The Way is a 2D cinematic platformer video game inspired by classic titles such as Another World, Heart of Darkness and Flashback, made by Puzzling Dream and published by PlayWay.
STORY
You play as the main character. Your wife has died. You can’t seem to accept that fact. Luckily for you, you were a scientist in space, on an alien planet. You know there is a way to resurrect your wife. But the question is, how? Well, that’s your job to find out.
The story is straight forward. Do anything it takes to find the fountain of Life to resurrect your wife. Even if it means bearing the harsh danger of this alien planet. At first I thought the game was gonna be horror like because of the way it opens. It starts with you literally digging up your wife’s grave, and stealing her body. You then put her in cryo to preserve her. Then it’s on to stealing a space ship to get to the alien planet!
After that, the game really brightens up. Nothing horror about it. I was kind of let down with that fact. Only because it opens up so dark and bleak, to end up being colorful and pretty.
GAMEPLAY
This game takes a lot from Heart of Darkness and Another World. So you die, a lot. But restarts are super quick at least! The basic gameplay is platforming. But there is a lot of puzzle-solving in the game. Eventually you get 4 abilities that are tied to helping solve puzzles. One is used for computers. The others are a shield, to bounce lasers around and knock bullets back to enemies. A teleportation skill, so you go back to where you set it. Then a kinetic skill, to move objects with your mind.
The only real issues I have with the gameplay is that once you jump, you’re locked into it. No cutting it short, or changing directions. Then there’s the shield. With some puzzles, you have to deflect laser onto mirrors to make them move. But the way the Switch joystick is, it makes it very hard. There is no keeping the beam still, so it’s always bouncing around like mad.
Other than that, it’s a lot of backtracking in areas with big puzzles, and racking your head for solutions. Luckily though no puzzle is too hard. I’m not a big puzzle guy, but even I had no issues finding solutions.
GRAPHICS/SOUND
Unfortunately, the game doesn’t look good. It’s an homage to the older cinematic games, but it doesn’t try to make it look good. So time would pass in the game and it was hard to see if the main character was actually aging. The deaths aren’t really gruesome either. Usually, you just get eaten or pounced on. The music was decent though. There were some nice chiptunes to go along with areas. Nothing too amazing though.
REPLAYABILITY
There is nothing here. Aside from another ending, which you can see right after ending the game, and some in-game achievements. There’s no real reason to replay this game. Honestly, as fun as it was, there are just some puzzles I’d never wanna do again.
[joomdev-wpc-pros-cons disable_title=”yes” wpc_style=”wppc-view2″ title_tag=”H3″ title=”Title Here” pros_title=”Pros” cons_title=”Cons” button_text=”Get it now” disable_button=”yes” button_link=”” button_link_target=”_SELF” button_rel_attr=”dofollow” verdict_text=””][joomdev-wpc-pros]
- Relatively short
- Fun powerups
- Clever puzzles
[/joomdev-wpc-pros][joomdev-wpc-cons]
- Bad jumping
- Terrible shield aiming
- No real dialogue
[/joomdev-wpc-cons][/joomdev-wpc-pros-cons]
