The First Tree

I enjoyed my time with this title, especially the ending. It was a tough one for me to review, because I felt some of the elements and story-telling I've seen done better in other games. But when I cast my mind back to when this first came out, there actually weren't a ton of other titles that were attempting to do this (Dear Esther, maybe, or Gone Home), but I can't think of a single other one where you controlled an animal character, and I liked the way the fox's journey and the narration/landscape came together inot a unified whole. Honestly, I think this game walked so others could run (Endling, Spirit of the North + Spirit of the North 2), and some of the visuals are still beautiful and compelling. For the price that I paid, I felt it was well worth the money. Would strongly recommend.

I would slightly recommend this game, but it won't be for everyone, since it is mostly about the story and there is very little gameplay. It is a slow walking simulator, where you explore a world as a fox. There are items semi-hidden throughout the world and you will hear dialogue upon finding them. This tells a touching story about the characters' relationship with their parents. The background music is very pretty and soothing and is one of the stronger points of the game. The world is pretty to look at but not stunningly beautiful, nor does it have a super unique art style like i.e. the Meadow/Shelter games. But when it comes to gameplay and exploration the game falls a bit short. You can collect stars and they are often placed near objects that trigger the storybeats, but they are often far apart. Your walking speed is not very fast and it is not always super clear where you have to go to, so it feels like you are playing a walking simulator without direction. Sometimes there are huge open areas, where you would expect hidden collectibles/stars but then there is nothing. And sometimes there are hillsides that you can partially climb but it's not clear if there could actually be content there or if you are nearing an out-of-bounds area. There are a few jumping puzzles and they are trivially easy. I started a new game and it turned out that previous progress isn't saved. So that means finding all 150 stars and secrets will have to be done in single playthrough, if you are going for the achievements. There is no indication in-game showing you if you have found everything in the current stage, so getting all would involve repetitive exploration. It is probably not worth it for me. Tl;dr: It's relaxing a walking simulator with a touching story. The game looks pretty and has nice music. There is a lot of downtime between the story beats and getting all collectibles is tedious.

Not quite sure what I expected, but this was not it. Boring af, annoying controls, the narrator was telling a boring story, and the background music was annoying as well, and there was no setting to turn it off that I could find. Was not the cozy game that I thought, maybe more fit for someone at around 8 years old or less

Une façon mignonne de faire un deuil. Quelques inconvénients : on ne peut pas choisir quel niveau refaire pour aller chercher les succès (il faut tout refaire depuis le début), pour remonter une pente raide c'est parfois impossible il faut recommencer le niveau (pour aller rechercher des étoiles principalement), si nous n'avons pas le temps de terminer un niveau il faut le refaire (le jeu sauvegarde à chaque début de niveau), on n'a aucune idée de la progression du nombre d'items à trouver (ou d'étoiles) dans un niveau, le renard manque de souplesse dans ses bonds et dans l'épilogue il est difficile de trouver ce qu'il faut faire (conseil : essayez de sortir). Maiiis pour un petit jeu il vaut la peine, c'est mignon, il y a pas mal d'endroits à fouiller et c'est une jolie histoire ! J'y suis retournée pour finir tous les succès !

本来不想给好评的，追所有兔子的成就也太没必要了（对于中小体量的游戏，我是全成就党……但对于此游戏我放弃了全成就），地图做得太大，玩法又有点枯燥，建模又不够精细，更糟糕的是作者的free talk居然没字幕……但是在打完游戏的好多天后，早上我醒来几个字突然浮现在我脑海“狐死首丘”，我突然悟了为什么这部游戏要叫《第一棵树》，狐狸死亡前走向一棵树，也许就是它的出生地、它此生见到的第一棵树……生命就是这样轮回，周而复始……

I get it, the first tree is all about the experience. There are a couple of wonderfull moments. You'll feel that the game was created with a lot of love. In the end, the poor game mechanics and the roughness around the edges won't be what you'll remember about it. PS: There's a Fox!!

Petit jeu très sympathique ! Les points positifs : - la direction artistique est somptueuse - les musiques sont vraiment très bonnes - le scénario est très bien fait, agréable à suivre et il y a de l’émotion - le gameplay est ULTRA basique mais fonctionnel et donc correct Les points négatifs : - les niveaux sont trop ouverts et trop grands alors que ça ne sert pas à grand chose (- le gameplay aurait pu être plus innovant même si ce n’est pas réellement un point négatif puisque ce n’est absolument pas le but du jeu). Donc pour moi un très bon jeu avec une expérience très forte, émouvante et surprenante que j’ai vécu. Il y a des moments où il faut s’accrocher et j’avais les larmes aux jeux et des petits jeux indépendants comme ça j’en veux tous les jours.