I really liked the first barrow hill and point / click adventures are my favorite genre so i was thrilled to see the next barrow hill. after playing for hours im going to sadly give it 3 stars. If i judged solely on annoyances then it would be 2, if i judged solely on atmosphere it would be 5 stars. the good: atmosphere, atmosphere, atmosphere. its pure adventuring, looking for clues, reading bits of lore, listening to snippets of ads/shows on radio for clues. taking hand done notes like old school gaming, real movies inserted in clips, atmospheric music to ramp up dread. jump scares and generally just a feeling of dread as you wander lost in the woods. loved it the bad: game can glitch out so you lose whatever progress you had and revert back to last save, so save often. Unskippable mini puzzles, like the movie reel editing, no way to fast forward thru those long movie clips and if your poking about trying to solve it extremely annoying. Overuse of phone calls within the first half hr lead to unintended laughter on my part. horrid mapping, the sheer amt of time i spent just trying to get back to an area was super annoying. some sort of fast travel via map would have kept the pacing of the game and limited player annoyance. like all point and clicks there is a huge amt of backtracking to try out different items you have found on known hot spots. some actions do not open up until you pass a gate keeping animation. so even if you know what to do it wont let you by the end i resorted to a walkthru just to avoid the irritations of the game, lost whatever sense of awe and wonder to sheer annoyance. they said at beginning of game that the devs didnt hold your hand, but there is a fine line of being obtuse for complexity or ignoring player comfort cuz ... reasons. get it on sale and dont feel bad to using a walkthru to avoid annoyances that suck the life out of the game.
Ive played around 8 hrs and dont think i will finish it. Its a nice enough game. the Pros: cute upbeat artwork and animations, easy crafting (you just gather the ingredients and go to the designated site and build), there is alot to explore, caves, fishing, cooking, sailing to other islands, opening up higher levels on the islands via crafting items. Farming is big as you need food for stamina. There is loot or treasure to be found. You can chop wood etc. Friendship levels to be gained with the island npcs. Its all very pleasant and relaxing. the cons: a bit repetitive, loot is respawned via chests/boxes and you need the items to craft friendship items and housing goods so the main portion of the game is running around gathering. mini games at first are interesting then you realize that they are also randomly spawned and repeated. the cooking menu is bizarre, it uses a puzzle option of finding ingredients but is finicky, ex by removing the known item that isnt in the ingredients it will randomly say more items are now wrong when there had only be one. kinda frustrating at higher levels. stamina expenses rise as you level and you start the grind to maintain enough stamina to do your daily tasks. farming for one is super expensive stamina wise. the friendships are pretty shallow, just higher levels unlock some buffs and furniture items. there is no real conversation or interaction with them, and they do squat for work on the island. all of the above is not game breaking, its still a fun game, a bit grindy as most builder games are. its all just a bit shallow for the amount of grind needed to gain lack luster rewards. I also would like a home of my own to decorate, which comes later but when... its been 8 hrs already. so im just going to set it aside and recommend this for younger players new to the genre and buy it on deep sale.
This game sent me back to Myst a few times in its movement and storytelling. I really enjoyed it for the most part. the music was very atmospheric and the voice acting good. I enjoyed the real time insertion of movie clips like old games used to do and myst movement style. The atmosphere of the game is creepy as heck, spent a good portion of it with the gps tracker on watching the camera feeds and dreading seeing something moving towards me . It also was handy for tracking your way thru the paths. (missed creep opportunity by the devs) Game didnt hold your hand much, no map other than the gps. no camera snaps for the notes and other images you may want to refer to. I ended up using my phone alot to snap screenshots and took copious notes, all of which gave me nostalgia for myst. spent so much time on my notes sleuthing, all of which was fun. one big jump scare made me yelp and scare my cat. Some issues ruined game immersion and pacing. It was very easy to get lost on paths, miss hotspots and the game mechanic of holding onto items after use so you kept thinking they had further function so i would randomly try to combine them with hotspots. After hrs of no progress i referred to a walkthru and found i missed a hotspot and even knowing about it (behind the grave stone) i still couldnt get the path to it and had to try a few positionings to finally get it. Game also froze near the end a few times forcing me to use task manager to close. luckily it had a refresh function to restore my current save progress. The ending of the game was a bit ruined for me as i had to use a walkthru because i had turned off inventory names which made the cup puzzle extremely hard to do. by the time i fixed it i was more or less done and cheated the sequence via walk thru. still overall it was very enjoyable. around 8 hrs gameplay, most of it spent going in circles. lol it was a great exploration game. look forward to playing other games by the devs.
it really is a 4 star game for the graphical art style and the very good musical score but the controls.. god. Ive had this game in my library for well over a yr now as im a huge fan of the series but heard that it was crap to play. Finally broke it out thinking perhaps the reviews were a bit over done so soon after release and the subsequent hype and disappointment. They were right. I cant even get thru the opening tutorial area as my char cant get out of rooms, boinks into walls and the camera is pointing all over the place except where I want to look. Mini games are a huge chore because of wonky targeting and overly complicated camera angles. I have spent more time on working with the interface than playing the game and whatever excitment gained by playing the intro cinematics and music is long gone. what is left is a huge feeling of disappointment, irritation and absolute confusion on why they ruined their own game by instituting such a complicated, perverse camera and control system. uninstalling. thank the stars i got it on super duper deep sale.
When I first booted up the game I had to check the devs to see if it was from those who made Stardew Valley. I saw so many stolen art assets it was ridiculous. Then into the gameplay and even that was a direct rip off even down to the watering bowl for the random pet that you get and its hearts that you pet to build up. its must be so tiring to be a dev and have your work stolen. I would not have bought this if I had known. Now down to the game. Whats not to like if you loved Stardew Valley then this is your cuppa. Same mechanics, same end of day time out from passing out. Same harvesting animations from chopping wood. Its all very addicting and somewhat calming to go about your day collecting enough resources to make stuff and build out your base. What it expanded on from Stawdew. You have tavern and your goal is to build it up, gain rep from satisfied customers. You can garden, craft, brew, cook, smelt and so on. You make money by opening up the bar and selling off what you made. The first time evening settled in and the lights came on and my tavern was full of people was very satisfying and dare i say it...precious. What it does better than Stardew. Expanded and engaging crafting, skill trees and I feel like the day timer is much longer so isnt so fraught with stress to get stuff done. You can open the bar and sell whenever you choose, tho you need the sales money to progress in game. The tavern stuff is stressful, you have to give them their food, drinks, keep the place clean, chase out ne'er do wells with your broom. it can get quite clicky keeping up. Some irritations with controls to decorate, clean, mop and for the life of me I cant figure out how to shift whole stacks of inventory back and forth. There is no engagement with your patrons, no rep with them to build on. overall, its a nice builder sim game mixed with a food prep game. just wish they didnt feel the need to steal so much from another game.
I didnt experience any of the glitches or problems that others faced, due to not buying it till much later after release and patches. This game is stunning. So realistic. Incredible graphics and design. The soundscape is rich and full. Huge map, tons of content. Tons of loot. Just incredible. Its just not that fun for me. Its too much, of everything. I found it exhausting to figure out what to do, where to do it, how to do it. The incredible landscape is chock full of distractions and clutter and business. I realize they were going for that theme but its not an environment I want to explore. Its dirty, vile, grotesque. I could handle that as it was so stunningly executed, but I wasnt having fun. I didnt care for my character, her friends, her story. Perhaps, ill pick it up another day, it IS a top shelf game that i paid a crap ton for, but playing to just get my moneys worth and not for fun is something I dont do anymore.
Bought this for the story and the soundtrack, quit playing because of the difficult, confusing, extremely annoying combat mechanics. wish i had just passed on the whole thing and watched a letsplay instead
This is a calming charming game. You basically run around exploring, finding items, doing small quests, some platforming, flying, boating, fishing. lots to do, all while listening to a cute music score, chatting with residents. There is a fish journal to complete, treasure maps to find, lots to do. Different biomes have different art. I almost didnt make thru the beginning stage because of how ugly it was. extremely so. I love pixel art but this was fugly as heck. Then when fiddling with options i found out you can adjust quality of the pixel art to make it bearable. The controls were hideous, camera swinging and changing view, the directions changed with the camera. being left handed it was impossible to play using their default of direction and z for actions. You can adjust those, somewhat difficulty in options. I changed to standard wsad etc and it made the game usable tho the camera swings still stayed. there is no map, but perhaps i had not found it yet. I accidentally exited the game before i was done playing via following in game dialogue to rest. shocked i got the game over text. thank goodness you can go back and continue. Pros: its charming and relaxing once you get a grip on controls and adjust the visuals. Inventory can be a bit clunky at times but its fun to puzzle out the platformers and try to find items for quests. I didnt pay much for it as it was on deep sale and feel i got my moneys worth even tho i have yet to complete it. I will go back and finish flying and exploring and gathering all the coins, useless as they are and finishing the fishing. its just a nice way to waste some hours without the hassle of overly complicated skill trees and action fests of other games. dont be expecting a super long game or much and you will be happy
This is a hidden object game along the likes of Big Fish and Eipix genre but more well done and like a real adventure point and click. Its not open world but not as linear and restricted as those other devs. You have the option of turning off Hidden object mini puzzles which i recommend as it vastly improves pacing and flow (im a fan of hidden object puzzles so i played with them on and found it inferior an experience). The good stuff: its nicely drawn world, very creepy and skin crawling kind of way. somewhat muted in resolution. You can fast travel via a map which can show points of interest and needed actions according to difficulty level you choose. Music is well done, orchestrated, even a piece by the incredible artist Kevin Macleod. You are able to download some of the songs as you wish. The story is very good, totally immersive and intriguing. I was drawn in from the beginning and stayed to the end. Voice acting is good. interaction with inventory was ok. Puzzles were easy to mid level, most I have seen the base premise in other games. Bonus game, collectibles, making of, excluded content (1st ive seen in these games), art concepts, etc. total time played 7.5 hrs. In game journal was very good and employed simultaneous main character reaction to found notes. some clumsiness: the inventory bar was collapsible, i found it annoying and got in the way of backing out of scenes which resulted in many misclicks. sometimes it was hard to back out of a scene as items in inventory blocked the action. you can lock the bar but it still was too big for the screen. the mouse icon was offset a bit so could be irritating to target something. Only 3 difficulty levels to choose from so you couldnt customize what you wish, for ex. i hate glimmers/spoilers but you could only stop them if you went expert, which wouldnt show actionable locations on map. you could change levels at any time. all in all very enjoyable
I got this on deep sale thinking it was like those Big Fish hidden object games, expecting a generic point/click hand held easy game to waste a few hrs in. What I got was an immersive deep point/click adventure where you have to think about the clues and what you have to do. I played on expert for the most part but admit to changing to casual occasionally in order to get a clue on the map of where i need to go next. There are no hidden object mini games. Autosaves are seamless. Easy load screens. there is alot of back tracking but you do have fast travel. Puzzles are mainly inventory based combining on a hot spot in the landscape. the music is atmospheric and unobtrusive. The graphics are very lush and creepy. You really want to keep going in order to see the next room. Best part is the journal/clue book where scraps of paper and photos are placed, sometimes theres an audio file that plays, simultaneously your character makes her own notes next to the found info, this leads to a real time feel of exploration and immersion. I really wanted to know what the heck was going on. I must admit to abandoning so many AAA games recently such as Cyberpunk, Witcher, Borderlands etc, because of their many irritations, grind, complexity that cut into enjoyment. This game is easy on hands, mind and is just pure entertainment. some cons, unless you play on expert there are glimmers on hot spots which i abhor. The jump scares are more cheesy than frightening. some illogical inventory/hot spot combining solutions. some puzzles were obtuse but you can skip them.
