The Pathless Review (Daveed)
Take Journey and Abzu, add a lot of rather simple, but mostly fun puzzles to a surprisingly big world, a very fun movement system and impressive and cinematic boss fights and you get The Pathless!
Visuals: 10/10, nothing super realistic or with perfect physics, just beautiful as it is
Music and sound design: 10/10, music composed by Austin Wintory, who also made the music for Journey, Abzu, The Banner Saga trilogy, AC:Syndicate, Absolver and many more. Absolutely fantastic and epic when needed.
Movement: 10/10, Sliding, gliding, flying, jumping and running is a pure joy with the "stamina" bar and the simple-to-use bow/arrow mechanic
Puzzles: 9/10, they weren't overly complicated, so you likely won't be stuck for more than a couple minutes at any given puzzle. There could be a bit more variety, but they were still enjoyable and fun to solve. There are a lot of puzzles of various sizes scattered throughout the world.
Story: 10/10, mysterious and cryptic and interesting, told only through ancient glyphs on tablets, the last thoughts of corpses that you can listen to and the environment itself.
Combat: 9/10, non-existent for 90% of the game, but during the other 10% it's kept rather simple, yet very enjoyable and cinematic. There is a small part where you have to be stealthy and the boss fights offer a lot of fun at a rather easy difficulty (you'll likely only need a few tries max per boss). There are more than enough games with challenging combat out there, this one is accessible to even the biggest noobs while still offering solid entertainment to more experienced gamers in my opinion.
Collectibles: 10/10, Next to puzzles another big part of the game. It's kept simple enough to not feel like work or tediousness and the spirit vision highlights points of interest and where you have and haven't been in a generous radius around you. There's no map or quest trackers, just go to a spot high up, look at your surroundings through spirit vision and keep relevant locations in mind. I'm rarely a completionist in games, but here I just felt like fully clearing every area and getting 100% in ~17h.
You're also being rewarded for finding all the stuff in an area., which motivates you even more.
Bonus points: You have an eagle as a companion and you can (and have to) pet it. You can also "tame" wild animals, so they'll follow you for a while. Pretty cool having a small armee of wolves running around with you.
Conclusion: 9,7/10, If you want to explore a beautiful world with fluid movement and simple, but satisfying puzzles and combat to a fantastic soundtrack, buy this game. The price tag is a little steep for an indie game, but considering how much longer it is than e.g. Journey or Abzu and how smoothly it runs, I'd say it is worth it even without a sale. I bought it at full price.