![]() ![]() Usually there are other characters to pull up the slack, or a more deftly handled magical mystery. We know that visual and silent storytelling can work, like in GRIS for example, and there have been many silent protagonists, but here it left me cold. Even her just making sarcastic remarks about how tired or desperate she is, or remarking on the mystery of the graves and shrines, trying to piece it together with us, all would have helped. ![]() Had they given Kara a voice, she could have become a real tangible character, rather than an avatar. Apart from animals and your own hunger, there’s no conflict or tension to speak of, and the game quickly becomes dull. Kara doesn’t talk, she never encounters another person. Well, yes, but a story without any of the normal parts of a narrative. It read to me like the Nautilus killed everyone, and the survivors began to worship the Nautilus, but you could interpret it completely differently. The pictograms are interpretive at best, and could mean anything. ![]() Kara has a small Nautilus necklace that interacts with these, and each time she is transported to an auditorium space where pictograms try to explain the story of what I assume are her people and the Nautilus. Each time you complete one of the five chapters needed for a run, finding the lighthouse-like towers and setting off the beacons, you will then find a Nautilus-shell temple, looking like a skull on the horizon. A couple of bits of poetic text come up every now and again, explaining nothing. It’s a piece-it-together backstory, but it rarely even has any lore. This is one of those cases where there’s more explanation on the game’s store page, than there is in the game. Were there islanders here before? Was this your tribe’s home before something happened? If you want tangible answers you are going to be disappointed. The narrative from this point is subtle to the point of nonexistence, and relies on basic visual storytelling at best, such as finding a graveyard on one of the islands, or a smashed up bunch of village huts. Ropes, bags, weapons, boats, pots, you name it, Kara can make it.īut that’s it. She doesn’t have a hair out of place, and she clearly has an inexhaustible skill for making stuff. Kara wakes in the surf on a beach on a tiny island, with no real knowledge of who she is, how she got here, or what to do. There’s a scattered flashback of some ships in a storm and Kara floating limp in the blue abyss. The game starts with almost no explanation at all. You would need to think like Robinson Crusoe, get your Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs seen to ASAP you need sources of food, water, and shelter before hunger and thirst and the sun kill you long before you manage to make a boat. Windbound proudly consists of what I suppose technically is an infinite number of procedurally-generated islands, in a pseudo open-world and remakes it’s world after every chapter. What we have is cel-shaded and cute-looking, sure, but it’s a brutally punishing survival game, where you need to find food, craft weapons and items, manage your hunger, and slowly but surely build up a trustworthy boat, that will take you to the next island. Developers Five Lives are at pains to let you know it’s a survival game, because it’s easy to misjudge the package on offer. This is a survival crafting game with rogue-lite elements far more closely aligned with games like Subnautica and Grounded than Nintendo’s hallowed RPG series.įair warning – I really think some players will come to Windbound expecting something different. ![]() But buyer beware, this may not be the game you think it is. It’s got the cel-shading and sailing of Wind Waker and the crafting and cooking of Breath of the Wild. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Windbound was a Zelda-like RPG with lots of sailing. Do not judge this game by its cutesy graphics. Windbound looks like Zelda, but plays as a rogue-lite survival crafting game. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |