lo más superficial sería el combate, que hace una mezcla entre Dark Souls (por el estilo) y los Zeldas 2D clásicos (en perspectiva) para dar un combate que parece simple (porque realmente lo es) pero que se hace mucho más complejo. Las boss fights son increíbles. Si no has jugado nunca un juego de este estilo, la primera es súper difícil, pero cuando te acostumbras, es súper satisfactorio esquivar los golpes que te has memorizado de un boss y saber cuando atacar. Si bien he echado de menos alguna boss fight más, las que hay son un 10 absoluto.

El mapa es otra cosa que me ha encantado. Un mapa que sabe controlarse en tamaño y que está relleno sin sentirse sobrecargado. El mapa tiene muchos coleccionables que van desde objetos clave (como armas), objetos secundarios como bombas y más cosas. Tiene muchas zonas y muy variadas, con diferentes temáticas y enemigos característicos.

Siguiendo con el gameplay, quiero comentar lo misterioso del juego. TODO el juego está escrito en un idioma que le es desconocido a nuestro protagonista (incluso en el menú de pausa, donde debería poner pausa, lo pone en ese idioma). No sabemos nada, ni lo que tenemos que hacer. Pero para eso está el manual de instrucciones (la que es a mí parecer, la mejor mecánica del juego). Como si de un juego de los años 90 se tratase, tendremos un manual de instrucciones, del cual tendremos que encontrar sus páginas. Este manual tiene mezcla de idiomas, pero te va contando lo que tienes que hacer y me ha parecido una forma muy original y que funciona muy bien de contarte el mundo.

Audiovisualmente, es otro 10. Es precioso (a mí me recuerda visualmente al remake de Link's Awakening) con una paleta de colores muy amplia y en su mayoría de colores vivos. Aunque la OST no tiene ningún tema que se me haya quedado marcado, está bien.

Narrativamente, no he entendido mucho, pero lo que he entendido me ha gustado. No quiero hacer spoilers, porque tiene muchos giros y es mejor que cada uno descubra el lore a su ritmo, pero os aseguro que os va a gustar.

Me he dejado muchas cosas del juego, pero solo con esto, ya podrás ver lo mucho que me ha encantado Tunic. Cómpralo porque aunque parezca caro, es una experiencia como pocas en la industria actual. Recomendadísimo.

Tunic isn't a game I would normaly be interested in, especially since I'm not into Zelda likes, however being free on playstation plus and from word of mouth I thougtht I'd give it a try. People I know that love Tunic, really really love Tunic. I didn't expect to fall in that camp but If I could get a decent short fun experiance out of it from trying something I normally wouldn't I would be fine with that and ultimately that's kidna where I feel with Tunic. I can see why some fans become die hards as I can see it being a really easy game to get absorbed into by it's design philosophy. In fact that kinda why I like it as well but there are some short comings and frustrations from it as well.

Tunic is a game that simply drops you in it's world without a single explanation. You are encouraged to just simply explore and find out what your goal is at your leasure. Essentially exploring the big island and finding it's secrets is the name of the game but how you go about it is left a secret as well. The game starts with a simple structure of activating a couple of points to unlock a big door but while sounding simple it can be quite the challange on how to proceed. While Tunic's combat is quite basic and simple it does have some challenging boss battles that will test the players skills and preperation, it's real challenge though is finding out where to go and remembering where things are. It very much feels like a navigation puzzle.

One of the more interesting aspects of Tunic is how cryptic the game is. Much of the world and spoken dialog is in a complete made up in game language. So getting items and experimenting at what they do is vital. You might pick something out that you really just can't figure out what it is supposed to do. Cleverly though Tunic as an interesting mechanic to help with this. Scattered throughout the world are pages to the games literal instruction manual that you can unlock and veiw at any time. Stuff like background story details, control explanation, item details, enemey descriptions and even area maps. Things that are vital in solving the games logic. It leads to a nostalgic feeling on relaying on a manual like many games did back in the day for some basic explanation and without it it's simply guess work and ingenuity that will get you through. Heck it wasn't until about half way through the game that I got the item description page on what some items do, so the game doesn't hand them out like candy. Most of the time it's through exploration or using new abilities in past areas that reward the player with more knowledge. It gives the player the feeling of discovery and knowledge that they found this on their own but at the sametime does help to give them flat information on what to do. As much as I love this mechanic and helpfullness doesn't make solving the puzzles of Tunic an easy task. I only found about half the pages of the manual on my playthrough.

I enjoyed the first half of the game of Tunic but I will admit I think the game does falter in the later half. If your a person that gets frustrated when they immeaditly don't know where to go or what they are supposed to be doing then man this game is not for you. Many times I found myself questioning, uh I felt like I explored everything and I have no idea what I didn't get. A lot of the time Tunic's semi top down view point can be extremely misleading on showing where paths can lead and sometimes straight up be hidden. If there is even a sliver of a shadow or wall that is obscured you best be trying to walk against it to make sure that there isn't a critical path there that's intentionally hidden because the game loves doing just that. That coupled with the cryptic nature of the game can lead to very frustrating times. It's like I know what I have to do but I have no idea where that place I visited hours ago was and I don't remember how to get there, so I end up walking around aimlessly trying to find that one thing. Basic mechanics I would discover very late into the game was equally satisfying to figure out and frustrating. I didn't there was a run option several hours into the game. I didn't know there were fast travel pads until halfway through. I have no idea what this item does. This is where I think the game makes or breaks people. If you like the sense of discovery and seeing things in a new light and don't mind the frustrations that got you there then I can see why some praise the game. On the other side though I can see people easily getting annoyed at every corner of this game. I think I was somewhere in the middle of that crossroads. Like I said earlier I enjoyed the first half but the last half was just too cyrptic and frustrating even when I figured out what to do. When you are playing in your spirit form was the portion of the game where it comeplety lost me. I just wanted it to end at that point as I felt I needed to look at a walkthrough to navigate to the end and I hate having to do that.

In the end, I was middling on Tunic but I can see the appeal that it has on some. However that is some niche appeal and it's certainly not for everyone. Despite that I would recommened to certain type of people but not without huge caveats.

This game is frustrating but it’s got charm. I’d say I’m a fan. has that unique charm to it. The artistic style never fails to disappoint in finji games.

I will admit I did use cheats to finish it but I got time on my hands. And I’m a pussy!!!

The final boss was just.. too much. But I get the story reason why it’s so great. With no spoilers of course. The endings were also dark to borderline cute.

An almost perfect modern classic.

I really enjoyed Tunic and its immersive world. I think they have managed to do something very special, which is to recreate the experience of a classic game and integrate it into the game itself.

Starting completely from scratch with THE reference to Link's Awakening through a wonderful adventure game that culminates in one of the most interesting mechanics I've seen for a game of this genre: the instruction manual.

I think it's the inclusion of this instruction manual that makes Tunic such a special game. It encourages you to keep going, most of its pages you can quietly get as you progress through the game and I would almost say it forces you to not only complete the game, but to seek out its ending. It may seem the same, but I tell you it is not.

Tunic's puzzles have been one of the few recently that have forced me to take out paper and pencil to either solve it or start thinking about it. It is a great success the way they have had to hide the clues to solve them, as well as to complete THE puzzle of puzzles. Truly, that classic, discovery and early youth feeling, they have succeeded.

However, not everything is perfect for me. The game has its own language that, although understandable at the beginning, I would have wished that as we accumulated more pages of the manual we would learn more words of that language until we could fully translate that missing vocabulary. I know that, with dedication, it can be done, but it would have been the icing on the cake to have that translation happen in the game itself as a way of evolution and understanding as we discover its secrets.

On the other hand, combat feels basic and becoming a bit slow and poorly responsive. However, it is true that the enemies are not very difficult to defeat (removing the mage boss, which was a nuisance hahaha).

Even tho it has some flaws, I really loved playing Tunic!