TUNIC

If you love exploration, puzzles, attention to detail, figuring things out for yourself, and having a huge void left in your life once the game is finished... then TUNIC is for you. It's a game best gone into completely blind. So all I will say is this game hinges on revelation building upon revelation that will delight and awe. The only downside is combat can be a little frustrating at times. Not in a "git gud" way (though it does have that aspect as well), but that the combat isn't as polished as other indies like Hollow Knight or Death's Door. So don't go in expecting stellar combat. Wonderful soundtrack and gorgeous visuals too. The overall level of polish makes TUNIC a real gem. I can't recommend it enough.

I rarely write reviews for purchases, so writing this means this game deserves it. Tunic seems initially like a game for pre-teens since has a slightly cartoon-ish feel to it, but don't let it fool you. It's difficult -but in a good way. It won't coddle you and hold your hand on where to go. You must figure it out with very limited hints. The graphics are gorgeous for the genre, music is very mesmerizing, and gameplay is old school nintendo-like-challenging. Can't recommend this game enough.

This is what it actually felt like to play The Legend of Zelda on the NES, or the A Link to the Past on the SNES back in the day. You felt a bit in over your head, you didn't understand everything, puzzles could be vague, there were secrets everywhere. You have maps, you collect an in-game instruction booklet (important!!), you have a sword, a shield, a grappling hook, a magic wand, bombs... even some of the "darker aspects" from A Link to the Past is here... sort of. It's very cool and very nostalgic. An open love letter to games gone by. I did however perhaps think that some of the puzzles were a bit hard, required too much leg work and didn't have enough pay off. When a puzzle stumps you for +20 min and you have to go to google that does take you out of the game, it does break the flow. It was like that in the old days too, you had to ask friends and read Nintendo Power to get all the clues right. It's very nostalgic but I'm not sure this is something to strive for in modern game design? I recently played Death's Door, another fantastic game, and while it isn't as nostalgic is flows much better. The puzzles are much easier and can nearly always be solved with what you see on the screen in front of you. Perhaps somewhere in the middle would be best? I'd love to see a Tunic 2, but I do think the difficulty and vagueness of some of the puzzles can be scaled back a bit. Especially when the reward for these difficult puzzles isn't all that high. For instance you locate 20 of something very hard to get, and solve a VERY hard riddle in the instruction booklet, and the reward is something you already have.. it's an important piece overall but it's something you already have. After +10h of puzzle solving I think you should expect more. Still, considering the very small team this game is still absolutely extraordinary and I had a blast with it. 100% recommend if you want a nostalgia trip, or want to experience what gaming on the NES and SNES actually felt like.

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.

This game is full of surprises. Both familiar and innovative!