In this, I had to move a circular target hole up to the top of a room. These small puzzle areas won’t tax a seasoned gamer but will provide a chance to slow down and contemplate the next action, letting the player work out a solution in their own time.Ī good example of how some of these puzzles play out comes in the form of a bathhouse that I happened upon in my playthrough. These can range from the rudimentary to the brain scratching, but predominantly these are quite like the shrines that litter the map of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Both the bow and the Eagle come in handy when it comes the game’s myriad of puzzles that lay across the land. Again, this feels like second nature when progressing through and a great addition to the core movement mechanics. This feathered friend provides the ability to glide over vast distances or to give the player height with the flap of the bird’s wings. To help further in movement, early in The Pathless, you receive a sidekick in the form of an Eagle. What sounds like something that could get unwieldy feels exhilarating in practise and after a very short time, second nature. Explaining it takes more effort than the actual practise, this is a simple case of pulling on R2 (with satisfying feedback from the Dualsense) whenever nearby to one of these floating eyes and letting go. To keep up the pace, the player must constantly shoot these talismans in a somewhat rhythmic fashion. When shot by the hunter with their bow, they grant both a boost of speed and a chunk of stamina for the hunter, represented by a bar below. Instead of just hoofing it or riding on a mount, dotted around the world are floating talismans. To get a proper lay of the land, you must put your foot to the floor and discover landmarks yourself and to get there, you have by far one of the most satisfying mechanics I have seen in an open world game. For the most part, The Pathless is stripped down to three core tenets: Exploration, traversal, and environmental puzzles. There is no in-game map or sea of icons to navigate. I know what you are thinking when you read that sentence, but I am glad to say that this is not your typical Assassins Creed affair. To be able to even approach one of these beasts, the hunter must traverse the land, solving puzzles to gain tokens that unlock towers surrounding each creature. As a result, they now wander the barrens of each peninsula, spreading the corruption and attacking the hunter if they get too close. True to his name (well, almost) The god slayer has set about the world, corrupting its inhabitants while also enslaving the guardian deities that protected the land. In The Pathless, you play as a lone hunter who has travelled to a cursed land to cleanse it of a corruption that has been brought about at the hands of the god slayer. Not only as a great game, but also as a sign that indie efforts deserve as much time in the spotlight as the bigger budget releases on the radar. Squeezing their latest effort into the same list as Demon’s Souls or Spider-Man: Miles Morales as a launch title may seem a bit foolhardy, but considering the quality on display here, I feel that The Pathless deserves the attention. Instead, The Pathless comes from Giant Squid, an indie developer previously famous for scuba-em-up Abzû, a rather tame and contemplative game by usual gamer standards. The thing about the previous three examples I provided is that they all come from the triple-A, the guys that act as the big-dogs of the gaming industry, the ones you expect to release an amazing experience with a bit of hardware mastery. So, while The Pathless makes for a great launch title for the PS5 (for reasons we will get into), it can also be considered one of the late shining examples of the PS4 generation. Only this time, the games are also readily playable on the new hardware, with a ton of visual and performances bells/whistles straight out of the box. This is when you would see late bloomer examples such as your God of War 2’s, your Resident Evil 4’s and Shadow of the Colussus(‘s). This is around the time in a console generation where the previous machine gives off that last hurrah. We are also seeing just how much easier it is for developers to bring their titles to the new platform, without any of the proprietary nonsense that plagued gaming in the past. This generation change has been smoother than most, with the PS5 being capable of playing/upgrading PS4 experiences as opposed to leaving the previous console and the wealth of experiences in the dark in favour of a clean slate. The current generation is in its handshake period, gracefully stepping aside as the newer, shinier thing comes forward to take both the contents of our wallets and time in equal measure. This is one of those times in the generation cycle where I absolutely love being a gamer. Novemin PS4 / PS5 / Reviews tagged Abzu / annapurna / Giant Squid / The Pathless by Grizz
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