Northern Journey

A good game that really feeds into the feeling of exploration. Most the mechanics in the game are just there to service the exploration. The UI and save system is half-baked but you get over it quite fast. The last 2 hours of the game are ROUGH though, so it really ends on a low-note.

[CONTENT WARNING: THIS GAME REALLY LOVES THROWING SPIDERS AT YOU, BE WARNED IF YOU HAVE ARACHNOPHOBIA!] I came to this game after seeing a bit of it on MandaloreGaming's Review ages ago, and just took a long while to finally start it, but oh wow I'm glad I did! So, I will go through some bullet points about the game and my opinion: - SOUNDTRACK: I really like it, it's very subtle most of the time and not in your face, but they really sell that you're in a mystical and/or whimsical location, and it can get whacky and electrifying whenever the occasion calls for it - GRAPHICS: I love how beautiful the scenery is, even though the graphics are low fidelity, and I love how quirky the cast of characters are, with the way they look and move about. However, I will say that during some moments in dark areas (especially towards the end of the game), the lower-fidelity graphics do hurt the game a little bit because it gets a bit hard to see where you're going and/or my eyes had to be strained a bit - COMBAT: It's actually quite fun! At the start I wasn't a biiiiig fan of it, but it's surprising how fast you get used to how it works, and the game does a good job of spacing out new shiny things to play with to keep things interesting. - PACING: Now this is the bit where the game gets hurt a bit. Some sections are very long, involving a lot of walking and/or combat, and that's not a huge problem... unless you have to backtrack to do something, then it can become a bit of a chore. But, even if you ignore that... the ending segments felt like they were being stretched far FAR longer than they should have... basically [spoiler] everything that happens when going below the church at the end could have been shortened, I have no idea why the whole underwater bit couldn't have been made like three times shorter, or the trek through the volcano area at least a two times shorter[/spoiler] - JANKINESS: Thankfully, the game doesn't have that much of it, but it does have two bits that did hurt it a little bit. There are some segments at the end that are very easy to die due to how intense and floaty your jumps can sometimes be, and the bit where [spoiler] you have to deal with the tentacle monster was a bit annoying due to how easy it was to just be grabbed by it even though you're doing things right, or having your jump momentum eaten by the game and just falling in the water[/spoiler] But, besides these moments, most of the game went smoothly - CONCLUSION: Even though I had some complaints about the game, I'd still recommend it to people. It is a fun experience, it is nice to have a game that is just... being a game? No extremely well-written plotline with twists and turns, it's just a game with a simple excuse for what's happening, then shenanigans happen and you just enjoy the setpieces. If I were to give it a numerical value, maybe a 7 or 8 out of 10? Definitely buy it and try it out!

ride many different types of elevator, fight many different types of spider

Saw Mandaloregaming's review and had to give this game a shot. It's got great vibes, excellent soundtrack, satisfying exploration and gameplay. Pity the game is full of bugs. 9.5 out of 10. Would go for an enthusiastic walk in the woods again.

It is possible to trick shot a gigantic spider with a pebble. This game has already got me clapping with no hands just from that

BUY THIS GAME it is one of the most confusing yet entertaining games ive played in a long while.

хз имбооо

Very modern and walky in the terms of its structure, but I still really liked it until around the last third where the encounter and level design took a sharp nosedive. Recommended if you're arachnophobic.

Northern Journey is a captivating adventure. It has a specific feeling I havent got from any other game, very much more than the sum of it's parts. I hope more indie devs make things like it in the future. Probably avoid if you have arachnophobia, though. [h3]Gameplay[/h3] Gameplay is a mix of FPS combat with projectile weapons, and exploration, occasionally with some very light puzzle solving. Most of the game flow is exploring a new area, taking in the atmosphere, and then having interspersed combat. Combat is simple but suprisingly fun. All weapons are projectile based, from a basic sling with infinite ammo, to a bow, thrown axes, and a variety of different crossbows. Learning the ins and outs of each weapon is easy, and rewarding. Enemy behavior is simple, most of the time enemies will be found in groups, and generally follow the pattern of 'approach the player and attack when in range'. Basic stuff, but it works. Plus there's a bunch of enemies that shake things up in small ways, like spiders hiding in long grass that freeze when you look in their direction. Or ticks that hide in trees and wait to ambush you, able to multiple rapidly if they get close enough to drink your blood. Man I hated those ticks. There are a lot of bug-type creatures. Be ready for that. It's all very straightforward, but it's paced out very well so it never got tiring for me. Some levels have no enemies at all. Plus, the simplicity of the enemies allowed the developer to make a huge amount of them, so the variety is high. Even if they all behave similarly, they move and attack in different ways, and all fit the vibe of the area you find them in. Beyond the fighting, it's fun just traversing the environments. Each area conveys a distinct feeling. "Happy sad" as a descriptor on the store page is accurate, it's a very melancholy game. Levels loop around on themselves, with shortcuts always opening back to where you were. The game is liniear, but each zone is open and you can always return to areas you've been, and new traversal options like the zipline speed up backtracking greatly. You can save and load almost anywhere, so as long as you are in the habit of hitting quicksave regularly, you'll never lose much progress. Beyond the normal explore/fight loop, the game has a bunch of little set-peice moments to add even more variety. Exploring the bottom of a haunted lake in a diving bell for instance. [h3]Atmosphere[/h3] This is the main draw of the game. The atmosphere is incredbile (Especially considering it's all unlit, using fog, vertex paint, and other effects to give depth). Textures are photoscanned from pictures the developer took on hikes, and each area has it's own music track also composed by the developer. If you just listened to the soundtrack alone it might not seem that impactful, but hearing it while playing really hits all the right notes. Sound design is also solid across the board, except for some specific complaints I'll get to. But it feels right. Despite the low-poly unlit graphics, the design and scale of the environments are really impressive. It looks beautiful. Extra fidelity in this case would not have helped. The game isn't a horror (unless you have arachnophobia), but it does dip into that genre at times. It can be creepy, uncomfortable, or unsettling. Not all the time, not even most of the time. For someone like me, that's a huge bonus. For people who aren't into horror, it's never overbearing. There is a plot, but it's not the focus. You are mostly running errands for a mysterious flute player. It's mostly just an excuse for you to travel through all these locations. The game is not story focused, which ordinarly would be a negative for me, but the atmosphere makes up for it. [h3]Complaints[/h3] I do have complaints, but the rest of the game is so good I still feel very positivly despite them. First, many sound effects are 2D. Meaning they play equally in your ears regardless of their position in the world. This is annoying, often making it impossible to tell where a noise is coming from. Some of the flinch-inducing sounds, like the rapid buzzing of insect wings, basically apear to be coming from right on top of you even if the enemy is a hundred meters away on the left. The amount this annoys me varied greatly zone to zone, but when it was bad it was pretty bad. This game has boss fights, and while I think every one of them is super cool in concept, in gameplay they all kind of suck. It's always just an annoying bullet sponge situation, where you run and jump around an arena waiting for the big red bar to slowly get down to nothing. They are not hard (Besides the risk of falling to your death in some of them), and always end up feeling tedious. Love the enemy and location design, but the fights themselves are a lowpoint. I recommend setting the difficulty scale in the menu to the lowest, just to make them go faster. The last bit of the game does loose some steam. There's a few boss fights in a row (and I've already explained why those suck), and areas become much more combat focused and less about exploring. As a result, they feel a lot more bland. However, by the time this became an issue for me the game was almost over anyway, and the whole experiance was so great even a rocky finale wasn't enough to sour me on it. The actual ending is fine. Straightforward, but it works. I should note the game has no auto-saves. Mostly this is fine, and I'm used to hitting the quicksave in games like this, but since the saves are turned off when you're in an unsafe area, unlevel ground, falling, or in any sort of interaction, there can be longer sections where saving is impossible. Not a problem for most of the game, but there are a few specific points an autosave would've been nice. [h3]Summary[/h3] Northern Journey is a beautiful unique game, and contains the clear unfiltered identity you can only get from a solo dev. It's weird, sometimes awkward, but it's nothing like any game I've played before. I'm extremely interested in whatever this developer makes next, as well as any games from other devs in this style. I'd highly recommend this game at any price. You'll know pretty quick if it's not your cup of tea, but if it is, it's so worth it.

This game cured my fear of spiders & insects in general by sheer exposure therapy 10/10 would cure again