¡Gabz!

Tunic on the Nintendo Switch.

Explore a land filled with lost legends, ancient powers, and ferocious monsters in TUNIC, an isometric action game about a small fox on a big adventure. Stranded in a ruined land, and armed with only your own curiosity, you will confront colossal beasts, collect strange and powerful items, and unravel long-lost secrets.  

This game, wasn't even on my radar until someone mentioned it in a podcast back in March. I remember this because I was traversing my way through the dangerous city of Chicago. I was trying to get to the hotel where the convention I was attending was being held at. 

I added it to my PlayStation 5 wishlist, it wasn't even listed in the eShop, at the time. Fast forward to the end of the last month, the game is available on the eShop, and the switch being my preferred gaming console for these games, well, I got it on the system over the PS5. The game had been out I think six months prior on macOS, PC, and Xbox, but it wasn't until six months later that made it to the PlayStation and Switch.

Still, I had heard very little about this game. I heard it was a combination of a Zelda-like game and a Souls-like game. By this premise alone, I should have stayed away from this game, in theory. Why? Well, I suck at souls-like games, and yet I guess I'm a sucker for punishment because I buy them anyways, and I no longer have the patience for unguided exploring games like Zelda.

Tunic is an action-adventure game and right off the bat you can tell, it is very Zelda-like, especially the earlier ones. You are a fox and you wake up in this strange world with, gain, very little guidance on what you need to do. From what I have gathered so far, you battle your way through it, you must find and ring a number of bells and find some "gears" that should end up in a central place. Just like Souls games, there is very little or nonexistent back story presented, you must unravel the mystery as you go. Enemies can be a little unforgiving, or so I was told. If you die you respawn at your last save point, and you lose some currency and such, just as expected in a souls-like game.

You have stamina and mana, as well as your health. You can upgrade your stats, although that is not well explained in the game. There, is literally very, very little guidance and lots of explanation in this game, however, I can't stop playing it.

What is amazing about this game are the accessibility options, it has a No Fail Mode, No Stamina Restrictions, and Reduced Combat Difficultry. Well, guess what? I have all turned on! No shame, No ragrets! So to me, the combat isn't frustration, if any, it would be my own impatience. But it's fun to just turn on the Switch and just go to town exploring and see what things I can do, which paths I haven't explored, you know just fox around with my sword. And believe there are lots of secret paths and secrets in general in this game.

I have gotta say, even though I had no idea what is going on, no guidance whatsoever. I'm clueless about what I am supposed to do, and yet I am having a good time. The game is charming and beautiful, the music is great, and I even have the soundtrack on rotation because it is that nice.

Moonscars on the Nintendo Switch

Ugh! Another one.

Last night, like almost every night, I am browsing the newest releases section of the Nintendo eShop, it's almost like an addiction at this point and immediately saw the image above. And I went, "uh, what's that?", and that's all it took. I went in and looked at the images, and I was already hooked, then it dawned on me, "uh-oh, this is probably a souls-like". I watched the trailers and yup, definitely a souls-like.

"But it's so prettyyyyyyy!" (in a morbid way)

I am such a sucker for indie-souls-like games! Blasphemous, Eldest Souls, Morbid: The Seven Acolytes, ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights (which I actually played quite extensively) are a  few examples. Where three of them I barely played due to their difficulty, I may revisit in the future, who knows.

Why these games? Is it the darkness? Are their stories as vague as they may be? Perhaps, and most likely. There is also the pixel art style, the sprites, and the music. I am very attracted to these games, but I suck at them. Even for "AAA" games of the same genre, like Elden Ring, which I have purchased and I am so scared to play!

Again, I am a sucker and I will probably end up getting this game, and eventually, its physical copy if ever available.

Also, I understand that the game is currently somewhat broken, I believe is towards the end of the game, but the developers have identified the issues and there is a patch coming. That is good to know going in for sure.

Cult of the Lamb on the Nintendo Switch

> Start your own cult in a land of false prophets, venturing out into diverse and mysterious regions to build a loyal community of woodland worshippers and spread your Word to become the one true cult.

I don’t remember exactly when I became aware of this game, I want to say that it was in some Nintendo event where they announced a couple of indie games. What I do remember was being drawn to the game’s visuals, the art style, and obviously the gameplay. It looked both somewhat-creepy and adorable. I mean, you are a lamb, an innocent cute little lamb, and you lead an evil cult. So, I put its release date on my calendar and even pre-ordered a physical copy of it, that is supposed to arrive sometime in Q2 of 2023.

Now that is finally here, the gameplay is one part sim and one part action-roguelike, imagine if Hades and Stardew Valley had a baby. The premise of this game is you are being sacrificed by some cult by the Old Ones because a prophecy said that a lamb will be the vessel by which The One Who Waits will return. Obviously, you do get sacrificed and then return to life by The One Who Waits, for you to raise a cult in his name and to destroy the 4 Old Ones in order to break free, just like the prophecy says.

Again, the gameplay is divided between you taking care of your duties, tending to your followers and your efforts to fight your way through the forests of heretics, the rouge like part, and hunt down them Old Ones. Here is like your typical rouge like game, where you enter a dungeon, you pick a weapon, and you fight your way through different rooms. In some rooms, you will encounter some cult member that you can convert and at the end of the run, there will be a boss. These dungeons aren’t super-long, they might take about 10-15 mins to complete. Then you return to your commune with the spoils of your adventure!

In your Cult’s Commune is where you do your sim part of the game. Part of tending to your followers is to listen to them and resolve their issues, you farm, you harvest, you build things. You give sermons and teach doctrines, you can assign jobs and responsibilities to each of your cult members. You also need to do anything and everything to keep their faith from dropping, or they will turn on you. At this point, you can teach them again, throwing them into prison or my favorite, sacrifice them.

You do a zillion things, I won’t list because there’ll be too much, or I probably haven’t even got to do them.

This is definitely a completely unique rougelike kind of game, and I will say, half of it, to me, can be stressful. The action, rougelike part of the game isn’t that hard, granted, I’m playing on easy, and it is where I get a lot of fun out of. The sim aspect of it, well, that is the stressful part, for me. I always worried that I will not attend to every request, that my followers aren’t happy, that I am not building the necessary things, etc.

If you very much enjoy games like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, you will love this aspect of the game. I do own both Stardew and Animal Crossing, and I had never been able to get into them, I lose interest quickly.

This is a beautiful, cute-looking game, and it is a lot of fun, except for the sim part, for me, but it is definitely with checking out.