This is one of a handful of games I backed on Kickstarter well over a decade ago and just never got around to properly playing. My girlfriend of the time and I used to play games like this, very artsy, colorful stuff, all the time back then, and this was one we just never got around to playing together back then. This is a game that's pretty poorly documented online (being a not super stand-out indie game from a decade+ ago), but with how short the HowLongToBeat time on it was, I figured I might as well sit down and finally finish the thing. Playing with a controller, it took me about an hour and a half to finish the English version of the game while getting like 20 out of 50 collectibles (though I more often than not wasn't really trying to find them, admittedly ^^;).
Pulse is the story of Eva, a girl living on a tropical island who has set out to do the trial that all members of her village do to enter adulthood. Eva, however, has generally been kept from ever attempting this, and from her family's perspective, for a very good reason: She's blind. Only able to "see" the world when it's illuminated via pulses of sound in the environment, she nonetheless sets out on a boat to do the trial, and ends up completing a lot more than that in the process. Pulse isn't a super world-changing game narratively, but it's still a well enough written story. It can be a bit hard to follow at times with just how experimental and odd the storytelling can be, but it's still a nicely written tale of facing your fears and not letting other people decide what your limits are. Gameplay-wise, Pulse is something between an adventure game and a walking simulator. You navigate the world in first-person, and you're really just getting from one end of the level to the next. While there is some platforming and even a stealth section or two to hide from monsters that live on this island, the actual interactions with other entities is (thankfully) quite a small part of the game. Aided by furry little critters called Mokos (which are the only thing that Eva can completely "see" no matter where they are in the level), you can toss them around to solve puzzles or just create pulses to see the world with to progress forward. Really, just navigating levels in and of itself is the game's biggest challenge for the player, as just seeing what's around you can at times be extremely disorienting with both how your "sight" works as well as how levels are designed. The stealth sections involving monsters kinda sucks, but it's short enough that it's hard to give the game too much flak for it. It's quite frustrating sometimes to just find the path forward, but that's also kinda the entire point of the game. If you're playing Pulse, that's the exercise you've signed up for, so while it may be awkward and fiddly, it's hard for me to knock the game *too* badly for just doing what it sets out to do ^^; Aesthetically, the game is very pretty if a bit too simple looking at times. The sound design is quite well done, but, kinda like I expressed in the previous paragraph, the beautiful world can at times get in the way of actually playing the game. It's quite hard to explain how the visuals in Pulse work in only text, but you don't use echolocation. If a sound is happening in the world, that part of the world is visible due to the sound pulses emanated off of those surfaces. This isn't echo location, however, as it's very easy to "see" something through a wall because that wall isn't illuminated with pulses but the thing beyond it is. The Mokos are cute and the concept of "a world through the eyes of a blind girl" is a super neat one, and it makes for a very visually striking and unique little adventure, but if you're sensitive to flashing lights or lots of quick changing colors, this might be one to steer clear of, because it can get *very* disorienting at times in some stages. Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. Pulse isn't a bad game, but it's a very particularly made one. It does what it sets out to do to an OK degree, but what it's setting out to do is in and of itself going to be something that is only appealing to certain kinds of players, and with very little replay value and such a short play time, this is one that will likely be a difficult to justify purchase for many. If reading this review has made you curious about it, I highly encourage you to check out a video or two on Pulse to get a look at just what it looks like, because it's a super neat concept for a game, and it's not like Pulse fucks it up completely or anything. Pulse is a game made for a very specific kind of person, and while I may not be that person, I think there is still a lot of interest to be found in this title for the right kind of gamer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
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
|