Es ist eins dieser Spiele, von denen man nichts weiß, die einen dann aber völlig in ihren Bann ziehen und man einfach nie aufhören will zu spielen...

Es gibt so viele Dinge, die mich an Pentiment gestört haben irgendwie (beispielhaft: Die Unklarheit, wann eine Entscheidung eine wichtige ist; das überbordende christliche Thema; die Langsamkeit, mit der alles vorrangeht, obwohl man doch nur wissen will, wie es weitergeht), aber das ist alles völig egal.

Die Erzählweise, mit der man in diese Geschichte gesogen wird, immer weiter und immer tiefer hinein überragt das Alles. Man will immer nur mehr und weiter, nach einer Weile wohlwissend, dass man niemals alles kriegen wird, denn so war und ist das Leben.

Es ist ein Epos, das ich mir als Film niemals ansehen würde, weil mich das Thema nicht interessiert, es viel zu viele Charaktere hat, die ich mir nicht alle merken kann und ich gar keinen Einfluss auf irgendwas hätte. Hier im Spiel hat man diesen Einfluss und es zerreißt, denn man will ihn entweder gar nicht oder mehr davon und doch ist die Portion genau richtig, um alle Emotionen zu spüren, die so ein Werk eben hergeben kann.

Remake vom SNES in Octopath-Engine <3
7(?) Episoden in verschiedenen Epochen, die alle ihren eigenen Kniff haben:
- Gegner töten oder schleichen?
- Gedanken lesen
- Nachfolge ausbilden
- keine Kämpfe
- keine Texte
- …
Episoden werden am Ende sehr schön zusammengeführt
Interessantes Kampfsystem (in allen Epochen gleich)

Ach XEL....
es könnte so schön mit uns sein, aber du machst es mir schwer in deiner Welt zu versinken.

Erstmal vorweg, Gameplay ist klasse, Grafik hat für mich sehr viel Charme.

Auf der Gegenseite stehen leider Bugs, nichts aus der Kategorie gamebreaking aber die Masse macht es aus... so viele Kleinigkeiten, die einfach stören. Sogar wenn sie einem dabei helfen eine Kiste zu öffnen ist es einfach schade. Man möchte das Rätsel lösen und nicht durch einen Container durchglitchen können. :(

Ich hoffe inständig, dass die nächsten Patches, die angekündigt wurden, das ganze in eine bug-freie Bahn bringen. Ich möchte Spaß haben!

Tunic has a lot going for it. Especially the first couple hours in the game work very well, shrouding basically the entire game and it's mechanics in mystery. Nothing is explained directly, you will have to find pages, that are written in an unknown language, often times leaving you deciphering the illustrations that go with them. I love that idea, even though I'm just not patient and intelligent enough, to stick through so many layers of puzzles on my own. Usually I play those kind of games in a group, here it started feeling tedious at some point. It wasn't the biggest issue though, for me that was the fighting, or maybe not the fighting itself, but the way you are forced to battle a bunch of tough boss fights, when the fighting mechanics just somehow don't feel right. I didn't feel powerful after levelling up stats and getting new weapons, I always kinda felt 'held back' by the limitations of everything.
But with those criticisms in mind, I still enjoyed my time with Tunic a lot. The Soundtrack is an absolute banger, and the environments are beautifully designed.

I'm in a weird spot writing about a game, that made me speechless. But also its so special and unique and so full of wonderful, crazy, terrifying, funny ideas, that I just don't want to take any of this away for anyone who is still to play this absolute gem of a video game. Inscryption is the game, I will reference from now on, when talking about why videogames as a medium are so free of any boundaries and therefore can get so absolutely wild. Videogames are a gift for creatives and storytellers, that are free to go to the craziest places, combine seemingly incompatible things with ease and still not lose their audience. And the best part of it is, as inscryption shows, you don't need the biggest budget for it. Inscryption managed to evoke many emotions, managed to keep me tense, invested and challenged at all times. It bursts with unsettling atmosphere but doesn't shy away from loosening a little by throwing in funny ideas that will make you grin at your screen. It's the work of someone who clearly loves the videogames of at least the past decade, understands how to transcend genres and distill great mechanics from various inspirations. It's a game for anyone who wants to take part in a wild ride, where you won't know where you'll be in half an hour. It denies any basis for expectations, it just toys with you, but not in a mean and disrespectful way. It's masterfully crafted and I'm in absolute awe of this game. The only thing I would want to make clear for anyone who is now intrigued after reading this, is, that you have to like or be willing to spend a lot of time with a card game and deckbuilding. It's not easy, so you won't be able to brute force through the game. But if you're willing to make that sacrifice, you will enjoy a smorgasbord of the weird and wild and something that won't leave you for a while. (Just try not to read about or watch anything of the game beforehand.) What an absolute blast, to finish one of the best games of 2021 right on the last day of the year.

Honestly, the game did kinda feel fun at first. I was having a decent enough time, but the more I played, I think the more I realized this game seriously lacks its own identity.
Inspiration in games is something extremely important, and every good game is inspired by a multitude of other great media. But "inspiration" becomes a problem if it shifts from its original definition to basically making someone else's product, but practically worse in every way.
If people stop referring to a game as its own thing and are referring to it like "its just like this other game!", I think there's an issue.
And speaking of that, you will probably notice everyone, even the positive reviews on steam talk about this game in the context of "its just like hollow knight!" "its hollow knight but with robots!" "cute game to pass the time until silksong"
And they are right, it is just like hollow knight, too much like it, I think.
This game takes everything Hollow Knight has done, barely puts an effort to putting a creative spin on anything, makes the experience just less fluid, less fun in comparison, and calls it a day.
And on top of that, it has the gall to be more expensive than the game it's taking most, if not everything from, which is nuts to me.

And speaking of Hollow Knight, not like it's a game that came up with all of its concepts on its own. It's not a game that reinvents the wheel, nor does things no game ever has done before, after all. It just crafts its world and gameplay with such care and polish that it manages to stand out above the rest of its competitors, and even manages to hold a candle to the very things it took inspiration from. It puts fun spins to its mechanics, it makes movement and fighting super fluid and fun, it makes its world interesting, worth caring about. It doesn't present many new ideas, but it presents the ideas it has with excellent craftsmanship and incredible polish.

This game on the other hand, takes everything it can from hollow knight, from its mechanics to its basic enemies, makes it all feel clunkier, feel worse, does not attempt to do anything interesting. The systems don't feel fully thought out, like the healing system, which is basically a carbon copy of hollow knight's healing system, except instead of substance acquired by hitting things, you use your currency to heal. Not only does this not feel like an innovative or challenging spin one bit; because all it does is force you to grind basic enemies before attempting a boss fight, it's also near-useless, with how damn slow the healing is. Most times, especially during boss fights, you are better off not attempting to use it, because it puts you in danger more than it helps you.
And speaking of currency, the bank system the game has for its currency makes you deposit all of it at once, for some reason; without letting you choose how much you want to store. You can awkwardly hit the pole-thing next to the banks to slowly get a part of what you deposited back, but why make the player go through that hassle?
It feels in a rush to give you its upgrades, you get the wall jump ability maybe 5 minutes at best after your starting tutorial. Why not start the game with it then? What's the point of teasing you with places you cant reach 2 minutes into the game, if you will be able to reach then anyways in the next 3 minutes.
The chips (charm system of this game) don't seem creative either, with a lot of early game chips i found literally being carbon copies of hollow knight charms like longnail or gathering swarm. (Not to say longnail or gathering swarm from hollow knight are the most exciting or creative ideas ever, they are pretty basic. It just becomes a glaring issue here and frustrating when the game already takes enough from hollow knight as is, so the lack of any original ideas stands out even moreso.)
The game's lore and story is not interesting and does not spark your curiosity enough to find out more about it, it's characters don't feel distinct or alive either. I found very little reason to care about anything happening. It's another "peaceful land turned evil by bad virus" story we've all heard a thousand times, but feels even more egregious when the game is already borrowing from hollow knight so much as is.
Lastly, more of a minor nitpick that still takes you out of the game a lot, the text font does not match the game's style whatsoever. You have a game made with pretty decent low-res pixel art, meanwhile the text font you use for stuff like dialogue, character names, item descriptions etc. is basic Arial. It's an utterly strange decision to not give this game a font matching with it's art style, and it's just distracting.

Overall, this game feels like an attempt to make a hollow knight lite, which I would not be so harsh towards again if not for the fact that this game costs more to purchase than hollow knight, and you have zero reason to play this game over that. It does nothing better, it does nothing in a more charming way, and I wish it was more than a game that is "a cute game just like hollow knight!!"
A big shame too, I was really looking forward to it.