Guy Banister

Firstly, this game is meant to replicate playing a 90’s video game where there wasn’t enough space on the game cartridge to have an in-game tutorial, so you were taught to play via the manual. Not just this, but it’s meant to evoke playing a foreign copy of a 90’s video game, where your only resource is in a language you don’t speak. I think with this context in mind those 1 star reviews, whilst not wrong, are more easily understood. The developer wants you to feel confused and unsure, because imagine opening a game manual in Japanese and trying to interpret it. You’re pretty much solely reliant on the pictures. Once you know this, Tunic is an absolute delight. Will you be confused? You betcha! Will really basic things not dawn on you until you’re like 75% through the story? Absolutely! And it’s brilliant! The amount of things that were staring me straight in the face and went unnoticed by me until way into the game! It’s a cryptic game, that needs deciphering one layer at a time. One puzzle actually had my wife and I piecing Post-It notes together on the floor. And not to mention it’s clever use of the isometric view! I can’t give this game higher praise. It evoked a bygone era of gaming, that even I had forgotten. Opening the manual of a newly bought game was an almost religious experience, because such care went into those manuals. They were works of art. Nowadays, we’re so used to in-game tutorials, which are definitely better at teaching you, we’ve forgotten the nostalgic struggle of the past.