MO:Astray

7/10

就算過了這麼多年，依然經典好玩

“It’s a game about cute slime travelling through a devastated world…” Yeah, right. Our playable character maybe is a cute, round and bouncy creature with big eyes, but nothing aside from them is nice and cozy. The game itself is a brutal journey through an abandoned, nearly destroyed research station, where death, violence and decay reign supreme. But first things first. Mo:Astray is a 2-D platformer heavily focused on solving environmental puzzles and, to a lesser extent, combat encounters (which happens, also in big part, to be more about thinking and memorizing, rather than about reactions and dexterity) and very minimalistic exploration. What really differentiate this game from other platformers is how you control your character. Instead of simply pushing a button to jump or dash, you need to use the left or right trigger and aim with your right stick, while using the left one to move MO around maps. Your movement abilities are overall pretty limited. Aside from jumping, later you can unlock double jump (same principle here — hold left trigger, aim with right stick, you have two, maybe 3 seconds to execute move, or you will fall, which can be pretty annoying during fights), dash, which you use to break things and stun enemies. MO can also attach themself automatically to walls and ceiling. Sporadically you can also turn into a balloon and float mid air, but it is mostly situational. And… that’s it. Okay, so why am I writing so much about controls? Because I think it is the weakest part of this game. It demands both fast reaction and precision with jumping and aiming. It’s less of a problem with slower parts of games, but combat is another story, as well as a big chunk of puzzles, which have time constraints and need to be executed flawlessly. And I don’t know, maybe I have too big hands, but I constantly struggled with aiming in this game. In some cases — like with the last boss — I temporarily switched to mouse and keyboard to beat obstacles. Aiming with the right stick was not precise, especially when I was forced to adjust direction mid moving or jumping. The major difficulty is not from the game itself, but with wrestling with controls. Another weak thing is combat, but this time is intentionally designed that way, mainly because it is a secondary experience compared to puzzles, considering how late in the game you got access to your fighting abilities — first two from total of six chapters you spend without way to fend of enemies, and up to chapter five encounters are sporadic and limited. Your main weapon is your ability to rip enemies' heads clean after jumping on them, as well as bash to stun or break their armor. Aside from bosses and battle droids from late game, all of them die from one hit. Nothing revolutionary or special here. So, what else about gameplay? Mentioned puzzles — there is a huge variety of them. From simple jumping that requires avoiding insta-kill spikes, to moving objects, using cranes, lifting and pushing boxes, spawning clones that you can control in limited range, avoiding air currents, dodging buzzsaws… each level introduce new type of them, so gameplay do not become stale and repetitive — in majority cases, because there are still variations of the theme — although take into consideration, that majority of them can be brute-forced once you understand the pattern and find solution. There are also ones focused on timings and precision, which I am going to admit I didn’t like, because it pisses me off when I am rushed with solving puzzles, because my tiny brain cannot compute doing thinking stuff and hand-to-eye coordination at the same time. Finally, something about the story — it is surprisingly flashed out and deep, considering the genre of this game. And definitely not for kids. Its told mostly through retrospection (because the entire place is desolated research station), finding memories and scanning enemies thoughts, and tackles topics like unethical experiments, torture, revenge and death. People die to toxic gases, are executed, brutally murdered, and the game does not shy from showing more “in your face” moments of gore, pain and agony. And yet it refuses to give every answer on the silver plate, you must figure a big chunk of lore on yourself, both through text as well as environmental storytelling. That’s all. Oh yeah, Play on disaster difficulty. Or at least adventure. Don’t be a little ♥♥♥♥♥. Now. It's over. Go home or something.

Был прекрасен как мир, так сюжет. Просто нет слов мне понравилось прыгать на врагов, прыгать на трупы и читать их мысли, собирать воспоминания было ещё весело. Я был бы рад увидеть продолжение истории МО, но кажется мне что это мы не увидим.

讚

11.8个小时,只打出了个一般模式一周目坏结局,太菜了. 游戏的整体评价是非常好的一部小品级的平台跳跃与弹幕游戏,难以想象是新人的作品. 游戏的难度曲线设置的非常合理,每次解密你觉得没出路的时候,再看一遍周边环境就能有思路; 战斗每次死亡都是棋差一招,再试个两三次就能打进下阶段; 存档点设置的非常好,使我在长解密中不至于重复已解开的谜题; 唯一有些缺憾的地方就是旁白台词没有配音,只有声调,且台词位置在中间下方,还经常操作的时候触发台词,导致有时候根本没注意到台词,剧情看得不全. 总体来说,非常值得体验的一部游戏