- Release Date: 16th March 2022
- Developer: Isometricorp Games
- Publisher: Finji
- Platform Played: Xbox Series S
- Platforms Available: PC, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series, Switch
Heavily inspired by the Legend of Zelda (the main character is wearing Link’s tunic) in terms of its aesthetics – it’s focused on an overworld with a dew dungeon-like setting but it’s a very different kind of game.
Tunic is kind of split into two parts: combat and everything else. The combat is a ridiculous degree of perfect dodging (taking care to allow time for your stamina to recover, too) and timing This includes learning the delay after striking – if you try and dodge too early, you just won’t move at all. It seemed a bit sluggish. I felt like the difficult combat detracted from the aspects that made the game truly stand out. I actually just gave up on fighting and turned on infinite health – sadly, there are no options in between.
That said, even with infinite health on, the game was an incredibly satisfying experience due to the puzzle experience. These aren’t traditional Zelda-like puzzles: it’s about figuring out how the game works. Throughout the game, you will discover pages of the game’s manual. The manual is written in a runic language with a few bits of English – you have to try and interpret it. It’s a great feeling when you work something out that you can apply to things you have found earlier.
I do think this could be made a bit more user-friendly: a note/drawing function would be really nice. This game requires a pen and paper – and a lot of it, too. It would also be nice to have a function to translate the language by assigning letters to symbols (with the system allowing you to make mistakes). I also wasted quite a lot of time because some paths are simply difficult to see: parts of the world blend in with the background or are purposefully hidden. Some of these are pretty smart, such as how the exit to areas will sometimes bring you to an easy to access place, meaning it was there the whole time, but when there’s so much stuff to attempt, it’s quite frustrating when the problem was that something was hard to see for the isometric view point, especially when it’s a situation where finding the path isn’t the puzzle.
That said, the puzzle aspects of the game is still a fascinating experience.
Fun
