BELOW

Dive into the dark, subsist on offal, mushrooms, and grass. Dream visions by the campfire. Below, you can become so much more. Roughly put, I see Below as a shorter Tunic with survival crafting elements. "Knowledge is the progression barrier". Does it work? Not quite. Below's atmospheric audio-visual world which asks for slow and methodical gameplay simply does not pair well with the repetition required by its roguelike half. This leaves me in a tough spot reviewing this game. On the one hand, I absolutely loved the slow pace of this game at the beginning. Once I let my distractable mind settle to the rhythm of this game, I found myself immersed in the beaches, caves, and tombs on offer. The sparse geometric aesthetic is absolutely gorgeous, the fluid and gas dynamics excellent, and sense foreboding evil seeps from every shadow. I went from dying in the dark to recognizing enemies by their screeches, knowing how to handle every situation. The progression of attunement was very rewarding. On the other hand, as my deaths racked up, the focus gradually turned away from immersion and progression into resource management. I wish I could say the resource management was fun. It's not hard, once you learn the crafting table and the drop tables, just tedious. Needing to do "farm runs" just distracts from the immersion. I only played the Survival mode, but there's an Explore mode, which I may have preferred. So if you're like me, try that. I was surprised how little attention this game received, despite having such a well-executed atmosphere and aesthetic vision. After sticking through to the end, my conclusion is that, sadly, this beautiful game found itself buried under the weight of its contradictory mechanics and ran players' patience out too soon.

Very weird game. Fun but will not hold your hand in the slightest.

I really enjoyed this game even tho the way i played was a bit different trying to see how far i can get in one life, i enjoyed that it had very little handholding it is simple yet somewhat difficult and at a certain point in the game feels like it introduces to many enemies but otherwise trying to figure things out all the short cuts and exploring all areas was really enjoyable tho i feel like the climbing up and down at some parts is strechted a bit to long and somewhat bothers me but overall pretty good game i have recommended it to a freind since it seems that it would be intresting for them to play too

Such a great game, patience and planning are required for success.

Pour info, j'ai joué en mode exploration. Très bonne atmosphère. Le combat est OK. Le système de craft est bien, mais la taille de l'inventaire et la limite de stacking des items le rend très frustrant. Remonter 6 étage (vides!) pour farmer des matériaux de craft et autres ressources est une grosse déception.

A very fun game, its an exploration survival game with very light rogue-like elements. Most of the game, for me at least, is about learning the nature of the game world and how to use its systems. As such I think the game is best played with essentially no external information, making notes as you play through is a good idea. The game is pretty slow and atmospheric so while people often compare the game to souls-likes, its far more exploration driven than combat driven, so while it does have few specific souls-like elements I don't think its that similar. The only tip I would have is that the game only has one ending so you don't have to worry about missing content by accidentally triggering an ending.

anybody who loves the first Zelda series or Hyperlight drifter - will probably love this game as well.