Sable

Perfect game when all you want to do is scratch that exploration itch. No dangers, just freedom to explore, discover beautiful landscapes and scenery and meet some lovely people along the way.

when you take away the visuals this is a boring game. during travel it desperately needed music at least, like when you leave the tutorial area. instead you get a bland and uninteresting gameplay mechanics which let you simmer in the nothing this offers. if it was shorter this could have been overlooked. play for vibes only

"When you leave today, you will no longer be Sable, clan-child of the Ibexii. You will simply be Sable"

This game is so atmospheric, deeply intriguing and absolutely gorgeous. The map is large and varied enough that I feel like there's a whole world to explore - I'm about twenty hours of quite focused gameplay in and I've still not even started on all the areas. The puzzles are pitched exactly right for me, involving enough thinking and grit to be challenging and make you feel a sense of achievement for completing them, and not so hard that they're frustrating or get in the way of the plot. The environmental storytelling in superb - because of that it requires very little direct exposition both to gradually unveil the worldbuilding and plot and to signpost you to puzzles, which makes the experience of playing feel very free and naturalistic. The graphics are absolutely stunning, I've taken more screenshots of this game than any other. They've thought so deeply about how colour is used, and the style is amazing, it's like you're walking around inside a particularly striking graphic novel. The plot and worldbuilding are so interesting and absorbing, and stay with you in the back of your mind when you're not playing. Honestly the only thing I've found to be less-than-superb is that sometimes the controls for PC feel a tiny bit janky on screens that involve a lot of selecting things like selling to traders - I presume that the game was just originally for console and it's just been difficult to translate - but that's such a minor thing. The rest is 10s across the board. Overall just a really special experience of a game.

Peak indie game! would have loved to collect the other masks seen in the game 100/10

What do I NOT love about this game?! I fell for the Moebius-style art and then listened to the soundtrack for a couple years before even playing it. Finally dove in, on a day when I had a nasty cold, and immediately sank 2 late late nights into this gorgeous world. The VIBES! The CHARM! The PRETTY! The quests are engaging, it's just the right difficulty curve for me, it's neither 5 hours nor 400 hours long, and I can't stop filling up my hd with screenshots. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Cozy; no combat; open world; stylized graphics; female protagonist Despite the minor criticisms below, I found it thoroughly enjoyable. Highly recommended. This is a coming-of-age story for teenage girl Sable. She searches for her identity, which here *mostly* means the career one has for the rest of one's life. However, there are enough stories in the game of people doing things beyond their mask that it's not that weighty of a decision. It's all about experiencing the freedom and the journey, and as the player, we never have to end it. As a game, it's a little light on content. With some hints on collectibles, I nearly 100%'d the game in under 25 hours. Thankfully, you can get full achievements and even full unlocks without actually 100%-ing the game (provided you do 2 specific wall clips). The simplified art style sometimes makes it difficult to judge angles and distances when platforming. It can be quite buggy at times, needing to quit to the menu and start back to reset. A fun game of freedom and discovery.