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Preamble: I already played The Pathless on PS5, my hours here don’t reflect my total play time. I have the platinum (all achievements) for it on PS5 and played it for over 15 hours, if I recall correctly.
Now, on to the review;

One part Shadow of the Colossus, one part Journey, one part Sonic, mixed together give birth to The Pathless; one of the most unique and spectacular games I’ve had the pleasure of losing myself in.

Pros:

Fun gameplay, flying and running around the world is intuitive and arcade-like
Enchanting art style filled with bright colours and a general design direction similar to the famous ThatGameCompany (Journey, Flower)
A story and background that, similar to Journey, speak in silence
A sense of exploration like nothing I’ve played in anything else
You can pet your eagle

Cons:

Some of the puzzles are too easy
The iteratively expanding areas you will travel to repeat a lot of the formula’s content and puzzles, but there will still be things to keep it fresh and new
The boss fights more or less follow the same formula

Introduction
The Pathless is, as I’ve said earlier, feels like Shadow of the Colossus, except the MC can run around, jump and fly very quickly, all rendered in the beautiful art style TGCompany is known for. It is not made by the same studio, but from what I’ve gathered some developers who left the original studio and found their new one. The game has unfortunately flew below everyone’s radar for years because it launched exclusively on PS5 & Epic Games Store, but has since late 2021 been made available on this storefront.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3204375239

Gameplay & World
In this game the gameplay follows a very simple but engaging iteration; you are thrown in the ruins of a lost civilization. You are provided with very basic visual cues and explanations on what happened. You play as the heroine, an adventurer with almost no background, who arrives on the shores of this destroyed world. The heroine is armed with nothing but a bow, and soon after she meets an eagle who will be her companion in this odyssey. Her bow, eagle and legs are so to speak the main gameplay vectors in the game.
The heroine can run around the world at very, very fast speed. This dashing is limited by her stamina, but therein is one of the main interactions of the game; around the world are many talismans floating everywhere. You can aim and shoot these to restore some stamina and boost your dashing speed temporarily. This loop comes naturally and intuitively as you play, and makes for an exhilarating and impressive experience of fantasy, euphoria and wanderlust as the heroine strides with verve over vast steppes and plains provided that she will, with great constancy, hit the talismans along her path that will reinvigorate her. The camera is one of the things I love most about this game. It is very drawn a-back; the character is lost in the world. Yet there are no issues with readability or visual clarity; the game’s art style is built around bright, saturated hues that present everything with radiant clarity, combined with the heroine’s brightly coloured red suit.
The eagle gives the heroine the ability to fly. It can carry her around the world. It can either glide (losing altitude over time) or flap (the equivalent of a mid-air jump). Its flaps are tied to the number of crystals you collect around the world. There are many optional collectibles around the world, often locked behind puzzles or exploration, that can upgrade the heroine and the eagle’s abilities.
Shooting the bow consists of holding the button. The rectangle starts wide, but narrows over a short period of time until it is perfectly enclosed; at that point the arrow loosened will be guaranteed to find its mark. An arrow loosened too early will often stray in a wide arc around a target, without much confidence in a positive outcome.
World & Spirits
The Pathless’ world is huge and ethereally beautiful. Its great expanse will be made small by the heroine’s rapid strides and the eagle’s ability to carry her in its skies. There are 4 plateuas in the game, each with its respective guardian spirit taking shape in a fantastical animal form. Each spirit is corrupted, and roams its world, surrounded by a tornado-like inferno, resembling a mobile hurricane or a natural disaster that is visible from a long distance. Getting caught in this inferno before you have weakened the spirit by destroying the totems of the godslayer that corrupt the spirit will mean that you will have to undergo a small but intense encounter with the spirit, in which you must stealthily avoid moving its gaze and find your eagle - who is very skittish around the dark energy corrupting the world. These sections will remind those who played Journey of those levels in that game, in which you have to sneak past those large ribbons who will try to tear your cloth. After fulfilling some prerequisites (purifying the totems of the spirit in towers around its world), the spirit will immediately attempt to flee to a large structure in its world. There, reader, the hunt begins.
You will embroil on an intense chase with the spirit, in which you will have to loosen your arrows repeatedly on its legs in order to bring about its downfall bring its retreat to heel. Once the spirit breaks its rout, a vicious battle culminates between the heroine and the spirit. You will have to time your dodges accordingly to avoid its attacks and hit its weak points. These battles are often intense and are the culmination of a long period of peaceful exploration. This is how the Pathless proceeds; a long silence, a shrill howl, much like Shadow of the Colossus. This will be repeated for 4 times until the final fight with the main enemy of the game; the one responsible for corrupting the lands and its spirits. Once a corrupted spirit is defeated, it will bestow you some of its power. The world in which it had inhabited will be restored to some of its former luster and purify the lands in which this spirit has once inhabited.
Exploration
As mentioned before, the worlds of the game are large. It does not feel tedious at all to traverse them thanks to the speed in which you are able to move and the ability of flight. I was inclined more than once to make the long trek from the highest, final world to the lowest one. The sense of wanderlust in this game is near unparalleled. Its world is empty of a liminal sense. There is no map, and there needs not be. Each plateau is finely designed. Almost every structure will have something. You will have to guide yourself by its landmarks and orienting yourself with your surroundings, those sorts who do not heed much attention to their surroundings will be lost here. There are some places you’d be surprised to know you can travel to. There is this one mountain shadowing the world, overlooking what seems to be the end of the world, sitting in the clouds. I noticed a castle at its crest. The journey to this mountain was an adventure of its own. After a long trek up the mountain, with some difficult platforming, I made it to the top and searched the ruins. Then I looked back down on the extreme distance from which I’ve climbed up. It is moments like those which cemented The Pathless as an unforgettable experience to me. The world is truly open.
Performance & Technical notes
I have nothing to say yet on PC because I have not yet tried the game here, but on PS5 the game ran adequately well with a 60 FPS locked performance mode, and a 30 FPS native 4K mode which looked gorgeous. I have not ran into any glitches or bugs that I remember. The game is one of those, like Journey, which are not needy for hardware, but will captivate any eye that searches for beauty.

Verdict; 9/10