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First impression
I had to google what Vane means. Found out it’s a some kind of a part of machine that is powered by wind or water. My interest to grew to this peculiar game and it having very much of qualities of some of my favourite games. Is this any different?
Story
The story, umm… I really can’t tell the story, because there wasn’t any subtitles or speaking in the game. The story is there and in the end it feels deep. It makes me try to put the whole gameplay together to get clear picture of the story. It was interesting from start to finish, but some points predictible. It starts with a raven flying and I had to figure out what to do. I needed to create wind so the big machine could work and drop down a ball that contains some kind of golden flaky material that turns the raven into a child. With this child you do different puzzles and with bird the other.
The whole story, as it was presented, seems very familiar from game such Journey and Bound, for example, and that’s why I could predict some parts of it. It felt same but with different colours.
Gameplay & Controls
It was fun to control the raven (or crow) and fly over the vast land, but doing what was supposed to, tend to be little bit lost at the beginning. A gleam helped me to find my target. The only difficult part was try to land on certain places with the bird, it was frustrating how it could’ve been made easier. When I was playing with the child—it was pretty controllable child—and doing things in huge places with feeling of being just an ant. Everything seemed to be far away, but if I drop or dropped myself over the edge, I could turn into a bird again, but not back to a child until I found that golden flake pool again. It was pretty easy to determine where I can and should go, and where not. I got lost only couple times, it was trying and instinct that got me onwards.
Graphics
Vane is pretty decent game on the graphics. But I couldn’t help myself to see the obvious similarities with games as Journey, Rime and The Last Guradian. I always HATE to compare some games to another one, but I’m reviewer and I have to tell the truth. It was not just the overall looks, but many details I could see being used on some other games like this. I’m not saying that an idea is useable only once, but some clear particular details that one special game used shouldn’t be copied. It might work in the game 100%, but players won’t like it. Beside all that, I got couple glitches and one was game crashing, but it run otherwise well.
Sound
The background music in Vane is kinda odd and frightening. It gave the feeling of the places as everything seemed very rusty and full of sand. I liked it. As there was no voice acting I can’t sat anything of that. Only thing was some minutia voices the characters made that resemblance, yet again, very much of the other games from the same category.
Difficulty
Vane was not that difficult, but it was unclear what to do, possibly for the sake of players to search the way by themselves. It worked, and sometimes I got a weird feeling of happiness as I managed to find my way just by trying something. It was much difficult to control the child, when everything is full of holes and pits and edges. I don’t think Vane is hard, but it is much of searching.
Last impression
Okay, here’s the deal, as a video game as it own Vane is pretty good game and I would like to play it sometime soon, but, as a video game of our world included around it, it feels very much of a copying ideas from elsewhere. Vane had cool ideas on its own, but it shouldn’t be built around something that people gonna complain about. I really don’t know how should I review this. A game on its own or a game with all?
When I play games I do see things “Aa—a, that’s from Zelda!” but I forget that. It’s just a video game and me and nothing else matters. Still, we’re in this fucking reality and things surrounded by us, so I need to make a review of the game itself and also of the originality. So it’s both. Vane is not bad game, it’s just feel much copied.
Thank you Friends & Foe for providing the copy
One More Level 