The Pathless Review (The Punchening)
An interesting experience, to be sure.
The movement scheme is an odd one; base movement is rather on the slow side, but you rely upon the energy from shooting floating paper targets to propel yourself forward. This gives you an interesting range of control and precision, and for my part, I enjoyed it.
There's an odd juxtaposition between having an ambling pace for quiet exploration while a hellbeast tears up the landscape nearby seeking you out.
The landscape modelling is fantastic. The world is very beautiful, though... as a product of the way in which I chose to play the game, most of my time was spent roaming the land at night. I often didn't clear a region's curse until I had done as much exploring as I had wanted to. (Or I was spending time actively looking for secrets in "true sight", which is a whole other way of looking at the world.) This meant a lot of the game's visual appeal came as an afterthought to me, since I'd immediately move to the next darkened area of the map. That said, when you *do* stop to look at the world, it's gorgeous, and there are plenty of well hidden secrets to find.
Some of the boss fights are... finicky. They require a very specific sequence of actions to defeat, and some of the requisite timings are quite short. The upside is: I don't think you can die. You just get shoved off to the side, so you have time to think about what just happened. You also have regenerating health, so just... don't get slapped 3 times in quick succession; you should be fine.
The music is very well done, but it's used as punctuation. The Pathless spends far more time building ambiance.
I rather like this game, and I'm surprised at how little I'd heard of it before stumbling across it.