Posted on: December 9, 2023

Carighan

Games: 408 Reviews: 41

Not perfect, but super cute

(not finished yet) This game has a lot going for it, and it puts it all together really well. It's a lot like an isometric Zelda, with a slightly more pronounced focus on combat and in particular dodging/blocking. However, its core strength is the mystery, including an unreadable manual you collect page-by-page ingame. So the less you read up about this before you go in, the better. Its graphics are also lush and pretty, the sound design is really good, the animation is top-notch and the enemy design is not varied, but good. One big downside I found so far is that it's almost *too* obtuse at times, specifically requiring a rather specific sequence of things but hiding that sequence as good as possible. And instead of feeling clever when you find it, you feel annoying it was done in such a "ha! gotcha!"-way. This also extends to the combat system, which feels difficult at first, and then when you figure it out and it gets easy, it doesn't feel like you made personal progress and overcame a challenge, rather that the challenge was a smokescreen made out of deliberately hiding information from the player. Which, I suppose, is the whole point of the game, what with its unreadable manual. But while I love that point, I feel broadly applying it to *everything* actually dulls it a little bit. In specific circumstances less would have been more, and prevented player frustration in moments that were meant to feel rewarding or positive. Apart from that - and I intentionally worded it as generic as possible to avoid any spoilers - it's a stellar game. Really liking it to so far.

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Posted on: June 20, 2025

juampi9498

Games: 54 Reviews: 3

Buen juego, pero tiene sus cosas

Siento que son 2 juegos diferentes en 1. Por un lado, un juego de aventuras. El sistema de exploración es bueno: no tienes un mapa, sino que vas encontrando piezas del manual en el camino. Eso hace que la exploración sea divertida. Juega mucho con los ángulos de pantalla, y del ingenio para encontrar las cosas Por otro lado, un juego de combate: los enemigos comunes se sienten demasiado simples, y los objetos y armas utilizables muy limitadas. Le quitan la inmersión al sistema de aventura. El combate mejora MUCHO en la última area del juego, teniendo una escalada de dificultad considerable, y creo que puede hacer que los jugadores casuales abandonen la partida Hay algunos puzzles que son demasiado tediosos, y el juego no incentiva a resolver los misterios. Por último, tiene un lore bastante bueno, pero cuesta MUCHO entenderlo dentro del juego.. sugiero ver algún video explicativo No tiene buena re-jugabilidad

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Posted on: January 21, 2025

MattoDavide

Verified owner

Games: 52 Reviews: 1

A word of warning...

Many of the reviews for this game are left by folks that don't seem to have completed it. Tunic "genre shifts" maybe 3/4 into it. Early/Mid Tunic plays as a Zelda-like. The combat is a bit elevated beyond Zelda, but I didn't find it even remotely as difficult as a true Souls-like. You explore, you fight, and you acquire new abilities allowing access to previously unreachable areas. However, things change once you near the "end" of the game. I won't spoil them here, but I will say that there are two different outcomes. The gameplay easily guides you to the outcome most would consider "negative". If you take that ending the game even treats you to a "Game Over" screen, as if to indicate you chose wrong. You are given the choice to go back and "seek another path", or to save your game as a New Game+ playthrough. The 2nd and more "positive" ending is where I grow critical of this title. No more finding new areas to explore. No more usage of the abilities you've gained, nor environmental puzzles requiring you to affect change in an area to move on. The game devolves into a series of riddles/puzzles where you decipher, infer, and sort out the correct sequence of d-pad inputs and then use your d-pad to enter those solutions. You are literally, for multiple puzzles (that you have to sniff around for), relegated to pressing up down, up down, left right, left right...etc., on the d-pad to advance. While the developer attempts to couch this gameplay change in the "lore" or "abilities" of the game, and while sorting some of the solutions can be mildly fun, the reality is as I've described. I found it repetitive and disappointing. I think folks deserve a heads-up before they buy. TLDR: First 3/4 of Tunic plays as a top-down Zelda-like. The last 25% devolves into puzzles that will give you nostalgia of inputting the konami code. I wanted to love Tunic. I think I did until it boiled down to d-pad presses. One of the biggest "meh"s I've encountered in 40 years of gaming.

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Posted on: April 27, 2022

minneyar

Verified owner

Games: 221 Reviews: 5

Fantastic adventure game for explorers

This game perfectly captures the feeling I had playing classic adventure games as a child. If you had ever played a game before you were old enough to read, or if you've played a game in a foreign language you couldn't understand, you'll feel right at home here, and that's a good thing; the game is filled with "aha!" moments as you make clever realizations and discover something that was in plain sight all along. This is a great game, and if you're at all intrigued by it, stop reading and go play it now. This is one of those games where the less you know going in, the better. With that said, I've got a few criticisms. People often label this as a "Soulslike" game, and while I don't think that's entirely fair, I can see where they're coming from. Combat can be difficult and requires patience, planning, and studying enemies. If it's too hard for for you, there is a "no fail" mode that makes you invincible, but that honestly feels a lot less satisfying than proper difficulty modes or dynamically scaling difficulty would be. Dying causes you to lose a small amount of resources, although honestly not much; I never felt as punished as I did when dying in an actual Souls game. My other complaint is that, after spending around 8 hours progressing through the game, refining your combat skills, discovering hidden passages, gathering resources, and deciphering the manual, you beat the game and get the bad ending. If you want to get the good ending, now you're effectively playing a completely different game -- one that requires solving several complex, obscure puzzles that require quite a bit of intuition and work. None of the skills or resources you've acquired so far are useful, and there's no accessibility mode that makes the puzzles easier; either you're suddenly a great puzzle solver or you can't get the good ending (unless you look up a guide). It's honestly not a huge complaint, but it does put a blemish on what is otherwise a spotless experience.

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Posted on: May 17, 2022

Abnorc

Verified owner

Games: 125 Reviews: 14

Not recommended for keyboard+mouse.

This game is very awkward to play with a keyboard. The mouse can't be used for aiming at all. Despite having enjoyed a couple of isometric games with a mouse(Hades, Death's Door, Nox, Grim Dawn, A Short Hke) , I can't recommend this one. I think my left hand is even sore from locking on and off while also trying to manage the movement. Admittedly, the system requirements do recommend a controller, but so do many games that accomodate PC controls so much better.

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