Runa & the Chaikurú Legacy

Incredible experience, you feel transported to another place, very imaginative and colorful. Looking forward to complete it

I’ll start this review with a disclaimer by saying that it’s not one I wanted to make. I was really looking forward to playing and enjoying this game when it came out hence why I had followed its development closely throughout the years and watched several interviews the studio heads made about it. However at the time of playing it my principles were stronger towards pointing out its flaws and not recommending it than letting it slide. It is my belief that from proper criticism the good aspects from this experience can be enhanced and the bad ones could be worked on for a future project. So let’s get into it. I’ll start by naming the perks it has. Runa and the Chaikurú Legacy is filled to the brim with cultural references. From the artifacts you can find throughout your adventure to even the saving and health recovery mechanics, you can tell they tried to put as much charm into them as they could. Thanks to that, the player can be exposed to South American (particularly Argentinian) culture in a way they normally wouldn’t. In fact, as a local I got most of them and made me feel fuzzy upon encountering them. Furthermore, the way the artifacts were cleverly hidden made me feel more fulfilled once I figured out where they were and there are a lot of them. Even if I had to restart the game to get the ones I missed, I felt motivated to do so as a hide and seek challenge. Unfortunately, this isn’t enough to overlook the fact that it doesn’t play well.. This is a 3D platformer where you control Runa throughout different sections of a ruin in order to unveil the mysteries of a lost civilization. As such, it features uneven terrain and a fixed camera reminiscent of early games from the genre. You also unlock mechanics progressively that can make you reach new types of platforms. The problem comes when these interact with an underdeveloped physics engine. It can lead to situations where your average jump is not high enough for short gaps, going through platforms you were sure had landed on, getting in between assets from the background leading to forcefully restarting from the last checkpoint, not accurately attacking an enemy in front of you, missing enemy hitboxes due to the awkward movement of your attack or even getting displaced from the platform you’ve been standing on by just attacking. These are just a few I had the displeasure of having to deal with. But that’s not all. Were the engine or some glitches the problem one could argue that the game could eventually be in a more playable state through patches. Nevertheless, there is a significant part of the campaign dedicated to some of the most annoying types of missions: escorting and rolling. The former involves a character (I won’t spoil who) whose AI unintentionally works against you. Not only does it frequently ignore your commands but it can frequently get stuck or make you redo a whole section. The latter comes in the form of balls you need to push into certain holes in order to activate a mechanism. With so many of them and the hit detection being so wonky a seemingly easy yet repetitive task can take quite a while. With that in mind, this is a design flaw and one you wouldn’t be able to fix without basically remaking the game. As a result of all of this and despite how I’d have liked for this project to do well for Argentinian development in gaming to flourish, I simply can’t pursue others to play it.

Lo recomiendo :), me gustan los puzzles que tiene y se escucha muy lindo, esta muy bueno que a medida que resolves los puzzles se vaya completando la melodia de la musica.

Juegazo, clasico juego de aventuras lleno de pequeños detalles que lo hacen una excelente opcion. Recomendadisimo

Actualmente el juego dura unas 2 horitas. Se nota que es un juego trabajado, y si sois fans del motor Godot, aquí tenéis una obra desarrollada en él. Es una aventura sencilla, un juego para relajarse, sin complicaciones. La única pega que le pondría es que, incluso con un ordenador potente, tiene bastantes caídas de frames, aunque al ser una versión Early Access, probablemente se irá solucionando. PD: Me gusta mucho la cantidad de mecánismos y piezas móviles que hay en el juego, templos que se transforman, paredes y puertas que abrir... Le dan un toque muy dinámico.

Loved the game from start to finish. It has an amazing set of controls and stunning visuals. Simple yet charming story. And a great immersive soundtrack. Good luck trying to find every secret and reference. Also, it reminded me of ori and crash, so if you like those games surely you'll love this one. Btw Rocky best character. Btw 2 it has CAPYBARAS 10/10.

Game is great, feels like you're playing old Zeldas. Music is pretty cool, the game is full of argentinian culture around it. The only thing I have to say as an improvement is that the camera is slow on following my movement, I often find that I have to wait on it to keep going and not falling into any trap. Keep launching more games!!!

Hermoso juego, me hace acordar a como se sentían los juegos de antes, pero mucho mejor.

Me encantó! Se siente a los juegos viejos!!! La estética me hizo acordar a Crash <3 Es un juego que junta la nostalgia con capibaras, lo amé!

Gran juegooooo! Me encantan todos los detalles nacionales. La historia y como Narinas va explicando y dando pistas, clave para los principiantes en juegos como yo, jejeje. Las dinámicas de combate y los personajes están muy bien pensados. Una genialidad y muy divertido!!!!! El mejor juego 100% argentino !!!!