Windbound game series#

the game is extremely short - it's 6 hours long for a 30$ game pretty pricey for a short game, and i find it distasteful that the devs raved about how it is supposedly a '40 hour game' - like where do you see that? (important note: I have to give credit for this information thanks to Jopa Quest on youtube, I saw his video and he is pretty good at criticizing it's flaws much more), other fact is the stamina/hunger feature are both linked together not kidding here, your character will get hungry every single minute.so it gets very annoying, not such a good mechanic for a game like this, and of course you can increase your stamina but it doesn't fit in.feels like they just rushed to add it in.įurther add on the game has a rogue lite system meaning if you die, you have to repeat the entire game from chapter 1, another thing worth noting of how badly this was put into the game is that um.if ya main girl falls on a darn rock like legit jumps a height that a character can survive it - she takes a lot of damage which is utterly ridiculous. The issue with this game that it has noticable bugs, it is nothing at all close to even botw - do not fall for that false hope. Please, I urge people to rethink before buying this game, because it isn't worth purchasing as of now - it's really bad objectively sadly, unfortunately I find it horrible how nintendo is lying about this game yet they have no problem being straight forward strong towards the other indie games instead of this one, really is a red flag. When faced with this, it’s hard to muster up the will to try again, as there’s not nearly enough variance in the gameplay loop to justify sinking all that time in to get back to where you were. Considering that there can sometimes be accidents and attacks that are entirely beyond your control – prepared or not –losing four hours of progress can be quite discouraging. Things are made even worse if you choose to play on the harder of the two difficulties, which will kick you all the way back to chapter one if Kara should be unfortunate enough to bite the dust. A lot of this comes down to how Windbound doesn’t introduce a ton of new content as you move through the chapters, which can make the overall experience feel homogenous and overlong. And once you’ve got yourself a decent stockpile of materials and tools, collecting for survival becomes more of a chore than it does a joy. Each chapter has a bigger explorable radius than the last, which leads to a lot more dead time just sitting on the boat as you go between islands. Kara controls just fine and the survival mechanics are solid, but as the hours wear on, Windbound slowly begins to feel more like it’s dragging its feet. Chill moments like this prove to be another strong point of the Windbound experience, though they soon give way to repetition, which is the largest shortcoming of Windbound’s gameplay. Other than the encroachment of hunger, there's no rush or sense of urgency to your actions, meaning that there are plenty of stretches along the way where you can explore islands at a leisurely pace and sail this way and that as the wind takes you.

Windbound game series#

None of this is necessary, of course, you can feasibly go through the whole journey with just your starting knife and nothing else, but it's far more enjoyable to set for yourself a series of mini-goals for new tools that’ll make it that much easier to see Kara through her quest.įor all the subtle intensity of having to survive in the wild, it’s remarkable how relaxing it can feel to play a session of Windbound. Kara can use various materials she finds on her journey to build things like a stronger boat, new weapons, and new tools for getting better materials.

Whatever choice you go with, you’re sure to make at least some progress towards making the journey a little easier.

Your primary goal is to find all those shells, then, but pursuing that goal will necessarily require you to search every island along the way for goods that you urgently need. If it runs out, her health bar starts to go instead, possibly resulting in death. Kara has a stamina gauge that governs her ability to run and do other actions, but its cap is constantly being eroded away as she goes longer without food. This unpredictability proves to be the source of the most enjoyable sort of tension that Windbound has to offer, and is sure to keep you hooked at least for a few hours. Islands are randomly generated and dotted around the map, and the resources that they hold are similarly unpredictable. Each chapter sees Kara and her boat dropped into a big, circular cutout of the ocean, and her task is to sail between the islands to find three magical shells that unlock a gate (and a random upgrade) so she can further progress.

The typical flow of a session of Windbound consists of five chapters that are nearly indistinguishable from each other.