![]() ![]() But this is a game that is so busy undercutting its virtues that I just can't possibly recommend it in good faith. I did finish the game, because it's short and I felt like I ought to, and it's not so bad that I had to give up on it in distaste- which is why I give it a 5, I suppose. ![]() Its message winds up being, "There is no one path to the truth," a sentiment utterly devoid of context or salience even within the story. It makes a big show of being Very Spiritual, but actually has nothing at all to say. The ultimate effect of all this is to wear away your patience until you realize, ultimately, that the game is actually quite vapid. The rest of the experience rejects them like a mismatched organ transplant. It's like someone made a very good game, then realized they hadn't ticked the boxes for "stealth elements" and "pulse-pounding boss fights" and then not only shoehorned them in, but made them a central part of the game. The problem with The Pathless, in the end, is that it wants too badly to be a Real Game. It's amazing that a game with no meaningful fail state can still manage to be brutally unforgiving. The consequence for being hit too many times in a row is to be flung out of the arena, which then requires you to walk five feet or so and hop over a railing to restart that phase of the fight. Worse still, the battles don't have any illusion of danger or drama. The battles go from overwhelming to yawn-inducing in that same instant. Once you do reach that point, the tedium sets in, because the game will want you to go through that pattern a dozen or so times before it will let you proceed. But the combat is so illegible and meaningless, and the openings where you can actually fire a shot are so blink-and-you-miss-it short, that each fight (beyond the first, which was relatively tame) generally consists of you being batted around, swatted out of the arena repeatedly, and generally bullied by a flame beast until you figure out exactly what the game has in mind. Most fights deprive you of your ability to run (due to there being no way to recharge your spirit gauge) and rely on banal pattern memorization. The game's mechanics are utterly unsuited to the type of fights they throw you into. But the true disappointment is the boss fights. I came to dread these encounters- which the game will force upon you at least once per region -because my ability to succeed or fail came down to sheer chance. I once failed one of these sequences the instant it began because the boss spawned on top of me. Then there are the stealth sequences, which would be quite easy and simple were it not for the enemy's infuriating tendency to walk directly on top of you for no reason. It's a nuisance the first few times, and gradually grows more and more irritating as the game asks you to make increasingly complex shots. "Too close" seems to range from "right up against it" to "anywhere within ten feet or so" depending on the exact puzzle. I often found that if I stood even a little bit too close to the first target, the arrow would careen off into space wildly. There's no aiming- the arrows just fly on their own -which means you are utterly at the mercy of the game's ability to guess what you wanted, especially when it comes to shooting arrows through multiple targets, such has rings or torches. sometimes the mechanics they rely on just fail. ![]() It's peaceful, meditative, but not without challenge- some of the puzzles can be very tricky, but never to the point where I had to look up a solution or anything. Running around the world, exploring and solving puzzles and such, is great fun. I really enjoyed Abzu, and I'm generally a fan of this style of game, but The Pathless shoots itself in the foot over and over. I really enjoyed Abzu, and I'm generally a fan of this style of game, but The Pathless shoots itself in the foot over Honestly, a big letdown. ![]()
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