After finishing the game a week ago, I can surely say that I really enjoyed it and that it is one of the best indie games that I have ever played. The game is heavily influenced by the Legend of Zelda games and especially by the top-down NES, SNES, and Game Boy titles (which are my favorite). In fact, while playing, it felt like a modern Game Boy Color game, which I loved since Game Boy Color is the handheld with which I grew up.
[h1]Summary[/h1]
In brief, you play as a young man named Charlie, who is trapped in a time loop and relives the same day, the Festival of the Red Sun, all over again. In particular, a dark shade that was trapped in the lighthouse of the main island causes the Red Sun to come close to the world and burn everything (An idea inspired by the Falling Moon in Majora's Mask). The player has 10 minutes until the Sun destroys the world and when this happens, the game is reset.
[h1]General Review[/h1]
The first thing that I really liked is the lack of narrative. You wake up on an island, without any introduction, trying to figure out what is going on and what you need to do in the game. You just pick up a sword, because as we all know very well: "It is dangerous to go alone!". You have to talk to everyone that you meet and explore a lot in order to steadily build the story. The overworld is a group of islands scattered around the ocean, most of them having a specific purpose in the story or a treasure to obtain. The exploration is hard as you don't even have a map showing where you are. This is something that I really liked. It has been a really long time since the last time that I had to grab pen and paper in order to sketch the map myself and keep notes of my findings. This made me feel like a real corsair!
The hero learns some intuitive skills (e.g., teleportation) by leveraging "ancient technology" (Breath of the Wild reference), which allow you to reach previously unreachable places. Through your journey, you will need to free up the three guardians, who will give you important information on how to make your way to the final boss and defeat it. The combat is not tough, with the exception of some locations in which it would be better to explore a little bit more and gain some "heart containers" before visiting those areas. There are also some interesting puzzles that leverage the unique skills that you learn through your journey. I really liked the music. In my opinion, the best music track is the soundtrack of the Old Kingdom, as it truly achieves to travel you to an imaginative world.
[h1]Analysis of the time-loop mechanic[/h1]
The main element of the game is the time-loop mechanic. As mentioned in the summary, the game resets after 10 minutes of playtime. At first you may be annoyed, but if you give it a try you will quickly get used to this concept. In fact, you don't really need anything that you collect during a specific day for your journey. What you actually collect is information, which you add up in order to find your way to the final boss and learn how to defeat it. So the idea is that after each reset you just set the goal of the current day and you try to achieve it. For instance, you say: "I will pick up my sword. I will go to the next island to pick up a shield. I will travel to that island and I will do this and that". The next day, you set another goal and you mark another path.
This mechanic has received bad criticism in other reviews. Personally, it didn't bother me that much. I really understand the concept of the time loop, as it adds a significant amount of difficulty to the game, since otherwise the game could be finished in a maximum of an hour of playtime. Don't forget that this game has been developed by a single (!) developer and this idea is brilliant. However, I need to admit that at some points I felt some pressure in order to reach the goal that I set for the day before the time ends, which was a bit stressful. I usually play this kind of action-adventure games in order to unwind and relax, not to rush. However, this happened very few times in the game, so it wasn't a big deal for me.
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
To sum up, as I already mentioned, this is one of the best indie games that I have ever played. The fact that this game was made by a single developer is impressive. All the love that he put in this game and this detailed work with respect to the graphics to look so beautiful and to resemble the old Game Boy Color games is mind-blowing (at least for a Zelda fan like me). [i]In my opinion, this game is a tribute to the Legend of Zelda series.[/i]
I am hoping to see a sequel to this game. Probably, a similar approach to the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask could be followed (but the other way around). The time-loop mechanic could be completely removed and in order to increase the difficulty of the game, several carefully designed dungeons could be distributed all over the overworld. This is a concept that I would definitely give it a try.
