Recent reviews by H3BO3

I think Neos' painfully slow stagnation due to the malicious and stubborn actions of its CEO turned me off of social VR in general. We could have gone so much further.

Having backed this game on Kickstarter years ago, I've finally finished it and decided to write a review. It's a very beautiful game that knows its style and theme well - definite inspirations from Journey, and sequences in the gameplay reminded me of ABZÛ - I would like to cover my thoughts on each element in an ascending order of positivity, so as to try and break negativity bias. Bear in mind I did not think any particular element was overall "bad", so to speak, so the lowest point is still mixed. There are things I liked and disliked about most elements.

The controls - I found the controls strange at times. Input and movement feels floaty, but I actually think that particular bit contributes to the overall smoothness of the gameplay, and being able to relax while you move and view the scenery. However, certain animals didn't help with maintaining that - many required constant and repetitive input to keep a good speed or altitude, particularly birds and fish. Holding the spacebar would be a much more desirable option for certain controls rather than having to tap it repeatedly. The camera has an extremely strange acceleration curve - Moving the mouse at a medium speed orbits the camera fastest, but if you go faster with it the camera input slows down heavily. I am still not sure if this is a technical or stylistic issue. When I did want to experiment or investigate in terms of movement, the floaty controls and strange camera movement were a disadvantage. The camera often clips into walls and terrain. Sometimes the out-of-bounds recovery system sticks you into an endless loop of falling, and once I even got into a falling loop outside of the map, and loading the checkpoint shoved me all the way back to the start of the game. Thankfully I was able to load my save and it put me back at the right location.

The story - Even though the story is perfectly acceptable, the way it was told irked me at times, primarily the monologue from the Companion. I feel like the story in general could have been told a lot more visually (though certain world-building elements might have to be simplified for that) - There were many times when the Companion made an exclamation or commented on something that I thought was perfectly obvious from the visuals onscreen. Unfortunately most of the story is this way, and I more often found myself getting the most emotional when there were no voices, and the sweeping music and unique visuals could take over. The ending is another thing, however - Absolutely worth working through the rest of it. The sequence at the end when it's confirmed that the wolf is just the wolf and not Kalani (along with the goodbye sequence) moved me very heavily.

The gameplay - Moving around vast landscapes and switching between animals is well-done and each animal has its own unique abilities and movement. I felt some animals were developer jokes (the caterpillar and the tortoise in particular), but they contributed to the tone of the game and kept things light. I feel like many animals could have been fleshed out more, particularly with more animations. Locating the right animal for the right location and just exploring areas in general and seeing how they connect was very rewarding, particularly with the collectible mechanics in place. I did spend a lot of time combing over large areas but still did not find a good chunk of things in the end. It was hard to tell consistently where something might be hidden, which I suppose is part of the exploration fun.

The sound/music - My only gripes with the sound design is that sometimes it was spatialized strangely, like it was jumping around between far and near and not being consistent, or that when the Companion spoke at certain times it was drowned out by other effects, or was very faint because the camera was far away from him, especially in camera cutscenes. I could control and still hear myself walking around during the credits. The sound design in general was good. Voice acting could have been better; I will reiterate this could have been alleviated with purely visual storytelling.
An impressive soundtrack maintains ambiance through various levels. Sometimes the themes became a little repetitive when I was in the same area for long. I had to draw out the condor flight at the end because I wanted to hear the full vocal song. Perhaps I had flown the first sections too fast. The soundtrack itself is excellent, it dances through lots of different themes and tones.

The artstyle - Lost Ember knows its artstyle well. All creatures were consistent with each other. The terrain was simple yet effective, and very fantastical at times, with caves and holes in rolling mountains, spires, beautiful water features and recognizable landmarks in areas to help navigate. Building and ruin design was also good, with large and small structures. The cutscenes and memories were also simple yet effective, and the storyboard-like telling of them simulated memories quite well, I thought.

Overall - Be willing to put up with a few hiccups in terms of controls and storytelling, but I certainly recommend this game for its relaxing tone, unique artwork, beautiful music, and the more emotional beats of the story.