I loved my time with this game, clocking in about 15 hours of enjoyment (and 3 hours of pain, but I’ll get to that later).
The gameplay revolves around setting out from your home and exploring what the world has to offer. What makes this different from a Ubicollectathon, is that everything feels so self directed, so organic. You move through this world as you wish, not as the game wishes. It feels like you set out upon your own journey of discovery, both of the world and internally.
The environment tells a story that is further expanded upon by NPC interactions and deeper exploration. It is a world that has lived, and exists within a space so uniquely its own, it doesn’t feel like it is retreading some standard design rolled out for game programming by numbers.
This game did what few others manage to do while my time is so precious nowadays, it made me want to see what is over that ledge, made me curious to see what pressing this button will do, made me want to track down every plume of campfire smoke. The natural exploration, relaxed energy, wonderful OST all combined into an experience I won’t soon forget.
However, I have to say that this was a classic example of going for the Platinum trophy souring the overall experience. I wrapped up all the content in the game aside from the fishing, and spent the last three hours on that grind. The fishing is buggy, clunky, and unfortunately just isn’t enjoyable. Whilst the designs of the fish themselves and the nature of how to find the more unique types of fish does help in the discovery of each new fish, catching 60 “dopey darts” on the way to the trophy wore my patience thin.
Putting aside my thoughts on the platinum process, the other main detriment to this game is its general bugginess and deplorable performance. The amount of times I got wedged between a rock and a bush with no way to escape, or when my bike would clip an invisible rock and spiral out of control in mid air was amusing at first but quickly outstayed its welcome. Combined with the performance shuddering below 20fps, and the game occasionally needing a reset to clean up the performance, these issues unfortunately hurt my overall perception and rating of this game.
If you can stomach the poor performance at times, and avoid the platinum trophy, you’ll find a pleasant game, with gorgeous vistas, witty writing, and a poignant story and world to explore.
The gameplay revolves around setting out from your home and exploring what the world has to offer. What makes this different from a Ubicollectathon, is that everything feels so self directed, so organic. You move through this world as you wish, not as the game wishes. It feels like you set out upon your own journey of discovery, both of the world and internally.
The environment tells a story that is further expanded upon by NPC interactions and deeper exploration. It is a world that has lived, and exists within a space so uniquely its own, it doesn’t feel like it is retreading some standard design rolled out for game programming by numbers.
This game did what few others manage to do while my time is so precious nowadays, it made me want to see what is over that ledge, made me curious to see what pressing this button will do, made me want to track down every plume of campfire smoke. The natural exploration, relaxed energy, wonderful OST all combined into an experience I won’t soon forget.
However, I have to say that this was a classic example of going for the Platinum trophy souring the overall experience. I wrapped up all the content in the game aside from the fishing, and spent the last three hours on that grind. The fishing is buggy, clunky, and unfortunately just isn’t enjoyable. Whilst the designs of the fish themselves and the nature of how to find the more unique types of fish does help in the discovery of each new fish, catching 60 “dopey darts” on the way to the trophy wore my patience thin.
Putting aside my thoughts on the platinum process, the other main detriment to this game is its general bugginess and deplorable performance. The amount of times I got wedged between a rock and a bush with no way to escape, or when my bike would clip an invisible rock and spiral out of control in mid air was amusing at first but quickly outstayed its welcome. Combined with the performance shuddering below 20fps, and the game occasionally needing a reset to clean up the performance, these issues unfortunately hurt my overall perception and rating of this game.
If you can stomach the poor performance at times, and avoid the platinum trophy, you’ll find a pleasant game, with gorgeous vistas, witty writing, and a poignant story and world to explore.