Finished TUNIC

8 7月 2024

i enjoyed my time with the game, even if a good chunk of it is deja vu.

this may be a very strange comparison at first, but the game reminds me of Stephen's Sausage Roll. both games not only sport a lo-fi aesthetic, but they also begin with no tutorials (at first) and you have to figure out how to play the game by just trial and error.

of course, Stephen's is much harder than TUNIC: the latter is easier if you are familiar with zelda-likes. but both games are very much about "searching" for the tutorials -- Stephen's makes you think about the early puzzles while TUNIC is particularly novel for making you search for the pages from instruction manual stylized after The Legend of Zelda. you need to learn what the controls are, etc.

most of the gameplay is about you wandering around as the cute furry version of link and killing random enemies. i enjoyed this kind of post-fantasy apocalypse vibe that the game is going for: the good vibes of A Link to the Past, i guess. you're fighting ghosts and ancient monsters.

but i found the main part of the game too similar to be truly enjoyable. it felt routine, despite the game wanting to evoke a sense of wonder that i first had when i played my first zelda. while the game is mostly written in a fake language, i could intuit a lot of the solutions from the get-go and not really consider the manual that much.

this all changes in the endgame sequence, which is clearly the highlight of the game. without spoiling, i was deeply impressed by what the game demanded you to do and i wished it was there from the very beginning.

i like TUNIC more as a galaxy brain puzzle game than a zelda-like. it's just too derivative of other zelda-inspired games. i still enjoyed the gameplay loop and there are definitely moments of wonder as i pieced together the lore and the mechanics of the game. it certainly captures a lot of The Wonder playing snes adventure games for the first time much better than a lot of retro throwbacks. the game is [“large” as opposed to actually large](../posts/2024-06-22-Some thoughts about Large and Black Box Large Games.html) and that’s what makes it feel authentic nes.

so i can see why people love this game and consider it as a favorite. i think this is a highly polished game with pretty great moments, and i would definitely say anyone who has it as a favorite has good taste in puzzles. i simply wanted more and that's a pretty good flaw for TUNIC to have -- most games, i find, often wear out their welcome and i was just thinking this could have done much more.

in a way, TUNIC feels like a celebration of the current trends for video games: a little zelda, a little metroid, a little dark souls, a little fez, and more. nothing is original, but it’s quite good at capturing their charms.

definitely a recommend from me. it might be slow for most of the game, but the endgame is truly spectacular.