Tunic

Is this how WhatCar reviewed the PT Cruiser?

Started it last night and made a bit of progress this morning. The beginning is a bit slow, much like Death's Door, but it opens up very quickly.

Still not sure how I'll gel with the relatively difficult combat, but there are accessibility options just in case. Disabling stamina should make the game more like Zelda. If I'm in trouble, I'll try that... even if so far, stamina hasn't been an issue.

The problem I'm having with Tunic is that RB opens the equip menu, not bring up the shield that I don't have. Killed me at least 4 times that has.

I see your Souls muscle memory has replaced your Zelda muscle memory.

As I'm much more used to playing Souls without a shield, this hasn't been a problem for me. Though I rarely used the shield in Zelda as well... and also here, for that matter.

I'm now

Hence why having got that its made me rethink what I've seen previously and am looking forward to back tracking. I'm still not sure what most of the expendable items do and am fearful to use them. Found a 2nd .

As a result of exploring I've just got an but have yet to equip it as my playtime ended. Oh and I've just figured out how to use those golden squares on the floor.

I appreciate that most gamers right now are distracted by Elden Ring, and rightly so, but its a shame that there is not much chat going on about this here. Its a rather fabulous re-imagining of 2d zelda for me.

Really looking forward to playing this, they were talking about it on the game informer podcast and they absolutely loved it.

I bounced off death's door though so I'm hoping it doesn't happen here.

While I still enjoy the game, I'm getting increasingly frustrated with some aspects. One is its insistence on being cryptic about everything, please do explain to me what every item does, I'm getting tired of games trying to be cryptic just for the sake of it.

Then, I spend almost half an hour without checkpoints only to get to a boss that I don't even know I'm supposed to take on now--again, the game is being cryptic about everything, which doesn't help my enjoyment--and I'm thrown back to that checkpoint of half an hour ago. I can absolutely see where this is going, spending many attempts at this boss--which is fine--but being thrown back an eternity every time, which is not fine. Would be great if the combat on the way was engaging or rewarding in any way, but it's not. It's kind of lame to be honest, combat is more a nuisance and a waste of time than joy. Having to redo the same tedious combat always sticks out like a sore thumb.

I was previously committed to beating it at its original difficulty, but now I'm thinking about lowering difficulty because it's so deeply unrewarding and I don't know if I can be arsed anymore.

I’m in two minds about starting this.

I believe I can get it on Game Pass, and I do enjoy old Zelda type stuff. I’ve not played an actual Zelda game since Skyward Sword.

You lot seem to mostly love it, but the Xbox Store reviews I saw were full of “empty game; pointless; sick of this sort of thing” comments.

Are these likely to just be from players who are too thick to understand the nuances?

Outer Wilds wasn't exactly cryptic. The tutorial area told you everything upfront, and then it was up to you to use what you had learned in creative ways.

Tunic does have a small problem in that it doesn't tell you anything unless you

That said...

As for running past enemies, I wouldn't do that: the points you get can be used to

This is another thing that modern games take a lot from Souls. Frankly, it's difficult to realize just how much From Software has changed the indie scene unless you start counting all the single elements games have taken from it.

I’m giving it a go…

I’ve done about an hour, perhaps. Took me ages to find the route to a second area. Left it there for now. I’m assuming there’s a way around the square, spongy bits of scenery at some point. Don’t tell me!

Yeah, cryptic was maybe the wrong word. What I had in mind with that is how you're only given little pieces of the puzzle and you have to connect the dots to find out what's going on. In a game like Outer Wilds or Tacoma that's what the game is about, of course. I think I was talking mostly about cryptic storytelling, but I was drunk and jumbling concepts and experiences around in my head. Apologies.

I know, but when I feel like I need all my health at a later point, I feel a strong incentive to avoid any risk of taking damage. I'm a big fan of killing enemies for health drops, I believe that would make this game much more enjoyable to me.

True, and personally I don't like that because I don't like Souls games and their mechanics. Like that going back to where you died to get your stuff/money back thing, for my liking that adds nothing to the game, just subtracts from it. But a lot of people like all this stuff, so I guess it's just me.

Finally understood that part... but it wasn't the final secret. Nope, this is the final secret.

I'll be fair. What I expected from this game was Zelda Souls. And I kinda got that... in the first half. What I got in the second half instead was . I love it (more than the first half for sure).

Edit: finished now. That was something alright. Took me 20 hours, and I'm pretty sure almost half were spent in the second part of the game. Great game, but it kinda does itself a disservice by hiding the best stuff in the second half - looking at my friends list, it seems most people didn't get past two hours, so they didn't get to any of the good bits. Reminds me of The Messenger in a way, except that one was better in the first half.

Glad I played it though. It turned out to be exactly the kind of game I tend to enjoy most.

You can enable god mode in the accessibility options. You don't lose anything by enabling it (there are no secret endings or achievements for finishing the game without using cheats as far as I can tell), and you can just disable it when you get the sword.

But honestly, I do think this game would have been better if it dropped the Souls bits. They feel like they are only there because nowadays every indie developer wants to pay homage to that series, because of all the parts from various games that have been taken, the Souls elements are the ones that feel less relevant to the overall package, and in fact actively hinder the enjoyment at a couple points (god mode to the rescue - and it does feel like it was added just for this reason).