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.
