izigame.me

TL;DR If you have free time and don't know what to play AND you want a chill exploration game, go for it. Beware of the bugs though.

Honestly, it breaks my heart that I can't recommend this game. It's been sitting on my wishlist for so long, I thought I'd fall in love with this game. I did try to love this game, but somehow I felt like it falls short. The premise is very promising, the colors are beautiful, yet it's not enough.

I expected to be hit by an emotional and/or philosophical story, or lore, or at least few moments, or whatever else. Throughout my playtime, I've felt nothing of sorts. The sense of exploration kept me going for a while but after around 5-6 hours, I've started to notice the patterns and it quickly lost its magic. Then, the mystery of the spaceships/first humans kept me going to nearly the end of the game. But it was not the focus, just a side quest. And its conclusion also didn't have any big moments. Just, "here, it went like this."

I want to say the game was made with love. But no, it was designed with love. The amount of bugs and the way how unpolished the game is show that it was kinda rushed or something. And it always felt like there should've been so much more things going. It could've been bigger, not in quantity but quality or density shall I say.

The world and tribes are small, but supposedly everyone travels extensively at least once in their life yet we don't see the connections it should've give rise to. Sure, a few times someone mentions someone but that's it. Nothing else.

There is some sort of caste system(with extra steps) in the world, but it's missing some very crucial classes. Like: herder, farmer, researcher(even though we kinda see the rise of the first one, it would be fitting if we could've gotten a mask for completing the vivarium.), hunter(I assume there are animals, as there are some goats here and there). The very basic classes, and one that we got hinted at. Also, why not an explorer class? I really wanted to choose a mask like that but there wasn't any like it. There's even a climber one, how is it useful in a society without much more basic classes? That really annoyed me.

There was an investigation mission, which I liked a lot, as it brought a fresh air to the pace. And they seemingly intentionally left its result open to interpretation which I liked a lot honestly. Felt realistic. You don't always have all the answers.

That first 5-6 hours when exploration felt exciting was really good. The problem is, every area plays out pretty much the same. Find the map, mark the points of interest on the map, go to the markers. Those locations are even the same for all the areas: 1 city/village like settlement, 1 cartographer, 2 ships with one having a log and the other the key, 1 artifact key building and 1 or 2 landmarks. These landmarks are the only different locations across the world but essentially, they don't feel different. As a game about wandering, there should've been much more variety, much more random encounters, much more sense of wonder.

My biggest issue though, were the bugs. Interaction button vanishes so you don't notice something is interactable, walls or buildings disappear, sable disappear while on the bike, you can't hold onto the wall to climb while you should've therefore you fall, fps drops, constant staggering... the list goes on. Small things, to be honest, on their own and I wouldn't mind if they occured here and there. But it's constant. I've never finished a session without at least a handful of these. Especially if you play for longer than 1.5-2 hours, you're basically forced to save and load the game so bugs are a bit contained. Definitely some optimization problems there.

I thought I would say I enjoyed the game but now that I think about it, I'm not sure. I didn't hate it, it's just that I will probably not remember much from the game. I'll say it was okay. Really breaks my heart, I had very high hopes.