Had an absolutely wonderful time with this game. Although at it's core it's "just" a 3D adventure game, it has so many features unique (as far as I know) only to Tunic. Providing a digital game guide highly reminiscent of those found inside Game Boy games is cool. Having it written in a constructed language system so it's (at first) impossible to read, but possible to interpret is clever. Having the pages of this guide scattered throughout the world is genius. And it doesn't stop there, but in a game built of secrets it's more fun to let them stay secret.

I generally liked the combat, although I found that I had to rely on the most powerful weapons and lots and lots of dodging to get past the bosses, as parrying is not worth it most of the time (and can be a bit fidgety with the button combo requires). I also abandoned most of the unique weapons early on as they didn't quite hold up to the sword, and magic was extremely hard to come by, or requires saving up precious blue berries to try to consume mid-fight.

The ending (B ending) was refreshingly painless (unless you consider puzzles a pain but come on). I later watched someone complete the A ending and yeah wow, no thanks (for multiple reasons). I think the lore of the world is actually pretty remarkably compatible with the gameplay itself and was awesome to unravel. For example, the lore behind the Lost Echoes is quite interesting, and makes them an especially cool enemy concept.

And yeah, Tunic is absolutely beautiful. It plays on the isometric view so extremely well, the game simply wouldn't work any other way. I love the locations and the constant uneasy atmosphere that something taking place here is wrong.

So so so clever and wonderful. Probably my favorite game of 2022 as of yet.

Reviewed on Oct 18, 2022


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