a major disappointment, after having seen and heard so much praise from many of the game critics I follow. the environmental storytelling might be great, but the photography game/walking simulator built around that storytelling requires putting up with a frankly unacceptable level of jank: basic movement and jumping are painfully clunky; there are major collision detection issues that led to me frequently falling through stairs, being catapulted into the air, or getting stuck on edges; and some of the objectives are particularly tedious and obscure (I could not for the life of me get the "10 solar panels with the telephoto lens" objective on the second level to register as having been completed, which was the straw that broke the camel's back here).

I have no doubt that this game is doing some very interesting and admirable things with its world-building and politics, but frankly, I'd much rather read an essay, watch a YouTube video, or listen to a podcast about those than attempt to actually play this again.

A side-scrolling action-RPG consisting of almost nothing but fetch quests. The gameplay loop of trekking into dungeons and collecting items to unlock town upgrades is mindless fun for a couple hours, but wore out its welcome for me before I even unlocked the third playable character; a more involved combat system might have helped, but I'm not sure it'd make up for the repetition of going through the same areas over and over again, even if new parts of those levels do gradually open up. the 3D environments look nice, at least

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.