The thought of family members passing away is one which I’ve needed to expertise too many instances previously few years. There should not too many video games that take care of the idea of non-public loss, so I really feel that it’s virtually at all times a great factor when video games attempt to ship a message to gamers to remind them that they’re not alone. Pine Hearts, for essentially the most half, tells a stupendous story, sadly by a recreation tormented by important body fee points.
Pine Hearts is an isometric recreation the place you play a younger camper named Tyke, who has returned to Pine Hearts years after the lack of his father. An outdated pal welcomes Tyke, after which after given a hammer and tasked with clearing a path to the cave, a world begins to open up for exploration. In the identical vein as basic Zelda titles, Tyke positive factors new talents and objects over the course of the sport, which permits him entry to new areas. That is all finished in a relaxing, non-urgent method as there isn’t any fight to be discovered.
The sport is introduced as an explorative puzzle recreation the place you utilise your instruments to unearth new areas to discover. My expertise with the sport is that the instruments you discover alongside the way in which actually simply unlock new paths, with minimal thought to how the instruments themselves might be utilised in Tyke’s world.
Regardless of the sport promising a give attention to puzzles, I solely encountered two of what I might contemplate to be puzzles by the entire recreation. The remainder of the sport was made up completely of fetch quests, and largely pushed my skill to recollect the place the whole lot was. Any time I entered a brand new space, my hopes would rise that I might be trying to push my frontal lobe, just for the locals to ask me to fetch extra wooden, or catch bees, and so forth. It turned fairly laborious the longer the sport went.
Traversing the world is generally a pleasing expertise. Pine Hearts is a shiny and vibrant place, and transferring about feels very responsive. It’s slightly simple to get misplaced on the planet although, which may make the aforementioned fetch-quests much more of a lavatory. It might be improved if you happen to might zoom out and see extra of the world, or have a extra detailed map in Tyke’s journal.
The NPCs of Pine Hearts are written very well, firing witty quips that would make the Paper Mario staff take notes. Whereas I loved chatting to the NPCs to see what every one of many would say, I typically felt that I may need linked extra if the NPCs spoke to Tyke past their calls for for firewood and soccer balls. Whereas they do have witty banter, the conversations have a tendency to finish up with them asking a random stranger to go and accumulate stuff for them.
The place the sport’s energy lies is in its dealings with the idea of loss. When finishing exploring the world and finishing quests for individuals, Tyke is awarded a lot of tear formed reminiscence shards. When sufficient of those are collected, a reminiscence is unlocked of Tyke’s childhood. Reliving these core reminiscences of Tyke’s is one of the best a part of the sport. Every reminiscence is particularly tied to an occasion that concerned a younger Tyke and his father earlier than he handed away.
Every reminiscence opens up with a quick cinematic, and then you definitely transfer child-Tyke by the reminiscence. The reminiscences begin off harmless sufficient however grow to be darker as you progress by the sport. One reminiscence had me tearing up rather a lot, and I might really feel the grief that was felt by Tyke. Nonetheless, this was shortly eliminated when this notably harrowing reminiscence was instantly adopted by a dancing, comfortable Tyke on my display screen. Some tweaks to how Tyke is feeling after experiencing a reminiscence might give these scenes the additional influence it wants.
The sport additionally has a LOT of accessibility choices. It consists of your extra frequent options resembling a dyslexic pleasant font, excessive distinction mode, simplified controls and colourblind modes. It additionally features a color blocking mode, the place interactive objects are all highlighted whereas the remainder of the world is in subdued colors. The sport additionally has you enter these settings earlier than you’ll be able to go in your journey, which looks as if a no brainer means of beginning a recreation.
Pine Hearts explores the idea of loss with respect, dignity and with a sort contact. I particularly loved speaking to the individuals of Pine Hearts, in addition to the colorful world to discover. The respect given to these with impairments can also be to be recommended. Nonetheless, the dearth of puzzles and the repetitive fetch quest nature of the sport does pull again on its potential. I feel the staff at Hyper Luminal Video games have a particular expertise for broaching tough subjects, and I stay up for what they’ll convey us sooner or later.
Score: 3.5/5