REVIEW : FAR: Changing Tides (PC)
Far: Changing Tides replaces the previous game’s dried-up seabed with a planet engulfed by water. This enormous change in setting is clear from the initial minutes of the film, as protagonist Toe dives into an ocean that appears to cover the whole globe. He swims to the surface after a few brief seconds of helplessness, where the rooftops of tall, abandoned buildings lie silently.
It’s an introductory scene that sets the magnitude of things and foreshadows what’s to come: you’re a little child who must overcome massive hurdles and battle nature itself as you go eastwards into the unknown. Far: Changing Tides, like its predecessor, doesn’t take long to have you liberating a weird vessel from an ancient, abandoned hangar.
This rusted-looking nautical lump of metal is not only a useful tool but also your solitary company on your adventure.
You spend a significant amount of time onboard, supervising and fixing a small number of systems that keep the ship running. To travel, you must either use the ship’s sails to harness the wind’s power or burn stuff in its furnace. The former requires you to manually lift the mast by pressing a button approximately the size of Toe, then climb to its top, pull up a hook, and link it to a lower location on the ship’s roof to stretch the sails. Far: Changing Tides primarily follows the same formula as its predecessor, making the ship more manoeuvrable.
Its classification as a companion game is accurate – while you’ll get a little more out of it if you play the series in order – and while I enjoyed the first game, I wasn’t as enthusiastic about the sequel.
Helping the little protagonist create a large hunk of metalwork by pushing buttons, loading stuff into the furnace, hopping on bellows, and lowering the mast so it doesn’t crash with approaching structures is a lot of fun.
However, pace issues, a touch too imprecise environmental narrative, and an art style that sacrifices contrast for a richer yet muted colour palette made me less immersed in the world and Toe’s adventure. I’m pleased I stuck it through; I simply don’t have the same combination of emotions.
FAR Changing Tides is a game about a youngster who sets out on a journey to discover a new home in a forgotten region. Similar to the original game, you go on this adventure aboard a ship that you must manage and maintain on your own, maintaining a constant speed and avoiding any obstacles in your path.
If you’ve played FAR Lone Sails, the previous game in the FAR world, you’ll see that the sequel hasn’t changed much. While there are apparent enhancements across the board, the game is meant to be more of a companion piece to the previous one than a straight-up successor.
If you’re new to the game, the simple version is that you must navigate a spacecraft over this weird environment while controlling every function necessary for the ship to go ahead. Fill the engine with gasoline, make sure it doesn’t overheat, then switch to full sails soon the wind starts to take up. Changing Tides is a game that keeps you moving at all times, reacting to whatever dangers are there on board.
Staying on top of your ship, listening to the wind in your sails and the waves pounding against the hull as you gradually push a large buoy away and cruise through rusty industrial facilities condemned to never be utilised again, there’s something oddly comforting about it.”
You may either manually feed the furnace objects located within structures and on the seabed, or you can connect them to hooks on the bottom level ahead of time, then channel your inner Mario and leap into a light blue button that automatically fills up the furnace. This converts them to fuel, which you must ignite by leaping onto neighbouring bellows. You gain more levers and buttons as you advance, including the ability to utilise a retractable hook, improve your speed while maintaining your engine’s temperature by spraying it with water, and submerge your car.
Far: Changing Tides delves into a new realm, with your primary goal being to manage whether your spacecraft ascends or lowers as it travels forward. You’ll eventually find yourself dashing between chambers and dealing with levers, buttons, and hooks in a puzzle-style game that’s comparable to but richer than its predecessor’s. This effort to maintain the massive metal monster moving and in excellent shape is not only entertaining, but it also aids in the formation of a link with your ship.
The ship in FAR Changing Tides is now a sea vessel, which is the most significant alteration. This vehicle, which is no longer a ground vehicle, provides greater verticality to the game’s progression. You may just head lower underwater if you come upon an obstruction such as an iceberg or a buoy. With additional riddles this time, the way it incorporates water into the gameplay loop helps it stand out from the prior game.
FAR Changing Tides isn’t inherently a slower or longer game than its predecessor, with a playability of roughly 4-5 hours. There’s a lot more stuff here, but the variation of each sequence is also greater.
For anyone who has completed Lone Sails, seeing Changing Tides through to the conclusion is well worth the effort (I screamed at the ending). Meanwhile, new players should revisit them both and see them as a single experience to be shared.
Your trip will occasionally come to a halt when your route is hindered by a variety of obstacles. These include everything from wrecks to relics of the past to towering cliffs. This is when you’ll need to leave your spacecraft behind, investigate your surroundings, and solve easy riddles that will get you over eventually – and quite handily. The majority of them entail basic tasks such as hauling boxes to reach higher positions, moving machinery, or clearing the path using levers and hooks.
Overall, FAR is a positive experience. Changing Tides does everything you’d expect from a sequel. It improves on the original game while remaining faithful to what that game accomplished beautifully. Those who couldn’t handle the original’s micromanagement characteristics, on the other hand, won’t find it much more merciful. Unfortunately, some of them leave ideas for what you should do ambiguous, which might lengthen the time you spend away from your ship and detract from the game’s flow. Far: Because there is no dialogue in Changing Tides, you must rely on visual signals such as yellow lights or light-blue coloured things to guide you to objects with which you can interact.
The camera was uncooperative on one point, making a problem involving aligning up a damaged ship section with Toe’s vessel more difficult than it needed to be. The protagonist’s movement is also a little sloppy, especially when jumping, although this is simply a hunch because you can’t perish even when falling from enormous heights.
Far: Changing Tides is dripping with mood, moving between serene meditation moments and bigger, tumultuous ones. Staying on top of your ship, listening to the wind in your sails and the waves slamming against the hull as you gradually push a large buoy away and cruise through old industrial facilities condemned to never be utilised again, has a strangely comforting feel to it.
The impression of sheer solitude that pervaded the last game is dispelled when you observe wildlife passing by.
This is the second time I’ve had the pleasure of falling in love with the FAR universe’s dismal and evocative setting. The storyline is quite subtle and well-executed! You’re piloting a magical steampunk ship through human history’s desert, solving tiny challenges along the way and attempting to keep going even though you’re all alone in this vast forgotten land.
REVIEW : Atelier Sophie 2 (PS5)
