Farewell North

This game easily shares first place as my favourite game along with Red Dead Redemption 2 (the latter being a game I have around 100hours in total when including console hours). The first two main-story islands of the game I found slow and I felt a bit "meh" about the game as they did not reflect my expectations for the game—they very much feel like they were the first ones made at the start of the development. If you feel put off by them as well, I STRONGLY urge you to continue anyway. I am a huge animal enthusiast (especially dogs), I've spent a lot of time learning about animal ethology (animal behaviour) and such—this means that a lot of media that has animals in them often fall flat for me as media LOVES to "humanize"/anthropomorphize animals, especially dogs. This game does not fall in that trap. You can get prompted to bark back when you're talked to, but I personally have an Australian Shepherd who does the same, it's not done in a unrealistic way. I very rarely had my immersion broken in this game. I didn't get fully immersed until after the first two main-story islands, but after those I was completely locked in. In the many hours I've spent playing and 100%ing the game I ran into one more major bug that soft locked me—Cailey had somehow walked up a huge rock and her AI was unable to navigate down no matter what I did. This occured after playing for 8 or 9 hours. I was running around looking for a collectible (will o' the wisp) so I didn't notice for like 40 minutes and ended up having to reload. I lost those 40 minutes, but it was alright because I was just exploring and the collectibles I had collected were still saved. Considering how much time I spent just exploring this game, this issue is rare. I loved the herding sections, having dabbled in herding with my dogs myself. There is a section with cows where you can choose to herd cows or sheep that have accidentally ended up in the same pasture. The cows are more difficult, but I believe that's realistic as different animals (both species, breeds and individuals) have different levels of how strong their "flocking together" instinct is. I did not get frustrated during that section, it was just a bit more finnicky to get them to move as a herd instead of them going "eff you!" and prancing off to greener patches of the pasture. But as for smaller immersion breaks, I noticed that during certain herding sections that the herding prompts given (they are just words said by Cailey to simulate real-life herding, you can ignore them) sometimes struggled to recognise walls if the "end goal" was ontop of a cliff, with Cailey giving prompts that if listened to would make the sheep crawl against the wall. I believe this also happend once when ontop of a height when the goal was below; the AI didn't seem to fully realise that the steepest points down were not navigational for neither sheep nor player. This only happend a few times, otherwise these sections worked fine. Like I said, I loved the herding sections. The story of the game is difficult to review without spoilers. But it handled the topic of grief PERFECTLY in my opinion. It left me sobbing at the end. The game also covers identity, specifically cultural identity. People from minority cultures will relate to it more, but the game covers the topic in a way that I think almost everyone can relate to as you can view it from a non-cultural context and instead view it purely in the context of the topic of identity as a whole. A 10/10 game that I will badger my friends to play.

Its such a great game, that makes it worse. I'm going to be stuck like this for hours. Thank you to the devs for this earthshattering heartbreak. I loved the game so much.

This was a gorgeous game with beautiful scenery and music! I loved how immersed it made you feel in the islands and their culture while telling a wonderful, touching story. In terms of gameplay, I did struggle with the lack of a map and the fact that your compass only marks places you haven't been, which can make it hard to find somewhere you want to return to for a collectible. Otherwise, the game featured good environmental puzzles, and I really enjoyed how it worked. Overall, this game featured a beautiful story about memory, grief, and honoring where you've come from and the loved ones who have been with you along the way. I was very moved by it - it's heartwrenching but a great game!

Ein wunderschönes, kurzweiliges Spiel. Die Steuerung ist etwas fummelig, aber nach einer Weile bin ich gut damit klar gekommen. Die Rätsel sind eigentlich immer ohne Probleme lösbar. Ein bisschen gestört hat mich, dass es keine Minimap oder sonstige Karte, sondern nur einen Kompass gibt. Die Story kommt leise daher, hält den Spannungsbogen aber aufrecht. Ich für meinen Teil habe das ein oder andere Tränchen verdrückt. Absolut empfehlenswert!

A game with a clear idea about what it wants to do and does it well despite it being quite janky to play. I was interested in this game because I like this sort of thing. Spirit of the North, Journey, Abzu, you know the deal. This is a nice experience in that vein. Control an animal, explore a magical world, solve some puzzles, follow a story, and enjoy the atmosphere and escapism of game not about killing and shooting everything in sight. It is a low budget game, made by one person and you can feel that. Controlling the dog - the most important aspect of gameplay - is often janky and annoying rather than fluid and enjoyable, and the overly sprawling open world has too little to do or see in it to make exploration rewarding. On the other hand, I quite like traveling on the canoe and the shepherding sections are good light entertainment. Most of all, and I imagine this was the developer's main focus, it delivers its quiet, heartfelt story in a moving way. It's a 7/10 sort of a game. If you like the games I mentioned above this a good addition to that subgenre.

Bonito juego, me encantan los juegos así por su historia y este no es la excepción, no me esperaba el final. Recomiendo jugarlo, jugarlo lo vale. Hasta aquí mi reporte joaquin.

Poignant, bittersweet, and beautiful. The soundtrack perfectly complimented the unfolding scenery. Beautiful storytelling that encompasses much of the human existence - loss, grief, joy, and letting go.