The Pathless
After
Abzû took us on an enchanting journey to the depths of the ocean, the Giant
Squid Games development team returns to present its second project with the
adventure and open world game The Pathless, which has a distinctive artistic
touch like its predecessor, so how is the experience?
The
story puts us in the role of a “sniper” who arrives at a mysterious island with
the aim of lifting the curse that threatens to destroy the world. The island
previously flourished because of the “giants” who protected it and provided it
with various blessings, but they fell before the “way-seeker”, a human who
gained enough strength to defeat and control them. In his endeavor to end the
world and create a new world, the story aims to basically justify the events
while conveying a message about finding the appropriate path in a template that
has a religious dimension.
On
the technical level, the game is charming with its cartoonish artistic
orientation and high graphic accuracy. Here, we find that the game tried to
draw inspiration from the aesthetic of its world from The Legend of Zelda:
Breath of the Wild, but with an attempt to present its own touch. The game
itself relies on texts to narrate events, as its characters speak in an
incomprehensible language.
The
Pathless features a very simple gameplay, except for the ability to move and
jump. There is a button to shoot the arrow and another to use the mask that you
have, which is used in a number of puzzles, with a button to direct commands to
the eagle accompanying you. “Snipers” do not move at high speed, but there are
many amulets published Every place around the island that you have to hit
(target identification is done automatically and holding the button increases
the accuracy of aiming) to rush quickly and feel the rush that you get with
hitting each target in a way that makes the experience of navigation and
exploration enjoyable knowing that it constitutes a large percentage of the
experience and focus On the exploration side, the developer abandoned the idea
of the mini-map and quick navigation points, which is something you will
not notice, as the movement on foot is fast enough and fun when moving from one
area to another.
The
game world is divided into 4 regions, each of which is dedicated to one of the
giants. When you explore the game world, you will find many puzzles that depend
on several ideas. There are those that will require your use of the mask that
shows you some hidden things in the world. You will also take advantage of the
eagle accompanying you and your shooting skills. The puzzles return To show the
developer's inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, many of
these puzzles borrow their ideas from the game, while others come with their
own idea somewhat. The other similarity in these puzzles is that they are also
short and many of them can be solved in less than five minutes. The goal of
solving these puzzles is Gain experience points that give you the ability to
dash through the air with the help of your falcon or collect coins that
represent the area's giant.
Coins
are used to restore light to the three towers in each region, and as soon as
the light is restored to those towers, you will be ready to confront its giant.
All confrontations begin with chasing the giant in the area and causing damage
to it, then moving to the arena for confrontation, and here each giant has a
special way to confront him And a specific idea on which the confrontation will
be based. Confrontations of giants represent the only parts in which you will
engage in battles in the experience, so that the usual rhythm is movement and
exploration, solving puzzles, and then confronting the giant of the region, and
all this is done at an appropriate speed so that you do not feel that you are
spending a long time exploring and solving puzzles.
There
are some parts of infiltration, which I do not know what the purpose of them
is. In these parts, a storm appears while touring the world, and as soon as the
storm reaches you, the giant responsible for the area will appear, and here the
eagle accompanying you will be harmed and the storm will throw it away, and you
must reach it without the giant seeing you. These particles were broken The
experience was disturbing and incomprehensible, and it is not properly
designed. Usually, you will find that the giant's movement is relatively fast,
while your movement is slow, and the environment does not contain sufficient
elements that obstruct the giant's vision, which makes success difficult.
Success in this part does not return anything to you, and failure In it, it
means losing some experience points, nothing more, and it can be said that this
part is the only negative in The Pathless in terms of the gaming experience.
Death
is not present in The Pathless, and as we mentioned, if you fail in the
infiltration parts, you will lose some experience points, and in boss
confrontations, you will be thrown out of the ring when you get into trouble,
and all you have to do to return to the confrontation is simply enter the ring
again, the experience is medium in its difficulty, and the The puzzles are not
complicated or difficult in their entirety, which makes them an experience
suitable for the general players, and we had to talk about the Arabic
translation, as we found it very excellent, and despite some spelling problems
and some usual literal translations, the translation was excellent and varied
in general, as it uses appropriate terminology to convey the meaning to the
player without falling into Very literal translations with the use of a group
of eloquent words in a way that we liked, and it seems that we will not wait
long before we find that various games have excellent Arabic translation,
whether they are from the independent developer or from the huge companies.
There
are many puzzles and a number of side challenges that the game offers, and the
content provided by these activities doubles the life of the experience if you
want to do everything. Finishing the game required only about 5 hours, as it is
a short experience. If you want to finish all the challenges, you will spend an
additional 4 or 5 hours. Pathless is a simple experience in its idea, perfect
in its application, and charming in its world. It is one of the short
experiences that you go through to entertain yourselves because of its beauty
and ease while preserving the element of pleasure.