- No bugs encountered. - Finished in 3 hours (+- 5 minutes). - Excellent voice acting. - There's a jump scare relatively early on. Not too severe though. - Very similar to Firewatch in terms of graphics and gameplay, but drifting into the supernatural. Atmosphere is arguably even better than Firewatch. - The overall story isn't very fleshed out. The game is a nice ride overall, but when reflecting on what just happened, there are lots of loose ends and mysteries. In this regard, it's the opposite of Firewatch. The moldy backpack we found in the back of a car? Does not mean anything. The footprints in the boat house? Who knows. Recommended for anyone who has played Firewatch and wants more gameplay like it (if you haven't played Firewatch, play Firewatch instead of this). Just be prepared that the story is weak and only partially compensated by the atmosphere.
- No bugs encountered. Finished in 9h which matches the time estimate here. - The story seems to begin shortly after the main char has been dumped. He's very much not over it. The first third of the game is a slog full of self pity. Excellent voice acting doesn't help when it relates to MC's insufferable thoughts. Getting over it remains a theme until the end, but the story eventually shifts a bit towards the mysteries of the forest itself, which is more interesting, There are a couple of loose ends though. - Combat has a button to attack, a button to dodge, and a button to play songs (aka cast spells). Attacking also moves the MC closer to the enemy, so after a 3-hit combo you're right on top of the enemy (touching enemies does no harm by itself). Positioning is nearly meaningless due to that. Dodging provides invincibility frames and the best strat for boss fights is to actually dodge towards them because you can follow up with attacks right after. - Decent enemy variety. - Attacks are slow. I'm not sure if one can develop a proper strategy around that. Only the last weapon has a decent attack rate, and is the strongest of the bunch. Combat feels like clunky chaos that is mostly resolved in the player's favor thanks to the healing spell. Other spells are very situational and unneeded. - There are some time wasters like walls that need 3 hits to break or statues that need 12 hits (with the slowest weapon). The game could've just used 1 hit instead and be purely better off. - Dodging requires stamina which constantly recharges, but it's annoying that stamina is a limitation even outside combat when one just wants to move quickly. - Graphics are workable, but sometimes walls are hard to see. The initial part of the game has many treetops that completely block the view when traversing under them. - The foot tap animation while playing is not synced with the song. Not a bad game at all but suffers from questionable design choices. Recommend picking up for 5-10 bucks.
There's no music during the majority of game, with music sometimes beginning to play when halfway through a level and then disappearing shortly after. Levels aren't too hard once figured out, but the figuring-out is punishing: - Enemies or obstacles or platforms may spawn out of nowhere, sometimes requiring split-second reactions. - The camera is zoomed in so much that it's impossible to get into any kind of flow on the first few attempts. Jumping from platform to platform elegantly is easier when one can plan ahead instead of having to regain bearings after every jump because the obstacle after that hadn't even been visible before. This impacts level secrets as well; any crevice is either a cage or extra life, or certain death. - One level in particular decides to arbitrarily take control of the camera in the middle of the level and slowly move it to the right, with no visual or audio cue or even any kind of in-game reason whatsoever. Rayman dies when hitting the left edge of the screen. Mastering this game is not about getting better at controlling rayman but rather dying repeatedly to memorize the key parts of a level. Once that is done, the game is a decent platformer. But that still means spending more playtime being punished before getting into the flow of a level.
