didn't originally think i was going to play this. 2d platformers outside of mario have never fully been my thing, especially with these indie games that more often than not goes out of it's way to be punishingly difficult for HARDCORE CRED. i also was somewhat wary of it because of the connection with dunkey, who i do like and have watched for years but have increasingly found myself at odds with his philosophy of gaming and criterion for what makes a good game. in the end though, i saw this game for free on the playstation+ catalog, saw all the glowing reactions it was getting, and saw it was only six hours long and decided i might as well take the plunge.
and might i say i was quite pleasantly surprised! as to be expected from a game dunkey distributed, this is a very gameplay focused experience. there's no dialogue and very little narrative, but it more than makes up for that with atmosphere and world design. while i don't find myself drawn to try to figure out the machinations of this fantasy world, i do find myself admiring the lushness of it all and wanting to simply exist within it. i love the sound design, the sound effects of creatures moving through the wilderness and the droning synth score that simultaneously feels foreboding and calming. the world is all rendered in this beautiful pixel art which has a certain griminess and organic quality to it that i think helps it stand out from the hundreds of other indie 2d platformers on the market and gives it a distinctive look of it's own. the strong art direction also helps keep a lot of the rooms from feeling samey, which can really give the player a sense of place in this labyrinthine metroidvania adventure.
the game itself is a metroidvania, but places all of it's emphasis on puzzle solving instead of combat. there are still enemies in the game and some of them can be dispatched by certain items, but it's clear the game wants the player to run away from the majority of monsters rather than engaging with them. this leaves the majority of the gameplay focused on exploration, platforming, puzzle solving, and the mix of these ideas to accomplish all of them. there is never a point where the game holds your hand and tells you what to do, no tutorial introducing the various mechanics to the player, no screen explaining what an item does, and no narrative pushing the player towards a set goal, instead everything must be figured out through experimentation. while initially this might seem frustrating, the mechanics of the game are actually pretty streamlined and the player gets a handle on them all fairly quickly. i'm not ashamed to use a walkthrough when a game is frustrating me, but every time i found myself stuck here and pulling up a walkthrough, i never got more than halfway through reading before just figuring it out on my own by carefully considering the problem. it all feels very intuitive and challenging while never getting to the point of actual frustration.
there are a couple of minor gripes i have with this, though nothing that every really put me off. for starters, while the lack of narrative isn't a deal breaker by any means, the lack of any kind of thematic idea (at least for me) does kind of put a damper on the project, for while the world is a joy to explore it ultimately feels like exploration purely for exploration's sake. your milage may vary with how much of an issue that is for you, in fact i bet a lot of people will consider this a feature rather than a bug. i think my bigger complaint (and again, not that big of a deal) is the constant need to backtrack. i know in a metroidvania the backtracking is part of the point, a wide interconnected world that every nook and cranny needs to be understood before it can be mastered, but i think honestly it's just the fast travel system being somewhat underutilized. each colour coded area has multiple save points within it but only one fast travel point, but i found that many areas were simply too large (and some puzzles too frustrating to do multiple times) for them to be serviced by a single point. if they had made each save point it's own fast travel point i think it would have alleviated some of this, although i also understand the mechanical reason for nerfing this in allowing the player to TRULY understand their surroundings.
this need to be one with the surrounding world is the very core of this game. i played for six hours and rolled the credits, but it's clear i've only really scratched the surface of what this game has to offer, with so many secrets and literal easter eggs hidden all over the place, and an ending i haven't even gotten to yet because there is just so much to explore and do with this game. i'm going to leave it there for now, i tried to be fairly vague in terms of the games surprises as i feel it's best to just let the game reveal itself to you, but needless to say i was surprised with how engaging and wonderful this passion project turned out to be, and would recommend even to skeptics.
and might i say i was quite pleasantly surprised! as to be expected from a game dunkey distributed, this is a very gameplay focused experience. there's no dialogue and very little narrative, but it more than makes up for that with atmosphere and world design. while i don't find myself drawn to try to figure out the machinations of this fantasy world, i do find myself admiring the lushness of it all and wanting to simply exist within it. i love the sound design, the sound effects of creatures moving through the wilderness and the droning synth score that simultaneously feels foreboding and calming. the world is all rendered in this beautiful pixel art which has a certain griminess and organic quality to it that i think helps it stand out from the hundreds of other indie 2d platformers on the market and gives it a distinctive look of it's own. the strong art direction also helps keep a lot of the rooms from feeling samey, which can really give the player a sense of place in this labyrinthine metroidvania adventure.
the game itself is a metroidvania, but places all of it's emphasis on puzzle solving instead of combat. there are still enemies in the game and some of them can be dispatched by certain items, but it's clear the game wants the player to run away from the majority of monsters rather than engaging with them. this leaves the majority of the gameplay focused on exploration, platforming, puzzle solving, and the mix of these ideas to accomplish all of them. there is never a point where the game holds your hand and tells you what to do, no tutorial introducing the various mechanics to the player, no screen explaining what an item does, and no narrative pushing the player towards a set goal, instead everything must be figured out through experimentation. while initially this might seem frustrating, the mechanics of the game are actually pretty streamlined and the player gets a handle on them all fairly quickly. i'm not ashamed to use a walkthrough when a game is frustrating me, but every time i found myself stuck here and pulling up a walkthrough, i never got more than halfway through reading before just figuring it out on my own by carefully considering the problem. it all feels very intuitive and challenging while never getting to the point of actual frustration.
there are a couple of minor gripes i have with this, though nothing that every really put me off. for starters, while the lack of narrative isn't a deal breaker by any means, the lack of any kind of thematic idea (at least for me) does kind of put a damper on the project, for while the world is a joy to explore it ultimately feels like exploration purely for exploration's sake. your milage may vary with how much of an issue that is for you, in fact i bet a lot of people will consider this a feature rather than a bug. i think my bigger complaint (and again, not that big of a deal) is the constant need to backtrack. i know in a metroidvania the backtracking is part of the point, a wide interconnected world that every nook and cranny needs to be understood before it can be mastered, but i think honestly it's just the fast travel system being somewhat underutilized. each colour coded area has multiple save points within it but only one fast travel point, but i found that many areas were simply too large (and some puzzles too frustrating to do multiple times) for them to be serviced by a single point. if they had made each save point it's own fast travel point i think it would have alleviated some of this, although i also understand the mechanical reason for nerfing this in allowing the player to TRULY understand their surroundings.
this need to be one with the surrounding world is the very core of this game. i played for six hours and rolled the credits, but it's clear i've only really scratched the surface of what this game has to offer, with so many secrets and literal easter eggs hidden all over the place, and an ending i haven't even gotten to yet because there is just so much to explore and do with this game. i'm going to leave it there for now, i tried to be fairly vague in terms of the games surprises as i feel it's best to just let the game reveal itself to you, but needless to say i was surprised with how engaging and wonderful this passion project turned out to be, and would recommend even to skeptics.