Even more interesting is the fact these boss fights are the only combat in the game. All four – technically five – sections of the game adhere to this formula, but it never gets stale. Barring one segment, the boss fights are exhilarating and interesting, particularly the first stage, which delivers an intense chase sequence through a fire-ravaged wooded area. Upon locating them, you engage in multi-stage boss encounters that are all fantastic. By collecting these totems, you can then purify the towers which help to pinpoint the corrupted deity for you to cleanse. You have to find locations around different “plateaus” to unlock totems. Once the rules of the game start to coalesce, however, it becomes a wondrous, freeing experience. We found it pretty overwhelming at first, and honestly, we’d have welcomed a little more guidance in the prologue. An open world with virtually no handholding, the title drops you in and just lets you stumble your way into figuring everything out. Not to be outdone by your feathered friend, the gameplay exceeds expectations as well. It’s an aspect of the title we had no real expectations for, but it’s one of the standouts. The relationship only grows stronger as the game progresses and you help one another achieve more and more. And that’s when we decided our heart belonged to this eagle. The bond is established instantly, as you help the bird nurse a wound, brushing the “curse” – which looks akin to fire and soot – off of their wings shortly before he nuzzles you affectionately. Not only does the eagle allow you to jump higher, fly further, and solve more complex puzzles, but the relationship between you and this bird evolves and grows as the game goes along. To do this, you are equipped with a bow, and shortly after starting the game, an eagle companion. With the help of some benevolent deities intimately intertwined with nature, it’s up to you to stop The Godslayer, a warrior of unspeakable power, as he corrupts and twists the spirits of the land to his will. The Pathless sees you controlling a huntress, setting out in hopes of lifting a curse from a sacred land. However, the team – with the help of one of the best publishers in the business, Annapurna – has not only pulled it off, but has done so with flying colours. Given how great that debut title was, surpassing it was never going to be an easy task. There’s some subtle signposting going on but the main intention is that you should explore essentially at random, using a sort of detective vision to spot puzzles you haven’t solved and check on the current location of the possessed Tall Ones.Giant Squid Studios’ debut title ABZÛ was a stunning debut for the studio founded by former thatgamecompany art director Matt Nava. Overall though, there’s not much narrative in The Pathless and, as you might gather from the name, it attempts to be as non-linear as possible. It soon becomes clear that in order to set things right you’re going to have to have rescue all of the ‘Tall Ones’ by activating special shrines dotted around the four regions of the game map. The graphics aren’t very detailed, and the limited colour palette of cursed areas does get a bit monotonous, but the sense of exploring an untamed wilderness comes across well and feels very cohesive. At full pelt you move at a blisteringly fast pace and the open world map design means there’s plenty of space to just max out and enjoy the silky smooth movement. When you’re running and shooting at the same time your character skids along on her knees, and cartwheels in the air, in such a satisfying manner we still haven’t got tired of it all these hours later. We’re not sure that really makes much sense even when you’re dealing with magic but it’s perfect video game logic because of how much fun it makes merely moving around. The rest of the time though you’re running around on your own, which uses up a quickly disappearing stamina bar, which in turn is refilled by shooting special targets that litter the island. This leads to you gaining an eagle companion who enables you to glide around for short distances and scope out the world below, a necessity given there’s not a proper map to help you.
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