These are my favourite worlds.
The best worlds, if you ask me.
The best of all possible worlds.
Not open worlds, not free-roaming, certainly not endless or procedural worlds.
And as intricate too: woven together, each piece locked in position by dozens of other pieces.
Maybe scavenged, maybe stolen, a thing reflecting a thousand other mini-things that came together to make it.
Tunic review
How do birds even know when a nest is complete?
It will be a single detail that sticks in the mind and makes you think: Cor!
Look at that.Maybe I should be taking notes here.A single detail.
It’s not something big.
Generally, it’s something small.
Tucked away, say, under a bridge?
Under the bridge, a campfire.
Just say the words and I am back there.
I found a path eventually, and under the bridge was a sleeping fellow lying by a campfire.
A pocket of cosiness in an increasingly frightening world.
And an invitation, perhaps - encouragement to allow my mind to work in the same way.
A Link to the Past is just one of a handful of games that Tunic reminds me of.
But this isn’t a clone or a copy or an idiotic riff on cherished memories.
It’s proper synthesis.
Zelda and Souls combined - not merely the iconography or the main beats.
This is a game that borrows, then, but it reworks what it borrows.
It’s Conan Doyle filtered through Ellen Raskin: inspiration internalised and transformed.
Oh, to put it another way: the success of Zelda means it got codified.
You’d approach each new game asking: what’s the overworld this time?
When do I get the boomerang?Breath of the Wildis one response to that problem.
Maybe Dark Souls was in part a response to that too, actually.
This game is another response.
So you are a fox let loose in a bright, clean-edged world.
Rock and grass and earth!
You explore dappled forests and wasted shores, and you gather a sword and shield.
At this level, Tunic is already a very good time, I think.
(At one point, to make this point even clearer, they straight-up turn the lights out.)
Slimes and spiny things made of glittering shards of cold death.
Skudding laser-equipped drones made of old rock.
Hippo-alikes with swords and shields and prog capes to finish the look.
One level is entirely frogs, all of them attending a kind of academy for frogs.
Each enemy is capable of doing you in by themselves if you just rush in.
Hold your shield out, but do not let it slow you down.
Dodge roll but do not let it eat through all your stamina.
Use magic items but do not forget that mana does not recharge on its own here.
Even here, Tunic takes the best of Souls and Zelda.
The same goes for bosses - are they Zelda bosses or Souls bosses?
Not even the mid-game treat that turns you into a cross between Batman and Mr Tickle.
But it is alsohalfthe game.
It is half of what Tunic is.
Step back from the fox, the sword and shield, the enemies and the headlong rush of adventure.
Consider the world in its totality, its ragged edges, where distant points might have unusual similarities.
Think about the things you pass on your journey that you do not yet understand.
What might they mean?
What might they do?
But the other thing that helps?
In bad or even middling Zelda-alikes, you get craft and not much else.
In the best, you get imagination, and you get dazzle, you get taken somewhere new.
How deep do you want to go?
But then, really?
I don’t speak the language.
I don’t understand a lot of the customs.
A lot of the products seem semi-familar, though.
Semi-familiar enough to suggest their own potential uses, while, crucially, allowing for surprises.
It’s exciting, tantalising.
Is that fruit or some kind of loofah?
Should I chew these or swallow them to cure hiccups?
Where shall I push my cart next?
In bad or even middling Zelda-alikes, you get craft and not much else.
And more: a certain sympathy with the form.
They find limitations and traditions propulsive, accelerative.
This is Tunic to its core.
You are not a fox by accident in this game, I think.
Haunted face, blazing eyes, one foot raised and paused mid-step.
These are tricksy animals.
They do not always bounce cheerfully through this world.
And then, over time, I understood.
Your hero in Tunic is not yet a fox.
They are a cub.
And so you, the player, must become the fox for them.
