The Way

The Way is one of those games that truly fit in my personal category ''It could have been a masterpiece with a little more effort''. Truly, its graphics soundtrack and story (although a little too ''single minded'', which I believe is also the point) are really entertaining, masterfully crafted, even. Buuuuut unfortunately, the game just had to have a lazy excuse for a gameplay. Yes, we all loved another world, Flashback and whatnot, but those game had pace, rhythm, technical ingenuity, while the way.... welp, it simply doesn't. Yes, again, a puzzle here and there is fine, but for me there are too many ''dead'' moments in something that could have been jaw-opening with all that sci-fi goodies. Basically, the game does what is promises, but knowing that it could have followed a different...way (...sorry) almost ruined the enjoyment for me. That and all those useless puzzles, bad platforming sequences and ''fighting'' moments which are a pain to play through. .... So! worth buying it? yes... but discounted. Unless you are an aficionado of platforming puzzle game with beautiful graphics and sci-fi shenanigans. Then, this is... the way! (couldn't help myself)

As I backed this on Kickstarter I kind of hoped for a game like Flashback but with a more exotic story and scenery. And while the story and graphics more or less met my expectations, the gameplay really didn't. First of all, the controls are terrible. Really, really terrible. They are sluggish and imprecise worsened by the fact that you need to do lots of pixel exact jumping with your left hand. And this includes pressing shift with your left pinky for running/walking. Plus the mouse cursor is tiny and hard to see most of the time. To make it worse, you can't use any weapon or ability while you're not standing. Not when jumping, not when crouching, not even really when running. Taking into account that the main mechanism is a platform game, this is kind of a showstopper. Actually, the game touches several genres but none of them is really implemented well. There are stealth elements, shooting, skill tests but everything lacks polish to be really enjoyable. There are quite a few puzzles, but not a lot of good ones. Actually, some are really badly designed. Quite a few times it's more of trial and error and fighting with the controls than puzzle solving. At least in one case there is more than one solution but the game will just accept only "its" correct solution. Still, the game is best when it keeps to this action adventure puzzle solving mechanics around the four special abilities you earn in the middle of the game. Every other genre it touches is even worse like the stupid obstacle chase or the crappy final boss fight. Well, actually I find it had to come up with a fair judgment, as I have mixed emotions about this game. There were points when I really liked the game, some when I really hated it and lots of "meh" moments. Actually, the game has a somewhat weak start, some good moments in the middle and a lot of frustration towards the end. If you had asked me before the super annoying, silly and cheap final chapters, I might have given it a higher rating.

The Flashback, Heart of Darkness and Another World references are appropriate, although with a more romantic twist. The only con I can think of for this game is that it was too short. I completed it in about 7 hours, in two sittings. I can see a lot of reviews pointing out flaws - I didn't run into any of them. They must have been fixed by the time I got to play it. I had a complete, immersive and un-broken gameplay. Checkpoints are placed exactly where they need to be in order to tickle that vein that pops on your forehead. This game is not meant to be a hit-and-run experience, it involves timing and patience for a great deal of the puzzles. The puzzles themselves do not offer a lot of explanation, but are appropriately intuitive. If you get stuck somewhere, stop for a second and engage your brain. The graphics and scene direction are gorgeous - as much as the pixelated art allow it to be. If you like seeing pixels and the brought-back retro style, you will love how this game looks. The soundtrack is wonderous melancholy. All in all this game managed to both surprise me, and somehow be what I expected it to be.

The few negative reviews so far on GOG.com have concentrated on issues that are mostly bug-related and which have been fixed in the patches that quickly followed after the game was released. The lack of save points in certain places originally caused a lot of frustration as the player was forced to restart a long, relatively difficult quest each time the character died. The devs responded within a few days, putting the save points in the places they originally should have been but were left out due to a bug. Another passage where the player had to complete a jump-and-run escape from a foe almost made me leave the game out of sheer frustration, as the controls seemed too clunky for me to be able to complete the sequence. I did complete it after only a few tries once I understood the control mechanism - it resembles the original Another World much. Still, the team responded and made the sequence in question easier, and also adjusted the controls so that they are now more precise especially if you're using a gamepad (which I did after initially trying mouse & keyboard). I also feel the criticism for bad hit detection is unfair. I've now completed the game and in my experience the only point where such problems occurred was the aforementioned escape sequence, in which making a single mistake let the foe eventually 'grab' you even when the actual thing on the screen was not quite touching the player's character. This was naturally very irritating and made many players angry, but it was not a game-breaker and definitely isn't now that the scene and controls have been updated. As a whole, The Way was a very enjoyable experience for me and I feel it deserves more attention. The action parts and quests complement each other quite nicely, and many of the quests were challenging enough to make their completion feel rewarding while none were too difficult. Perhaps the best part was the overall atmosphere - I really hope we'll see a sequel some day.

I was torn about giving 4 or 5 stars, but at the end I decided to go with 5 since I think the epxerience the game provided will stick with me for a long long time. The art, the music, the story and even the gameplay absolutely fantastic, I couldn't have said anything bad about it at the baginning since about 3/4 of the game is just that great. But once you arrive at the later areas the puzzles and challenges became rather frustrating and tedious. At least this way you could actually feel the struggle of the main character at the end. I really recommend picking this game up it's such a wonderful experience and if you can't be bothered with the later part, just use a wallktrough you'll lose nothing.