[~1.5hrs in]
First and foremost, let me begin by saying that Trico is both adorable and terrifying. It's like an XL Bully that you want to befriend; you stroke it cautiously, yet cannot ignore the possibility it may randomly snap and tear your face off at any moment. The game, though beautiful in design, does a spectacular job of no hand-holding whatsoever; I've already got frustrated enough to Google how to get past a section because the hint kept telling me to climb, but I could not find anything to climb. Turned out, I didn't need to climb; the hint was misleading to say the least. The path so far it has been relatively linear, unsure if that's how it remains throughout, but exploration feels faux organic - it seems like you're following your own intuition and figuring it out, but there really is no other way to proceed so eventually you're always going to end up being correct. The game has a constant tension, like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop... or my companion to maul me... I'm intrigued, but by no means blown away.

[4hrs in]
Did not finish. I'm regrettably abandoning this title already. The concept is nice, Trico is cool and the premise of training him like some kinda alien dog is novel... but my god are the controls janky and the environment repetitively bland. Jumping, climbing, and even running is frustrating - it's not smooth at all. And the gameplay is just not fun. I checked the IGN walkthrough to get a sense of how long the game is and after seeing I'm only on Part 5/14, I can't be bothered to endure that much more of this. I have way too many other games on my Backlog to find time for.

I nierly liked it. My main problem is the characters. I was not really invested with any so everytime there was a big revelation or even when a character died, i didnt feel much. The story is something. It's nothing bad but nothing new as well. The "philosophy" is just very basic or 101-ish.

As for the gameplay, its v bad / repetitive. maybe hack n slash is just not for me. The "hacking" must be one of the worst modes in any video game.

I really wanted to like this game but couldn't.

Awooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The Quarry is honestly, to me, a less interesting and less funny version of Until Dawn, but that kind of gave it some charm? I feel like this dev will pretty much always be chasing the shadow of their first game, whose breakthrough Choose Your Own Adventure in a video game form was something fairly new and refreshing for gaming with the amount of effort put into it. The Quarry's premise is functionally something that I'm not really interested in, which was probably and unfairly my first gripe with the game's story and atmosphere. I've never been into the summer camp-horror genre aesthetic that something like Friday the 13th is all about, but I think it could be saved for me with some good character writing and a good narrative, but the Quarry was certainly not that.

Characters drive these kinds of games and Until Dawn nailed it with having the bizarre and distrubed Rami Malek lead and a supremely cringe supporting cast. The Quarry is decidedly cringe in its casting, but I didn't feel like there were a lot of people that were too compelling. I just kinda felt indifferent to a lot of characters that were written to feel "relatable" to zoomers and gamers of that age group. Ryan and his "podcasts" got old real quick, Jacob's "Chad-bro" attitude got grating pretty fast, and the cop's inability to explain literally anything that was going on was surely something. Of all the characters I came away with good takeaways on it was pretty much just Dylan, who was effortlessly sarcastic the entire journey, and Abigail who I just felt bad for. Like I mentioned, these kinds of games live and die by their characters and they were sort of perfect for a game like this, for the most part. The adolescent cringe was alright, but some of the blatant failure to adhere to basic logic (like Kaitlyn being the only person qualified to use a gun yet giving it up to others in the party at a pivotal moment) left me throwing up my hands in a confused pose.

In all, I wasn't into the games aesthetic too much and the cringe characters mostly succeeded in their cringe but fell flat in other parts of it. The story was alright at best, but the twists weren't too twisty and the surprise of this franchise has already been done best in Until Dawn. Casting was mostly pretty good, shoutout to my fellow Michiganders in Ted Raimi and Lin Shaye, but Justice Smith's Ryan just sounded... bored at pretty much every opportunity he had to speak. I also felt like the ending just more or less happened, and that was it. I think I got a "good" ending in the way I resolved the last few chapters but it didn't feel gratifying in the way that my multiple Until Dawn playthroughs did.

If I were to recommend this game, it should definitely be purchased on sale and should be played with a crowd (like I played it.) It's fun to make these decisions as a group and make fun of characters to give some added humour to the game.