TUNIC

great mystery game with great mechanics fun enough to play again multiple times with a randomizer

This game is fantastic. Has gorgeous visuals, fun combat, and a breath taking soundtrack. Has this whole mecanic of trying to parse what to do through reading pages of a manual akin to something like Outer Wilds where you figure out how to do something as you play, basically harkening back to retro video games where how to play is relegated to the game's manual. The end game stuff when you go for the true ending however, sucks. The regular gameplay of exploring and fighting bag guys takes a complete halt and you are just solving puzzles. Although I am a fan of puzzles, this section overstayed it's welcome by quite a margin, and some of the puzzles veer on the end of being too esoteric, especially since apperantly the extra puzzles you can do even after the true ending lead to some ARG nonsnese. The story is also weak as well. Like with most souls games, it's esoteric, explains nothing, relies on coming up with your own interrpetiation, and watching one hour video essays. On top of all that, it also asks of you to translate a made up language to understand more of the plot. Sheesh. Also, the endings stink, especially the true ending, as sweet and heartwarming as it was. Despite the bad end game and story, everything else about the game is fantastic and would recommend it overall.

TLDR: If you like traditional Zelda games you will love this. Excellent game with that passion indie games tend to have. My favorite games to date are those traditional Zelda games with puzzles and the item progression mechanic. When you get a new item and think back to all the places you can now use it or a new mechanic. This game captures that perfectly, you can clearly tell where its roots are. You start out the game with absolutely nothing but intuition of "oh I must be the hero and this must be the goddess I'm supposed to save", this game does that story style well and also includes its own unique twists that made me much more invested in the story. The mechanic of collecting manual pages is a very unique way of telling a meta story of what video games are and how these battles of good and evil can be a never ending cycle. The story of the world is really well done through environmental story telling.| One Critique For most of the game, right up until the very end really EVERYTHING you need is in the manual and there is no need for going out and looking at tutorials or anything like that, However the hidden mechanic at the end was kind of confusing to me as there was so much trial and error involved that I eventually looked up a guide. I believe there were better ways of going about it but the way it's done doesn't take away from the quality of the game With most indie games you tend to feel the passion for what they are making much more and this game is no exception. The puzzle designs and combat and everything else was clearly made by a team of people who enjoyed what they were making. 9/10 Well done

gg

Absolutely amazing title resembling Zelda! Goes too good on Mac OS :)

Good metroidvania with terrible boss design If enjoy outer wilds where your progression is based around knowledge then I highly recommend this game. There are several times throughout the game where you go "wait, I could do this the entire time?" One issue though, the bosses feel awful to fight. They're hyper aggressive and hyper mobile, constantly moving and counter attacking you. Meanwhile you have nowhere near enough options or movement to really deal with it. So most bosses answers are usually cheese, over leveling, or just luck. Even for the final boss when you get a huge movement upgrade still suffers from the other issue, the rotating camera. I don't know who thought it was a good idea for the camera to be constantly rotating during the boss fights but I want to punch them. It makes trying to follow the battle hectic. How am I supposed to keep track of my character when the camera keeps doing a 180 every 3 seconds. Now despite saying that, you're probably wondering why I'm still giving this a positive review. It's because you can just enable invincibility in the settings. I only recommend this for boss fights as normal enemies are more than manageable. But if the devs ever make a second game please take a page out of nine sols, where the bosses are difficult but fun to learn and exploit. Because right now the incivility is a Band-Aid fix Also if you want to go for the secret ending look up a guide, otherwise you'll probably spend a month trying to decipher the golden path. As the post game stuff can honestly serve as a tutorial for La Mulana with how cryptic it can be. But it's post game stuff so I won't really hold it against the game as it's just a bonus. Overall I still highly recommend this game if you enjoy exploration and puzzles. Just keep in mind the bosses are kinda mid. Devs if you are reading this, in your next game make it so that bosses themselves are puzzles. Like say you can damage or destroy something in the environment that massively weakens the boss, or say find out the boss have a critical weakness to an obscure item. That way bosses have a "aha!" when you defeat them rather than "I hated every moment of that fight" And please keep the camera fixed.

Genuinely engaging, can play without focusing in but you won't get very far. You end up really getting into it without meaning too. I will say the deflection mechanic seems too slow to be useful though.