This game is art.

----

Firstly, let me acknowledge that some of the negative feedback is true. This game is not for everyone. I recommend that you have a tolerance for frustration and a desire to explore. While parts of this game can be difficult, particularly parts where mobility is impaired or visibility is poor, the difficulty is not spread throughout, and most of the game should be a fairly pleasant romp through a surprisingly pretty landscape of trash piles and crumbling ruins.

There are other minor frustrations, such as the sometimes uncooperative camera and the fact that you can't always tell what is a bottomless pit and what is not. The karma gates that separate the world's major regions can sometimes feel like a chore since they require a certain karma level to pass (raised by collecting food and finding shelter before the end of the day, lowered every time you die) and don't always have shelters/checkpoints in the most convenient locations; this is less of an issue on the "Monk" difficulty which lets you backtrack through any gate you've already been through for free, and a total non-issue for as long as you want to stay inside a particular region (they're pretty big).

With all that said, there is nothing that ever made me regret buying this game at full price. There is no challenge that can't be overcome, no enemy that can't be either defeated or outsmarted, and no goal that is literally unreachable. The positives easily outweigh the negatives.

----

So what are the positives? Besides the pleasing visuals and the atmospheric music, one of the main draws to the game is its procedural animation system (which I sincerely hope will become the norm in the near future) that gives creatures fluid and natural-looking (if sometimes floppy or twitchy) movement. Creatures also interact with each other, with predators chasing down prey and fighting each other for territory, in a way that makes them look like more than just monsters put there for the player to kill. Sometimes you can use hostile creatures to solve your problems for you, and if you're persistent, you might even be able to befriend some of them.

The environments are surprisingly deep. The game has a 2D pixel art aesthetic, but the world rendered in pseudo-3D with multiple layers, and all of the materials and props have something akin to a normal map that reacts appropriately to dynamic lighting. It's cool, but it's also very subtle.

The game also does a really good job at explaining to you only what you really need to know and leaving you to discover the rest. You can't tell what something does just by looking at it, so often times the only way to find out is to put it in your mouth and see what happens. That sense of mystery and exploration is something that I find missing in a lot of modern games.

----

The last thing I would recommend to anyone interested in picking this game up is to go into it blind if possible. Explore. Let yourself be surprised.

This game is art. ---- Firstly, let me acknowledge that some of the negative feedback is true. This game is not for everyone. I recommend that you have a tolerance for frustration and a desire to explore. While parts of this game can be difficult, particularly parts where mobility is impaired or visibility is poor, the difficulty is not spread throughout, and most of the game should be a fairly pleasant romp through a surprisingly pretty landscape of trash piles and crumbling ruins. There are other minor frustrations, such as the sometimes uncooperative camera and the fact that you can't always tell what is a bottomless pit and what is not. The karma gates that separate the world's major regions can sometimes feel like a chore since they require a certain karma level to pass (raised by collecting food and finding shelter before the end of the day, lowered every time you die) and don't always have shelters/checkpoints in the most convenient locations; this is less of an issue on the "Monk" difficulty which lets you backtrack through any gate you've already been through for free, and a total non-issue for as long as you want to stay inside a particular region (they're pretty big). With all that said, there is nothing that ever made me regret buying this game at full price. There is no challenge that can't be overcome, no enemy that can't be either defeated or outsmarted, and no goal that is literally unreachable. The positives easily outweigh the negatives. ---- So what are the positives? Besides the pleasing visuals and the atmospheric music, one of the main draws to the game is its procedural animation system (which I sincerely hope will become the norm in the near future) that gives creatures fluid and natural-looking (if sometimes floppy or twitchy) movement. Creatures also interact with each other, with predators chasing down prey and fighting each other for territory, in a way that makes them look like more than just monsters put there for the player to kill. Sometimes you can use hostile creatures to solve your problems for you, and if you're persistent, you might even be able to befriend some of them. The environments are surprisingly deep. The game has a 2D pixel art aesthetic, but the world rendered in pseudo-3D with multiple layers, and all of the materials and props have something akin to a normal map that reacts appropriately to dynamic lighting. It's cool, but it's also very subtle. The game also does a really good job at explaining to you only what you really need to know and leaving you to discover the rest. You can't tell what something does just by looking at it, so often times the only way to find out is to put it in your mouth and see what happens. That sense of mystery and exploration is something that I find missing in a lot of modern games. ---- The last thing I would recommend to anyone interested in picking this game up is to go into it blind if possible. Explore. Let yourself be surprised.