Well it seems like the past few crowd favorite games I have reviewed, I have gone against the norm. Well here is another one....
🎮 Platform: PC KB+M (Due to the amount of coloring you do a mouse is fastest. Controller swill get tedious for me)
⌚ Time played - 10h
🏆Trophy completion - Most were just story based. Though nothing is locked post game, there is no real collectible tracker, and collectibles just blend into the background and very easy to miss. You can call parents for hints on some collectibles or more than likely follow a guide. There are tons of things to collect and looks very tedious but doable.
🤬Difficulty - Not very difficult. Your standard puzzles and map traversal. If you love the sort of map traversals in old school Zelda, Oneshot, etc etc, you will be at home. If you get lost in those games, get ready to get lost here. The game does provide you an overwold map, but dungeons do not have a map.
🌄Graphics – what can i say bland. The game has a promise of something interesting happening because you will color the game yourself. Well, you are very limited on colors, brush styles, and basically 95% of the game you just color the whole scene one color and quickly as possible, as the point is to solve puzzles and move to the next area. Just want to make it clear, I am not expecting an MS Paint here. I am looking for a creative take on colorlessness in games.
Sure there are some interesting interactions here and there with mobs, plants, vines, etc. but nothing that doesn't get old after the first 2 hours. For a game that features a world your suppose to color, its very limited in creativity on that.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Music is nice. Everyone is super nice to each other, siblings tell each other they love them, that's cool. All for world peace and love. Coupled with this, you have a bit of self-doubt and imposter syndrome in our protagonists. Whatever, did not appeal to me. Its not that I haven't dealt with it, I do, but when character X asks you to leave them alone, you keep coming back to them and pestering them... not realistic. Most stories have some emotional intelligence and support elements, this has more but It did not touch me the way it touched others.
📚 Main Story / Characters – A very typical story. Go to different worlds, solve bunch of puzzles, meet different talking races of people and insects, upgrade your brush to get new skills, with a bit of emo thrown in, blah blah blah
🤺 Combat – Horrible. The main combat in this game is the boss fights. I did 6 boss fights or so and I cannot tell you exactly what happened in them. I just took my brush and swiped on their eye ball or face 1000x times and then something happened and something else happened and eventually it ended. There is no strategy, creativity, you cannot do clever things like erase things, But its inexcusable for 50% of the game every boss fight is exactly this. Its absolutely dumb. the music in the boss fight was great though! I just focused on that.
🧭 Side Activities / Exploration – Holy moly there are a ton of things to collect and VERY easy to miss things. Because nothing has color collectibles just mix into the background. Good luck if you are trying to collect things. Luckily post game you can collect stuff so nothing is locked out.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Annoying. This game only has PUSH, so sometimes you need to push a bomb to a certain area. because of its impreciseness, it gets trapped into a corner ,and you have to reset the puzzle. Because without a pull you can't get it out. How hard is it to implement a pull? There are other annoyances related to manipulating mob movement which I won't get into to not spoil the game. You will see what I mean when you get there. One thing I do like is you can move fast in your own paint when you unlock it very early on in game.
📣 Voice acting – None
🥇 Best thing about the game - None
👎 Worst thing about the game - The core game play is boring.
💡Final Thoughts:
Well I expected a lot from this game. I was expecting some creativity around coloring, an innovative way of exploration, creative uses of color and textures to solve puzzles. Something artistic. However this game is just simply a colorless zelda like 2d exploration game. Coloring and a brush is just a side effect. Right here you are going to argue with me and say well your wrong vin because the abilities your char unlocks are thematic. So far all thr abilities I unlocked are movement related. Go up a painted wall, walk faster on a painted floor, go through a painted vine, you get the idea. If you love your 2d zelda games play this. If you were expecting something artistic, creative, unique look at colorlessness in games, move on. This game overstays its welcome and initially i decided to stop at the 50%. the core game play loop it provides is not why I came here. However, with some prompting from other gamers i finished it and my experience did not change for the 2nd half of 50%. I felt other games do whatever this is trying to do a lot better. For example I think Okami is a great game and innovates on this painting concept! Simply put there is nothing I haven't seen before, except a black and white game. I don't think I have played any black and white games in my life....except this and Toem.
🎮 Platform: PC KB+M (Due to the amount of coloring you do a mouse is fastest. Controller swill get tedious for me)
⌚ Time played - 10h
🏆Trophy completion - Most were just story based. Though nothing is locked post game, there is no real collectible tracker, and collectibles just blend into the background and very easy to miss. You can call parents for hints on some collectibles or more than likely follow a guide. There are tons of things to collect and looks very tedious but doable.
🤬Difficulty - Not very difficult. Your standard puzzles and map traversal. If you love the sort of map traversals in old school Zelda, Oneshot, etc etc, you will be at home. If you get lost in those games, get ready to get lost here. The game does provide you an overwold map, but dungeons do not have a map.
🌄Graphics – what can i say bland. The game has a promise of something interesting happening because you will color the game yourself. Well, you are very limited on colors, brush styles, and basically 95% of the game you just color the whole scene one color and quickly as possible, as the point is to solve puzzles and move to the next area. Just want to make it clear, I am not expecting an MS Paint here. I am looking for a creative take on colorlessness in games.
Sure there are some interesting interactions here and there with mobs, plants, vines, etc. but nothing that doesn't get old after the first 2 hours. For a game that features a world your suppose to color, its very limited in creativity on that.
🌦 Atmosphere/Music – Music is nice. Everyone is super nice to each other, siblings tell each other they love them, that's cool. All for world peace and love. Coupled with this, you have a bit of self-doubt and imposter syndrome in our protagonists. Whatever, did not appeal to me. Its not that I haven't dealt with it, I do, but when character X asks you to leave them alone, you keep coming back to them and pestering them... not realistic. Most stories have some emotional intelligence and support elements, this has more but It did not touch me the way it touched others.
📚 Main Story / Characters – A very typical story. Go to different worlds, solve bunch of puzzles, meet different talking races of people and insects, upgrade your brush to get new skills, with a bit of emo thrown in, blah blah blah
🤺 Combat – Horrible. The main combat in this game is the boss fights. I did 6 boss fights or so and I cannot tell you exactly what happened in them. I just took my brush and swiped on their eye ball or face 1000x times and then something happened and something else happened and eventually it ended. There is no strategy, creativity, you cannot do clever things like erase things, But its inexcusable for 50% of the game every boss fight is exactly this. Its absolutely dumb. the music in the boss fight was great though! I just focused on that.
🧭 Side Activities / Exploration – Holy moly there are a ton of things to collect and VERY easy to miss things. Because nothing has color collectibles just mix into the background. Good luck if you are trying to collect things. Luckily post game you can collect stuff so nothing is locked out.
🚗 Movement/Physics – Annoying. This game only has PUSH, so sometimes you need to push a bomb to a certain area. because of its impreciseness, it gets trapped into a corner ,and you have to reset the puzzle. Because without a pull you can't get it out. How hard is it to implement a pull? There are other annoyances related to manipulating mob movement which I won't get into to not spoil the game. You will see what I mean when you get there. One thing I do like is you can move fast in your own paint when you unlock it very early on in game.
📣 Voice acting – None
🥇 Best thing about the game - None
👎 Worst thing about the game - The core game play is boring.
💡Final Thoughts:
Well I expected a lot from this game. I was expecting some creativity around coloring, an innovative way of exploration, creative uses of color and textures to solve puzzles. Something artistic. However this game is just simply a colorless zelda like 2d exploration game. Coloring and a brush is just a side effect. Right here you are going to argue with me and say well your wrong vin because the abilities your char unlocks are thematic. So far all thr abilities I unlocked are movement related. Go up a painted wall, walk faster on a painted floor, go through a painted vine, you get the idea. If you love your 2d zelda games play this. If you were expecting something artistic, creative, unique look at colorlessness in games, move on. This game overstays its welcome and initially i decided to stop at the 50%. the core game play loop it provides is not why I came here. However, with some prompting from other gamers i finished it and my experience did not change for the 2nd half of 50%. I felt other games do whatever this is trying to do a lot better. For example I think Okami is a great game and innovates on this painting concept! Simply put there is nothing I haven't seen before, except a black and white game. I don't think I have played any black and white games in my life....except this and Toem.