Tunic is greater than it seems. It treads acquainted floor to basic Legend of Zelda-style adventures, with easy fight, a big overworld, and a number of bosses and dungeons. However, it is what’s added on prime that actually shines.

To begin with, the cunning hero would not also have a sword, however all through the sport you may slowly accrue all of the tools you want. Your stock homes weapons, devices, consumables, and passive perks — all of which have their makes use of. In the numerous treasure chests, you may additionally discover objects with which to improve your stats, amongst different rewards. It’s fundamental stuff, but it surely’s executed nicely and introduced clearly.

Combat is easy, as talked about. A mixture of sword swipes, some magical talents, and some helpful bombs are your offensive choices, and you finally get a protect to go together with your defensive dodge roll. Enemies are properly designed and surprisingly difficult, together with some bosses that may be actual issue spikes. You can tone down the issue everytime you like, although. It works nicely sufficient, however occasional points with the lock-on may cause some premature deaths.

Better, and extra necessary than fight, is exploration. Navigating the overworld will take you to varied areas, every filled with hidden paths and head-scratching puzzles. Backtracking happens very often, which may make sure components of the sport can really feel barely tedious. However, thorough explorers are rewarded handsomely.

A key a part of Tunic is its digital instruction booklet. Its gorgeously illustrated pages are strewn throughout the map, and discovering them not solely offers you very important info, however they’re additionally paramount for fixing lots of the recreation’s head-scratching puzzles. It’s an extremely elegant manner of supplying you with a nudge with out over-explaining all its secrets and techniques.

We will not spoil what occurs, however Tunic slowly peels again layers proper to the very finish. It’s a cohesive, satisfying recreation that scratches an old style action-adventure itch, going above and past with subversive, cerebral puzzles. It perhaps goes on a contact longer than it must, however this little gem of a recreation punches above its weight.