This article is about the game Tunic; why I chose it, misunderstood it, and finally gave up on it.
First of all, repeating the obvious to be on the safe side: I don’t like Tunic. Whether you like it, dislike it, hate it or love it is not the issue. So when I write something like “this is bad” or “this isn’t fun”, it reflects my opinion. Of course that means it is also objectively correct, but you still have the right to be wrong KAPPA.
To the facts: Tunic is an indie RPG, souls-like with puzzle elements. And souls-like says it all. It’s rock hard and doesn’t give you any help for anything. You play a little fox who goes on some kind of adventure. I can’t tell you exactly which one, because I didn’t understand it myself. The first task is to ring three bells (you have to fight your way to get there), after that I’m out.
One of the reasons for this is that you have to look for the “instructions”, a virtual brochure in the game, page by page – but this is also written in a foreign language. Some (not all) control elements are revealed here and at the beginning you also get the information that you should ring the three bells – nothing more. Not why, not how, just do it.
Don’t get me wrong – this is definitely a gold mine for Souls fans and RPG lovers. And there are a lot of positive things to say about the game. It looks great, both graphically and stylistically. The sound design is pretty good and most of the enemies are well thought out. Exploring can certainly be fun too, as well a decoding the probably profound story and discovering and solving all the puzzles contained.
And yet I cursed a lot in the game. Because for me the game did not correspond to what I expected at first glance (and also at second glance). I had seen it in a list of recommendations that did not elaborate on the content. It looked like a Zelda-like game to me, so I checked to see if one of my subscriptions included it. Lo and behold, it’s included in the XBox GamePass.
There it is listed as “Action / Adventure”. Fits. So I started playing and was disappointed. Because instead of a story and an overarching goal, I got a confusing cinematic and was thrown into the world. The first few steps, like finding a stick weapon and the first few pages of the manual, were pretty self-explanatory, but the further you went, the more Souls-ish it got. The total of 64 deaths I collected in 3 streams speak for themselves.
And while playing, I vented my displeasure in my usual sympathetic and calm way. I probably did the game (and its players) injustice at one point or another, but I found many mechanics to be unfair and poorly done. When a boss fight relies heavily on luck or the game doesn’t tell me what it wants, that’s often a sign of bad game design to me; Souls fans seem to get their money’s worth with these challenges.
And this is exactly where the problem lies: expectation management. And also the solution: Steam. Because there it says exactly what to expect, already in the tags. And if I had checked there beforehand it would have saved me a lot of time as I know I don’t like games like this. Unfortunately, with GamePass (from my point of view) it wasn’t very clear what kind of game it was.
Now what is the lesson I can learn from this game? Well, on the one hand I’m always looking up games on Steam from now on, no matter on which platform I’ll play them in the end. On the other hand, the confirmation that souls-likes are just not my thing. For fans of this genre I would still give a recommendation; because although I didn’t like a lot about this game, I still have to admit: it is made with love.
The controls were well thought out in many respects, graphically and acoustically it really impressed me and I assume that you can pick apart and analyze every single rune – you can definitely sink many hours of play here. If you have played through the game or are still in the process, please write your experiences – since I have no experience in this area, these are only guesses so far.
Anyway, I’m going to look for games that are more in line with my taste.