interesting experiment using blink-based controls for a tearjerker narrative game. I don't think it's quite as good as it's been made out to be - I didn't find the story to be as moving as others did, I could only get the blink detection to "acceptable" rather than truly reliable, and I don't think the blink gimmick ends up adding as much to the narrative design as the developers thought it did. having said that, it's still a nicely told, short experience that tries something different, and it's definitely worth a play if the premise intrigues you. I'd wait for a sale or bundle, though

I like the idea of a low-stakes, story-driven slice-of-life game set in a small open world, but a short ways in, I'm pretty certain that this isn't going to be for me; there's no apparent narrative hook, and the gameplay in the non-story sections is tedious and doesn't feel good to control. There's also some egregiously bad voice acting from one of the NPCs you meet early on, which struck me as a pretty bad sign. If you find the story and characters compelling from the outset, you'll probably be more forgiving than I was, but this came off to me as a pretty underwhelming execution of a strong premise.

If you can get past the poor optimization, bugs, and general jank (there's a very brief but mandatory stealth sequence late in the game that's so badly designed that it almost made me quit the game in frustration)... this is actually a pretty fun combat-free 3D platformer with a focus on reasonably satisfying exploration and puzzles. I'd definitely wait for a sale, though, and I'd also recommend OMNO over this one, as it's another recent indie 3D platformer that's attempting very similar things to Scarf with its gameplay, atmosphere, and even art direction, but with significantly more polished execution.

The story is also very questionably told and involves a "twist" that isn't actually a twist at all, since any potential impact has already been thoroughly spoiled by both optional collectibles and mandatory cutscenes. still, the focus here is more on gameplay than storytelling (this isn't Journey, though that was clearly an inspiration), so the weak story doesn't hurt the game as much as it otherwise might have.

played this for an hour or so and I just don't think it's gonna be for me; I was under the impression that this was a Zelda-like with Soulslike elements, but it actually seems to be trying to just be a streamlined Soulslike. Nothing resembling a puzzle to speak of, bad checkpointing, uninteresting level design, and too heavy a focus on combat for my tastes; I bailed after I kept dying in a ridiculously long gated combat arena that kept spawning seemingly endless waves of enemies long after I thought it would be over. Maybe I'll give it another shot at some point, but probably not anytime soon.

I had negative impressions when I first played this; fortunately, I gave it another chance a couple days later, and it turns out that the intro areas are just dull and don't represent the rest of the game very well. It's not my ideal kind of Zelda-like - puzzles are a bit simple, and there's too much emphasis on combat and too many gated combat encounters for my taste, and while the levels are designed in such a way that the lack of a map doesn't hurt as much as it could have, it doesn't particularly help the experience either (it was certainly enough to discourage me from attempting everything you need to get the true ending). Still, the art direction and presentation are great, controls are snappy, and the dungeon-y areas are generally fun to explore, so I'm glad I gave it another shot before it leaves Game Pass.

I really do suck at this game, though, especially the combat. Don't think I could have beat it without a trainer.

an arty, story-driven, combat-free 3D puzzle-platformer in the vein of games like Journey and GRIS, with its central gimmick being the use of the right analog stick to rewind and advance time. not at the top of its class in a subgenre I'm quite fond of (the platforming doesn't feel as tight as it should, and the fixed camera angle makes it more difficult than it should be to gauge distance when platforming), but the time-manipulation puzzles are generally pretty fun and the story, while not terribly original (the "simple story" part of the title isn't an exaggeration), is fairly well-told through gameplay, with a genuinely touching ending.

Great visuals, art direction, and presentation, but sadly, not nearly as much development effort went into the gameplay; there just isn't much going on here mechanically besides some repetitive, so-so combat and a few very rudimentary puzzles, though the level design does get at least slightly more interesting in the later chapters as it introduces some very un-Kurosawa set pieces and supernatural elements. It's fairly short, so I don't regret playing it on Game Pass on easy difficulty just to soak in the graphics, though even on easy, I still encountered some annoying difficulty spikes.