The Touryst

[Maf]

I downloaded this today off Gamepass and played through the whole thing in almost one sitting. 
 

It’s not great. Which is a shame because I really liked the trailer and wanted to play a good, quirky, funny, puzzley indie game. What I got was that except scratch the good, quirky and funny parts from the description.

 

My first problem is the game had some bullshit bugs in it. Only about 4 total. All of them serious, though. It crashed to home page twice. I got stuck in geometry and forced to reset. And the worst one a quest giver didn’t give me a key item so I was stuck for about 45 minutes before talking to them again and then they handed it over. 
 

The puzzles are pretty hit and miss. The game does have boss battles but no combat. They all revolve around physics puzzles and they are very, very clumsy. The second boss had me swearing at my TV. Firstly because it absolutely fucking sucked and secondly it crashed right after so I had to do the whole dungeon a second time. I was unhappy.

The rest of the gameplay is leg work. Run around, talk to people, go do the thing they want which most of the time is just run to a point and come back, and mission complete. Every now and then a mission involves a mini game. Most of them are fairly boring. One of them is a canoe time attack mini game and maybe it’s because I had got very intolerant with the game by the time I reached it but I almost turned it off there and then. 

The game is also really dumb. Sometimes I forget indie games aren’t always the hotbed of creativity I think they are and have to remember generally I’ve just played the good ones. Some of them, like this one, are just as by the numbers as a game with a budget. I almost solved every platformer puzzle as soon as I saw it. The game runs on very straight forward and uninventive quests in structure, content and logic. The game also inserts art style over personality.

 

I don’t know why but I assumed this game would be funny. Or silly. Or quietly clever. Or mysterious. Or just something. In terms of atmosphere it lightly pokes at Fez. Bright and colourful on the outside, deeply dark and horrific on the inside. At least that’s what I thought at first and it never delivered. Then I thought maybe it’s going to be like the Messenger and be one thing for a bit and turn into something else half way through. That doesn’t happen either. Maybe it’s subtle, unintrusive storytelling and when I get to the end I’ll reflect on the whole thing and be like oh. Touryst. Now I get it. Nope.

 

There are only two nice things I have to say about it. I really, really like the way it looks. Especially on Xbox. Very clean, very bright, very lovely game to look at. I also like how fast it is. The game is snappy both in terms of how quick things can get done and how long each activity lasts. Including the wasted 45 minutes I 100%-ed the game in about 4-5 hours. It’s not a long game, but also helped by the fact it’s quick to play. I like that.

 

Not that it was my most anticipated game of last year but the trailer was quite eye catching and I liked, at least what I thought, it was going for. In the end though it doesn’t feel like it’s going for anything and I’ve come away from it feeling I wasted my time. It’s a nice idea I suppose, just very short on any type of substance. After I finished I looked at the Metacritic and it’s sitting at a 79. Highly generous. I’d probably knock a nice 29 of those points off if it were up to me. 

[Maryokutai]

I really liked it, there's a lot of variety in the little things it asks you to do and you basically never get the same mission twice. I didn't like the bosses or the platforming in the dungeons but everything else was nice enough to carry it through its short runtime. On Switch in particular it was a technical marvel as well but I suppose that's not as impressive anymore if it's running on an Xbox.

 

Plus you can listen to the Iridion soundtrack at the party, 10/10.

[Craymen Edge]

I finished it this weekend. It's an enjoyable fairly straightforward little game. 

I didn't bother to 100% it, I think I ended it with the diamond mines, the arcade high scores and the scroll collection incomplete. I think you only got achievements and coins from doing those anyway. Money in particular was pretty pointless after a while.