![]() ![]() Whilst you’ll likely find mastering world traversal rewarding after a while you start to dread having to make your way across the map again to find the next talisman. The problem here is that, after a while, this explore and solve puzzles mechanic starts to become pretty stale. Towards the end you start to get a sense for where the progression puzzles will be located but it can still be a little frustrating to go through a whole bunch of exploring only to get rewarded with yet another handful of gems. You will however still likely find yourself doing exactly that as whilst you can readily find where all potential secrets are not all of them are needed to progress you through the level. The Pathless also includes many more talismans and unlockables than you’ll need to finish the level, meaning you’re not having to scour the far reaches of the map just to make it to the next level. I also appreciate the inclusion of a mechanic that reveals the general area of where all the things you need to collect are, saving you endless hours of wandering around wondering if you’re in the right area or not. The addition of the flap mechanic is, at first, just another challenge that you need to use but it doesn’t take long to get enough gems together that you can flap your way past a lot of pain. Once you get a bit more of a feel for it traversing long stretches is pretty easy, making those large maps far less intimidating. Whilst there’s the usual things like obstacles getting in your way the charging up of the aiming mechanic to lock onto the targets seems to miss more often than it should. The main movement mechanic takes a bit of getting used to as whilst all your arrows in this game are auto-aimed they’re not as reliable as you’d first think they are. Dotted inbetween the main challenges are a number of collectibles, half of which are just flavour text whilst the others are a secondary progression mechanic that gives you additional “flaps”, allowing you to go higher in a single jump. Your goal for each section is to find a number of talismans to cleanse the three obelisks scattered around the map, all the while avoiding the corrupted spirit of the area. Later on you’ll unlock the glide and burst mechanics, allowing you to ascend upwards which unlocks a lot more of the map to explore. When you hit them you get a burst of speed and are able to sprint for a limited period. The main one of these is the spirit meter and targets that you’ll be flinging arrows at. The Pathless is an exploration/platformer, giving you an expansive open world to explore and numerous movement based mechanics to traverse it quickly. All in all the visuals do a great job of impressing upon you the overarching theme of the game: one small person up against insurmountable odds. That sense of scale rapidly disappears when you get up close though as the environments are very much designed to be appreciated from afar and traversed across quickly. The Pathless differentiates itself from its predecessors in scale, with all the environments being huge areas with many vantage points designed to give you views to soak yourself in. Yet again it’s clear to see Matt Nava’s influence on The Pathless’ visual style, leveraging the low poly low texture stylings that we’ve all come to know and love as trademarks of the indie scene. The Eagle Mother, the creator spirit, asks that you cleanse her children and stop the Godslayer, lest the world fall to the curse forever. Upon your arrival you discover that the Godslayer has corrupted the Tall Ones and is on the precipice of completing his ritual. You are The Hunter, the last in a long line of master archers who’ve sailed to this island in hopes of breaking the curse, none of which have since returned. This curse comes from the work of the Godslayer, a person who sought to kill the gods to become one himself. The world has been burdened by a terrible curse, stemming from a faraway island where the spirits of the gods, the Tall Ones, have resided since the beginning of time.
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