Some people will absolutely love The Pathless‘ lack of direction or interactivity and won’t mind the mindless firing of arrows into little floaties so they can move fast. Unfortunately, these are too few and far between to fuel the desire to keep pushing ahead. It’s during these times that the game lets its hair down and stops trying to be “artistic,” and concentrates on providing a gripping encounter with a god. There’s even some variation between them, including one that’s heavy on cover and timing. Boss battles are exciting multi-stage battles where the player has to stay on their toes to hit weak points and avoid enemy attacks. The Pathless is at its best when it allows itself to throw some action on the screen. However, they rarely channel the brilliance of BOTW‘s Shrines.
There are puzzles scattered about to gain crystals for upgrades, and the Lightstones needed to clear the Obelisks in each area. It’s not an unattractive game, but it feels like if you took the sweeping vistas of Breath of the Wild and removed 90% of the points of interest. In part, it feels like The Pathless has you constantly shooting talismans because there are so few other ways to interact with the world. Still, nothing turns me off of a game more than pointless, mechanical repetition.
Upgrades become available later that increase the size of the stamina bar, which makes movement a little less arduous. You can either choose to walk or continuously fire arrows into floating orbs for the eight hours or so the it takes to finish your journey. Unfortunately, breaking talismans becomes a constant routine throughout the game. To refill the bar, players must hit floating talismans dotted around the island with arrows. However, The Hunter has a stamina bar, which drains quickly. The controls are tight, and overall, dashing around the island would be rather satisfying. It’s used for everything: puzzle-solving, combat, and even movement. The Hunter’s primary (and only) weapon is her bow. Also, there’s not enough personification of The Tall Ones, the gods you’re attempting to save throughout the game, for them to be captivating as characters. I never really found myself attached to The Hunter because she has no personality. It’s just that the voiceless protagonist wandering through a deserted land where an ancient civilization met its end is a trope that other games have done better. It’s not that I want to be handheld through the story. Still, players are left to figure things out for themselves for the most part. There are corpses dotted about that provide some clues as to what cataclysm the Godslayer brought on the land. When the player character, The Hunter, arrives, players are only given the vague task of lifting the curse on an island. Unfortunately, The Pathless is another game with a silent protagonist journeying to a ruined, mostly deserted land. I’m growing increasingly tired of indie games with threadbare plots that depend on (poor) implicit storytelling punctuated by optional text to weave their narrative. Thanks to traditional aiming being replaced by an auto-targeting system, players can run and shoot at the same time without ever needing to worry about slowing down.Advertisement Another dead guy telling stories The map is covered in floating red crystals that the player can destroy. In addition to dealing damage to enemies, being effective with a bow is also vital for traversing the game's world. As pointed out in a recent preview published by IGN, the Dualsense's haptic feedback, will actually allow the new PS5 controller to replicate the tension of drawing a bow. In real life, drawing back the string of a bow is a difficult task that requires a lot of strength. RELATED: Hands-On With The Pathless: The Creators Of Journey And Abzu Have A Massive Hit On Their Hands Instead, the game focuses on rewarding players for timing their shots well, blending rhythm and action together in order to destroy targets as efficiently as possible. Unlike most games that feature ranged weaponry, the challenge in The Pathless does not come from aiming at targets.