Haven't played much of this yet but it's a new thing that's very interesting to me.
From a first look you might think the world seems familiar enough to relate to, but there's these key differences to its fiction that keeps you more at arm's length. You're subtly nudged towards the understanding that your character's lived much longer than you might think, yet they and everyone they know has lived their life entirely secluded within the same tiny village. They've observed the world from afar, fearful of an array of diseases that plague those who do leave, and reliant on handed down spiritual wisdom of past generations to protect them. The very notion of a 'season' and its imminent passing feels closer to what we might term as an age, and it's only against this backdrop is your leaving excused, to experience and document this final state of the world before it ceases to be.
So once you've gathered your things and said your goodbyes, what do you actually do? You set off with a pedal bike, and you ride around these large, expansive, and notably very empty spaces, capturing keepsakes in your journal. These can be photos you take, sounds you record, along with other people's trinkets and mementos that have been left behind. Find enough in an area, and as you start arranging them in scrapbook style, your character might have something more to say about the area.
The game looks great, but it's a very sedate, sentimental and melancholy thing - exploration seems like it'll be a big part of it, but similarly capturing moments and reflecting on the significance of life and memories of it are equally prominent. It's an odd blend of discovery and of documenting experiences at the same time - I've watched my character have their first ever experience meeting and petting an animal, but then later talk of how they've also now experienced loneliness for the first time.
Feel like this falls into the 'your mileage may vary' category even more than other games without distinct goals or a standard game archetype. I laughed when I first started it and saw it's self-applied label of "a third-person atmospheric adventure bicycle road trip game", but you know what? You can't argue that it fits.
From a first look you might think the world seems familiar enough to relate to, but there's these key differences to its fiction that keeps you more at arm's length. You're subtly nudged towards the understanding that your character's lived much longer than you might think, yet they and everyone they know has lived their life entirely secluded within the same tiny village. They've observed the world from afar, fearful of an array of diseases that plague those who do leave, and reliant on handed down spiritual wisdom of past generations to protect them. The very notion of a 'season' and its imminent passing feels closer to what we might term as an age, and it's only against this backdrop is your leaving excused, to experience and document this final state of the world before it ceases to be.
So once you've gathered your things and said your goodbyes, what do you actually do? You set off with a pedal bike, and you ride around these large, expansive, and notably very empty spaces, capturing keepsakes in your journal. These can be photos you take, sounds you record, along with other people's trinkets and mementos that have been left behind. Find enough in an area, and as you start arranging them in scrapbook style, your character might have something more to say about the area.
The game looks great, but it's a very sedate, sentimental and melancholy thing - exploration seems like it'll be a big part of it, but similarly capturing moments and reflecting on the significance of life and memories of it are equally prominent. It's an odd blend of discovery and of documenting experiences at the same time - I've watched my character have their first ever experience meeting and petting an animal, but then later talk of how they've also now experienced loneliness for the first time.
Feel like this falls into the 'your mileage may vary' category even more than other games without distinct goals or a standard game archetype. I laughed when I first started it and saw it's self-applied label of "a third-person atmospheric adventure bicycle road trip game", but you know what? You can't argue that it fits.
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