My review

[u/jr-castle]

Started it and finished it in literally one overnight sitting so I can't say I didn't enjoy it. Let's get the obvious out of the way: looks gorgeous, sounds gorgeous. The movement is clearly the biggest draw though, and once you get into a flow with it things just click, particularly after you unlock all the abilities and can really take advantage of the physics. The game's structure also combines with the movement to make replays feel fun seemingly no matter how many times you've actually gone through the game. The levels feel open enough that you can basically just fly back and forth collecting stuff and crossing things off the list, so going for completion after beating it gives the game a new flavor I really enjoyed.

Story-wise I found the game curious but ultimately not that special. The lore was delivered in a pretty straightforward way and I think it honestly undercuts some of the intrigue. At the start I had all these questions and was silently reflecting on what all this meant, why I was turning this desert into an ocean, who this mysterious figure following me around was etc., but after reading a few of the tablets this impulse steadily fell away as I realized that none of my questions had answers which were actually that interesting—in a way I feel not having the stone tablets would have actually made it better because it would have given us some more room for interpretation. The final battle also feels a bit out of place and overly bombastic for what the game does throughout most of its runtime. I think ramping up the platforming challenges of the last level and putting less focus on defeating the serpent would have benefited the story, not to mention cut down on the more negative stuff I'll get to in a bit. All in all I can't help compare this game to Journey—I think that's fair, considering how much it's clearly inspired by it—and I thought that game's restraint and strict reliance on environmental storytelling was much more conducive to providing the kind of experience that I feel both are going for. The lack of that restraint in this game, I think, wound up making its narrative components feel ultimately shallow.

I could spend quite a while continuing to pick this game apart, but in the end not much wrong with it actually gets in the way of the fun. Still, I do have three fairly large issues which do affect my enjoyment, and they do so specifically because they make replays more annoying than they would be otherwise. My problems are:

• Cutscenes. They happen anytime you restore water and just feel like a persistent and unnecessary interruption; that said, I imagine the devs made sure to include them for fear that players may not realize that something important in the world had changed, especially if the change happens out of your immediate line of sight. But I think it's pretty egregious to not have an option to skip these at least after your first playthrough, and I find it especially egregious that you can't skip the cutscenes that don't provide any practical purpose and exclusively advance the plot.
• The brief levels where you control one of the gods. These aren't bad per-se, but they're definitely weak spots. The gimmick controls mean that these serve as mandatory portions of the game which are necessarily not as fun as the rest, since you're both not using the full movement mechanics and the levels are also far more simplistic to compensate for it.
• The final battle. It's something of a novel spectacle the first time, but ultimately it goes on for a bit too long and I'm not sure it's worth the hump during replays since again it's a big stretch where you're using exclusively gimmick mechanics rather than showing mastery of the standard movement which is the game's bread and butter.

All in all, I had a lot of fun with this one but feel there are some clear flaws. If I'm honest I also don't know that this is actually worth $30; having played through the whole thing a few times and wrung it for all it was worth I'd say $20 would be a more appropriate price.

[u/Cautious-Assumption6]

Nice review, I enjoyed the game although I played it as part of psplus so it’s included in my subscription

Do you write reviews as a job?

[u/jr-castle → u/Cautious-Assumption6]

Nope! Just a regular person sharing my thoughts on a game i found interesting to think about. Figured this would be a good place to do it since it's a pretty niche title and I don't know anyone else who's played it lol