REVIEW : Ever Forward (PS5)
While the puzzles in Ever Forward are creative, large portions of the game fall short of their potential. Review of the Finger Guns. ‘Ever Forward,’ a third-person puzzle game, has finally landed on consoles after a number of delays. This game, which was developed by Pathea Games and published by PM Studios, had a successful PC debut in August 2020. The transition to consoles was obviously difficult, and this has resulted in new flaws with the PS5 version of the game. These days, emotional games masquerading as puzzle adventures appear to be all the rage. Ever Forward capitalises on this trend by interspersing puzzle solving with the storey of Maya and her mother. It’s a segment of gaming that’s growing in popularity.
Let’s start with Ever Forward’s most favourable feature: the puzzles. The brainteasers at the heart of the game are both tough and clever. These puzzles were created “with the “puzzle gamer” in mind,” according to Pathea Games. You can see that intention in the out-of-the-box thinking necessary to solve these problems. In this game, the basic goal of each problem is to reach the end point while holding a box. With the touch of a button, these boxes can be spawned from floor panels and carried or tossed. Situations and hurdles stand in Maya’s way, making it impossible for her to reach the exit. There are sentry bots on practically every level, affectionately known as Roundybots. These creatures have a single eye and project a blue vision cone that will send Maya back to the beginning of the level if they see her. Ever Forward’s fundamental mechanic is manipulating these sentry bots. They respond to sound, such as the noise made when Maya jumps or a box is hurled, and they react when other defences, such as laser fences, are disrupted. It’s both tense and satisfying to throw a box to distract a roundybot and then sneak around later to take up the box once the sentry has given up its search.
Whether or not the Roundybots are engaged in a challenge, Ever Forward contains several extremely difficult logic puzzles. In other problems, you’ll need to figure out how to manipulate lifts using buttons so that you can send a box where it needs to go. In some, you’ll be zipping about a level with transporter tubes before throwing a package across gaps. Many of Ever Forward’s puzzle concepts are only used once. When it occurs, it’s to make the difficulty even more difficult. Maya’s goal is to carefully transport a cube to the end of each problem, when it will float from her little hands and fall into the slot. Obstacles do exist. Any noise within hearing distance triggers the roundy-bots. You can get around them by using roundy-bots to distract them. Tossing cubes close to the objective while attracting the bot’s attention is a wonderful strategy to get them closer to the target. Maya may be required to make noise in order to move out of the way before the lasers discover her in other situations. At times, Ever Forward may be too tough for its own good. This is due to several puzzles’ obtuse design, which doesn’t really give the player a chance. One level, for example, has a bridge that retracts and stretches periodically. You’ll need to cross another bridge below that, which has a sentry watching over it. You’d have to search in an unusual direction in reference to the level structure to find the solution to this problem. The game has a hint system, but it’s more often than not used to remind you of the game’s general mechanics rather than individual puzzle details, so it’s not always effective. After failing at the level at least 30 times, I stumbled across the solution by chance. Once I figured it out, it made logic, but the game made no attempt to support my way of thinking.
There are now difficulties even in the serene overworld, where there are no riddles to solve. Furthermore, these appear to be exclusive to the console versions of the game. On PS5, graphical glitch lines can now be found in a few distinct places. It’s merely a little irritation in some places. They fully swallowed the screen in one location, as if they were playing the game through a packet of uncooked spaghetti. Maya’s character model has several flaws as well; at one point, parts of her face are damaged, and her jaw line protrudes from her face (no spoilers though because this happens predominantly in a story spoiling cutscene). There are many more flaws. These are the messages that appear on the screen during cutscenes. Regrettably, the PS5 version of Ever Forward is in need of some TLC. While exploring the overworld as Maya, I’ve run into way too many visual difficulties. Ever Forward can be a gorgeous game when the images aren’t glitching out.
The white cliffs and uneven groves of trees provide for a pleasant stroll. Similarly, all of the riddles are set in a never-ending emptiness of cuboid graphics, mist, and dark clouds. The clean design here, which borrows elements from the real world and transforms them into ancient stone, gives off an unsettling vibe. Because of the game’s length, the beneficial qualities of Ever Forwards aren’t given a chance to shine. The game took me about 3 hours to finish. This included being stuck on a few difficult tasks for a while. This game can be completed in under two hours with ease. In truth, there are only 16 riddles in the game to solve.
REVIEW : That Flipping Mountain (PC)
