It took some time but I finally got the time to play Sanabi after one year of its initial release. It was such an absolute crime that it took me this long to play this hidden gem. If not for its cyberpunk aspect, I wouldn't have known that I was missing out so much on this game— from its jaw-dropping and scenic pixel art to its fluid and masterful game design all the way to its beautifully woven plot that had both been tugging at my heartstrings and shoving onions down in my eyeholes, this game is nothing short from perfection. If you love story-rich games and fast-paced gameplay, then this game would not disappoint you.


Look, I love video games as much as the next person, but you know what I love more than video games? Stories. Stories are what I believe to be are the butter to the bread to any videogame, and this game is no stranger to that. I pride myself from time to time to be able to predict what happens in shows or any media to what could this plot turn out to be, but somehow, not this game. The way they convey the plot gets you hooked in red herrings that I find myself trying to speedrun the game just to get more of the story, and wow it did not disappoint. For an eight-hour game, they have managed to tug at my heart in ways I did not know it could, get me hooked on the characters’ personalities and interactions they have between each other, and leave me wanting for more content than they have initially provided (I’m crossing my fingers here for any hope for a DLC in the future). If I have to pick a favorite scene out of the game, it would probably be every scene where the General and Daughter would interact with each other. I have a very soft spot for those kind of interactions, and the way they delivered the dialogues, as well as make their personality pop out, I catch myself grinning to hard from the cuteness of it all. It’s one of those games that you just have to play for yourself to absolutely capture the feeling they want you to feel, so if you’re an empathetic person or just love stories in general, then there’s no game better than Sanabi to jumpstart your emotions.


I love physics. Applied physics. Theoretical stuff just goes over my head. That’s why when you actually apply it, it gets really fun. Sanabi is what I would call a spiderman-esque game (it doesn’t help that I just finished playing Webbed, which had a similar primary gameplay mechanic style. Your character uses a chain arm to swing from places to places, getting from point A to point B. As the story progresses, you obtain certain abilities that compliments its primary gameplay mechanic and you can be more dynamic with your movement, as well as pull off some pretty sick moves that’ll propel you to basically any platform. This was one of those games that I never felt that the gameplay was too repetitive and I genuinely kept having fun as the game progresses more and more and more and more. Although, this may be me nitpicking here, but I did find myself just parkouring and swinging around the stage during boss fights just trying to figure out how do you beat them, particularly Firebird and Major Song fights had me swinging around not more than 10 minutes. But other than that, it’s a pretty easy concept to grasp, and would not be a huge hinder progression-wise.


I really appreciate that the game gave us a chance to continue the story even when you chose the basement. I was really worried that I had to replay the whole game just to get to the other ending on my first run. I had to stay faithful to my character so I purposefully chose it (ahh— to be a doomed character) and I can see that the game had a lot of considerations on how they wanted the story to progress, making it a pretty clean-cut linear-storyline. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I love stories and I don’t mind the linear storyline that they were trying to achieve, as it gives me less pressure on how the story could have gone and regret my choices afterwards. Personally, I was hoping the game would be a bit more longer, but they could chose to cut it perfectly. As much as it left a hole in my heart, it also somehow filled it. This will be a game that I would probably be close to my heart. Maybe it was the father-daughter interactions, maybe it was its addictive chain-gun gameplay, or maybe even just how Major Song interacted with our character, this game will be hard to let go. I can’t wait if they decide to add a DLC, considering they did well up until today. It’s definitely a perfect 10-out-of-10 game.