Hob

 

Release: 2017

Developer: Runic Games

Publisher: Arc Games

Gameplay Stats: 10.5 hours, 21/37 achievements, harmonious(?) ending

This game is sitting at a Very Positive review on Steam and I'm a little confused as to why. Not that it's bad, just that this game is pretty clearly unfinished, I suppose I would give it a mildly positive review which would aggregate towards the Very Positive, but that seems a little strong. There is definitely something here but it feels like the game was published in an incomplete state. Most of the sound effects didn't seem to be implemented, there was very little music, and the menus kept breaking when I tried to use a controller to move a slider.

There is VERY little story, you are just exploring flipping one switch after another. The game was billed as a "wordless narrative" but then ability descriptions and such have words. The time set aside for the wordless actors to explain things was very small and there wasn't much nuance in the gestures of the NPCs that explained things so I am left to conclude that the story hadn't been implemented yet.

What is here is fairly satisfying, when you press all the little switches you make very visible and cool changes in the world. You begin on a small chunk of land and it expands and becomes cleaner as you progress through all of the switches in an area. The art style on display is very neat, I am a huge fan of organic machine aesthetics. The bits of architecture are reminiscent of Breath of the Wild somehow which is always a good comparison. I think the combat felt uninspired though, it wasn't very dynamic and I mostly repeated the same combo ad nauseum because there was no reason to do anything else. The enemies were spongier than I'd have liked.

The moment to moment gameplay here is pretty fun since the combat is mostly sparse but I would really hesitate to recommend this game. I mostly enjoyed my time with it, but I wouldn't suggest others play.