Beyond the Mountains

Quite rough, needs a lot of polish. Decent for a first game. Will try out the next one.

I was on the fence about recommending this, but by the end I'd been thoroughly charmed by the sincerity, humor, and creativity on display. If you're old enough to remember early flash games, forgiving of amateur flaws, and nostalgic for the GBC Zelda titles, this is well worth the afternoon it'll take to finish it.

Игра 'Beyond the Mountains' – это замечательное, медитативное приключение, которое оставляет после себя приятное послевкусие. Сюжет, повествующий о путешествии трех поколений семьи по Гималаям, невероятно трогательный и заставляет задуматься о взаимоотношениях между людьми и влиянии времени на наши жизни. Геймплей, заключающийся в чтении писем, выборе реплик в диалогах и простых механиках альпинизма, отлично подходит для расслабленного времяпрепровождения. Отдельно стоит отметить потрясающую визуальную стилистику, выполненную в акварельной манере. Каждый кадр – это будто оживший рисунок, который хочется рассматривать и рассматривать. Музыкальное сопровождение идеально дополняет атмосферу спокойствия и отрешенности от мирской суеты. Несмотря на то, что игра проходится довольно быстро, она успевает оставить глубокий след в душе. Это не просто интерактивная история, а настоящее произведение искусства, которое заставляет задуматься о важных вещах. Рекомендую всем, кто ищет неспешное, эмоциональное и красивое приключение. 'Beyond the Mountains' – это игра, которую хочется перепройти, чтобы вновь окунуться в ее умиротворяющую атмосферу.

its awsome, pls play it

"Beyond the Mountains" is frankly amazing, I never thought it would be possible for any game to be worse than an RPG Maker asset flip. But the developer here succeeded... this somehow looks even worse than an RPG Maker copy + paste fan-fiction. Admittedly the game does (thankfully) lack the high school anime club dropout fan-fiction, focusing more on an action RPG (think Zelda but a million times worse). And wow, what's with the godawful 1:1 aspect ratio? They don't make monitors like that. Even if this was made on a 1990's PC, it would support 4:3. Obviously this train wreck will look bad on every single gaming PC ever made. What do you do in the game? Painfully generic and boring top down RPG stuff. Only worse than all other RPGs ever made. Well, maybe not as bad as some of the RPG Maker asset flips I've seen. This is still awful. We'll give the developer the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the tilesets used, I am sure he made them himself. Otherwise this would be an asset flip on top of everything else... I don't believe it's possible for this game to get worse. Well, I don't want to believe... but years of game reviews have taught me to expect the worst from amateur developers. This features really godawful pixelcrap "art" instead of real graphics. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating 3D visuals, or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks much worse than most other games because of that decision, and that's a major deterrent to gamers. Games like Terraria and Stardew Valley succeeded [i]despite[/i] the bad graphics, not because of them. It's free... now, but it wasn't before. The developer was charging $6 USD for this. Price barriers, especially on low quality products, can be a direct cause of failure. It's a nice gesture for the game to be given away for free, but it also tells us that the game wasn't good enough to succeed as a paid product. It's also a bit of a slap in the face to anyone who paid money for this... nobody got refunded. Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 13 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it? Nope. This isn't worth downloading. While this didn't cost me any money up front, I still feel ripped off.

Beyond the Mountains ist ein echtes Liebhaberprojekt und das merkt man in jedem Detail. Die liebevoll gestaltete Pixelgrafik, das atmosphärische Worldbuilding und die melancholische Musik erzeugen eine ganz besondere Stimmung. Besonders gefallen hat mir [das Kampfsystem und die Atmosphäre]. Man merkt, dass hier Herzblut drinsteckt. Für alle Fans von klassischen RPGs ein echter Geheimtipp! Grafik: Detailreiche Pixelart mit einem nostalgischen Look. Story: Tiefgründig und geheimnisvoll – man will wissen, was hinter allem steckt. Musik & Sound: Dezent, aber stimmungsvoll. Passt gut zur melancholischen Atmosphäre. Gameplay: Klassisches RPG mit charmanten Eigenheiten keine übertriebenen Systeme, sondern schön fokussiert. Atmosphäre: Ein Highlight! Die Welt fühlt sich ruhig, verlassen, fast träumerisch an. Entwickler-Einsatz: Es ist spürbar, dass das Spiel mit viel Leidenschaft gemacht wurde.

This game is a perfect thing to play if you are looking for GB Zelda style adventure. It's a rather short experience, but has all the things that you might expect from this genre - overworld filled with secrets, dungeons, minigames, items that enable you to access previously inaccessible areas and even a trading sequence! Art and music are perfectly fitting and the whole thing is free to play, so you have no reason not to give it a try. That said, the game has its fair share of bugs, though I haven't encountered anything game-breaking. Movement and fight are a bit janky, it does not have that "feel-good" element to it. Fighting offers very little feedback, so sometimes you don't know whether you are actually causing damage or not. There is no map, though the overworld and the dungeons are small and simple enough to pretty much memorise their layouts, so that's not a big minus. Inventory screen, however, would be very appreciated, but is missing here (you can only cycle through items). To sum up, this is clearly a labour of love and passion. Definitely a few hours well spend, even though there are some issues. Developer is now working on sequel, so I'm excited to see how he will use all the experience and feedback gained while working on this game to create something even bigger and more polished.