I've just finished playing Sanabi, an action-platformer developed by WONDER POTION and published by NEOWIZ. Completing the base game and the DLC took 12 hours; however, achieving 100% completion requires two playthroughs.
Brigadier General Kum, the retired leader of an elite strike force, lives out his days in peace with his daughter. Their quiet life together is brought to a tragic end by the ghosts of General Kum's past. Heartbroken, General Kum vows revenge against the enigmatic Sanabi, leaving a wake of destruction for all who stand in his way. After a fruitless search, General Kum is contacted by an old comrade who informs him that Sanabi may be involved in the mysterious disappearance of nearly three million civilians in Mago City. General Kum must infiltrate Mago City to answer the distress call of the last surviving member of the original investigation team and finally bring his quest for revenge to an end.
Sanabi is a narrative hybrid between a revenge fantasy and a "dad simulator." When General Kum arrives at the source of the distress beacon, he meets Mari, a young software engineer. The game revolves around their journey to the top of Mago City as they seek to stop further destruction by the Mago Group and discover Sanabi's potential involvement.
The lead characters share an all-too-familiar dynamic in which each idolizes the other as a surrogate for a lost loved one. While this makes for some predictable dialogue and setups in the first few chapters, the relationship eventually becomes more complex. Furthermore, despite some predictable twists, the quality of the execution is never diminished. Sanabi is set in a fantastical cyberpunk dystopia rich with beautiful pixel art and capitalistic extremism. There is a decent amount to unpack from the story, ranging from the concept of digital souls to the importance of living in the moment. It all comes together to create an interesting narrative—one that goes far beyond merely facilitating the platforming sections.
In the prequel DLC, A Haunted Day, the narrative is perhaps the weakest aspect of the experience. Compared to the base game, there seem to be fewer rational reasons for the protagonist to be fighting, and the story concludes without adding much to the overarching lore.
The gameplay of Sanabi is a mixture between Spider-Man and Sonic. Equipped with a mechanical arm, General Kum can grapple onto walls and swing from ceilings to traverse the environment. The movement feels highly intuitive, despite requiring the player to swing across hazards while simultaneously dodging dangerous explosions.
I was impressed to find Sanabi introducing new gameplay mechanics all the way into its final chapter. These new modes of mobility and combat keep the experience feeling fresh. The level traversal is fun without requiring a massive investment of time or skill to master. The game also achieves the ultimate goal of platformers: making General Kum feel incredibly thrilling to control in the final chapters once the player truly masters the mechanics.
In the DLC, A Haunted Dawn, WONDER POTION opted to make the protagonist far more dynamic. Unlike in the base game, the protagonist carries a shotgun and has the ability to double jump across obstacles. These changes make the gameplay feel even more action-focused, which benefited the experience overall.
I would recommend Sanabi. I really enjoyed the pixel art, and thought the gameplay was constantly innovating on its core loop. Despite a somewhat predictable plot, a few twists still caught me off guard. While I have reached the end of Sanabi, getting to the end is not important. What's really important is how we get there.
