The most brilliant innovation of Unsighted’s design is the process of becoming unsighted itself. Every character is an automaton with a fixed amount of hours remaining before they regress into a hostile overworld enemy. Your goal is to save them from their fates but it’s made difficult since the resource to save them is so scarce. On the surface, a pretty interesting premise to play around with but it falls short in a few key areas.
Namely, the way in which it’s introduced. This tidbit is dropped rather unceremoniously after the prologue and the fear that every life, including your own, is doomed to end drives a forward progression in the player to speedrun the game. However the game loses that all important emotional connection that it espouses in it’s story and generally in what this kind of mechanic seems built for when the player is encouraged to run as far as possible away from your allies and thrust themselves into the dungeons. An alternative proposal would’ve been to secret away the knowledge that every character operates on a timer, and instead reveal that information after some time has been spent to foster a connection. With the game’s multitude of flashback scenes detailing what happened before the unsighted crisis, I think making them playable would’ve gone a long way in harmonizing both gameplay mechanics and themes.
This is especially egregious considering the conditions of the “true” ending. Naturally one may expect this to be the path where no one dies. Instead of needing a speedrun, the game requires the player to essentially get an item that allows them to rewind time to the start with all their items and then confront the final boss. It’s ridiculous that this was included since it appears to be totally possible to beat the game in under an hour(evidenced by the achievement screen). I understand this was probably done to ensure that anyone could get the ending on their first try but I truly wish they pushed against the player harder with this particular mechanic considering so many aspects of it feel like an afterthought and that is one thing such an interesting idea shouldn’t be.
As far as the actual gameplay is concerned, despite being advertised as a kind of metroidvania, Unsighted is in reality more of an iteration on something like A Link to the Past. The influence was obvious in how they highlight all the major dungeons with the exact same design as that of the dark world dungeons in that game. However the player is given a huge amount of freedom in how they choose to approach any of the dungeons since they can be entered at any time and items can be got out of sequence. I didn’t experiment with this much as of writing but I did find it interesting that all items including the dungeon specific puzzle items can be crafted immediately and their blueprints can be found relatively easily. I’m usually the first to scoff at unnecessary survival mechanics in games but this served as a good compromise, really allowing the player to make the world their own.
Unfortunately the puzzles don’t approach a similar level of complexity to A Link to the Past and I suppose making the dungeons relatively breezy was to serve the time limit. The level design can be surprisingly readable almost too readable at some points but the combat is a different story. Some endgame bosses can have such an overwhelming amount of things to keep track of on screen and it becomes clear that the only way to deal a reasonable amount of damage against the higher level enemies is to parry constantly. Parrying is also incentivized since it refills your stamina completely and gives you brief invulnerability. This later game bosses can turn into exercises in parry fishing which never feels great. Thankfully the game is short enough that these minor annoyances don’t amount to much and only feel noticeable at the end game when the health bars get massive.
Perhaps Unsighted’s most brilliant contribution is the sheer vibe. Running around this primitive cyberpunk world, listening to a dark jazzy piano hum gently in the rain is such a comfy feeling. I wish there was more to this game then there ultimately was, but it is a project where I could feel a lot of attention and soul flowing out of the screen. Despite my problems with the game not being able to get you attached to any of the characters, I smiled when the main character saves the girl and the epilogue shows all the citizens you saved, or chose not to, living peacefully with one another. A little sappy, a little too melodramatic but a passionate and sweet little game.
Namely, the way in which it’s introduced. This tidbit is dropped rather unceremoniously after the prologue and the fear that every life, including your own, is doomed to end drives a forward progression in the player to speedrun the game. However the game loses that all important emotional connection that it espouses in it’s story and generally in what this kind of mechanic seems built for when the player is encouraged to run as far as possible away from your allies and thrust themselves into the dungeons. An alternative proposal would’ve been to secret away the knowledge that every character operates on a timer, and instead reveal that information after some time has been spent to foster a connection. With the game’s multitude of flashback scenes detailing what happened before the unsighted crisis, I think making them playable would’ve gone a long way in harmonizing both gameplay mechanics and themes.
This is especially egregious considering the conditions of the “true” ending. Naturally one may expect this to be the path where no one dies. Instead of needing a speedrun, the game requires the player to essentially get an item that allows them to rewind time to the start with all their items and then confront the final boss. It’s ridiculous that this was included since it appears to be totally possible to beat the game in under an hour(evidenced by the achievement screen). I understand this was probably done to ensure that anyone could get the ending on their first try but I truly wish they pushed against the player harder with this particular mechanic considering so many aspects of it feel like an afterthought and that is one thing such an interesting idea shouldn’t be.
As far as the actual gameplay is concerned, despite being advertised as a kind of metroidvania, Unsighted is in reality more of an iteration on something like A Link to the Past. The influence was obvious in how they highlight all the major dungeons with the exact same design as that of the dark world dungeons in that game. However the player is given a huge amount of freedom in how they choose to approach any of the dungeons since they can be entered at any time and items can be got out of sequence. I didn’t experiment with this much as of writing but I did find it interesting that all items including the dungeon specific puzzle items can be crafted immediately and their blueprints can be found relatively easily. I’m usually the first to scoff at unnecessary survival mechanics in games but this served as a good compromise, really allowing the player to make the world their own.
Unfortunately the puzzles don’t approach a similar level of complexity to A Link to the Past and I suppose making the dungeons relatively breezy was to serve the time limit. The level design can be surprisingly readable almost too readable at some points but the combat is a different story. Some endgame bosses can have such an overwhelming amount of things to keep track of on screen and it becomes clear that the only way to deal a reasonable amount of damage against the higher level enemies is to parry constantly. Parrying is also incentivized since it refills your stamina completely and gives you brief invulnerability. This later game bosses can turn into exercises in parry fishing which never feels great. Thankfully the game is short enough that these minor annoyances don’t amount to much and only feel noticeable at the end game when the health bars get massive.
Perhaps Unsighted’s most brilliant contribution is the sheer vibe. Running around this primitive cyberpunk world, listening to a dark jazzy piano hum gently in the rain is such a comfy feeling. I wish there was more to this game then there ultimately was, but it is a project where I could feel a lot of attention and soul flowing out of the screen. Despite my problems with the game not being able to get you attached to any of the characters, I smiled when the main character saves the girl and the epilogue shows all the citizens you saved, or chose not to, living peacefully with one another. A little sappy, a little too melodramatic but a passionate and sweet little game.