This is a game I’ve effectively owned in one form or another digitally for quite some time, and it’s also one that I’ve been meaning to get to actually playing forever. Recently, though, my partner needed a palate cleanser from the visual novel she was playing, so she decided to play through this. I love being able to chat with her about stuff we play together, and given that I was in the mood for something of a palate cleanser myself, I thought what better time to finally give this a try. It took me about 1.5 hours to beat the English language version of the game after doing as much around the island as I could be bothered to do (and getting 17 feathers in the process).
A Short Hike is the story of Claire, whose aunt May has taken her to a favorite family nature park. On this island are many hills, including the highest point on the island, Hawk Peak. Claire is awaiting a very important phone call, but the island has basically no cell phone reception. Her aunt tells her that the only place on the island she’s likely to get signal is at the top of Hawk Peak, which luckily for her is only “a short hike” away. And so our hero sets off on her (relatively) short journey to the top of this nearby mountain to get the reception needed to receive this phone call. A Short Hike is a relatively simple and short game both gameplay-wise and narratively, but it’s a very heartfelt little adventure all the same. What you choose to do, where you choose to explore, and whom you choose to help on your way up the mountain will very much make your Claire’s journey feel unique unto itself. There are all sorts of friendly tourists and staff around the island to talk to, help out, and play with, and their dialogue is so fun and charming that I had a lot of fun just finding new people to talk to. Another game I played earlier this year, Lil’ Gator Game, clearly takes a LOT of inspiration from this, so it was hard not to compare the two, but as the sort of progenitor to that later (and for my money, better) game, I think A Short Hike is a lovely story about reflecting upon growing up and how you relate to other people. As for the gameplay, A Short Hike is mostly about exploration. Your only real goal is to make it to the top of the mountain, but to do that, you’ll need to be good at climbing. While you can jump and glide right from the start, if you want to be able to jump again in mid-air or scale walls, you’ll need to find a gold feather, and you’ll gain more mid-air jumps and climbing time the more feathers you collect. Exploring around the island, you’ll find all sorts of other folks to help or interact with, and they can give you little side quests that’ll reward you with money, feathers, or other goodies. Exploring is often its own reward as well, as you can find money, tools, and even gold feathers just lying around to add to your arsenal of treasure hunting. The island is big, but not overwhelming, and it makes for a fun little adventure even if you’re just trying to get to the top as fast as you can. Now I played this on PC, and while you *can* use the arrow keys, I very quickly abandoned them for use of my Xbone controller. The platforming and such is hardly difficult, and there isn’t even really a fail state to worry about at any point, so if you don’t have a controller available, it’s not the end of the world. That said, using a joystick was just so much better than the arrow keys that I really have to recommend using a controller for this if at all possible. The presentation of the game is absolutely adorable. You can tell that the creators are huge Animal Crossing fans, as all of the animal fellas populating the island often look like they could’ve popped right out of it x3. Solidifying that theory for me was how you can not only find a shovel to dig up buried treasure, but the X’s on the ground look just like the Animal Crossing ones, and the shovel sound is even almost exactly the same to boot x3. This isn’t a bad thing at all, though! They do a great job of making that style feel fresh to this game (which the very different mechanics from Animal Crossing also help a lot with), and the very chill music helps add to that whole vibe wonderfully as well~. Verdict: Recommended. This wasn’t a game I super duper loved and adored, but I’ve had a lot of competition for that sort of thing this year. As it is, A Short Hike is a bite-sized narrative and gameplay experience that achieves what it sets out to do very nicely. The story is cute, the gameplay is fun, and if anything, it was just a bit too short and left me wanting more! Which, out of any problem a game can have, I think leaving you wanting more is far from the worst one you could possibly be stuck with.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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