Bigger doesn’t always mean better. A cliché to kick off the review but it’s a fitting single line summary of how I feel when speaking about Lone Sails sequel.

FAR: Lone Sails was a special experience for me, both in just watching it streamed as mentioned in my review of that title and playing it for myself.
To this day I still play the OST while writing journals for my education, and occasionally depending on mood and my writing subject the music takes me to a place that I find myself getting very glassy eyed.

To hit that high again with a sequel was probably an impossibility and it pains me to say that in fact, it was.
Changing Tides is still a fantastic game in its own right, cleverly keeping the formula of controlling a vehicle, exploring an interesting unknown land and going on a journey, whilst changing up the types of scenery and the vehicular partner enough to be fresh.

Every review I write may be the first of mine that someone has read and I can only apologise if I lack the words for explaining this game, but rather than repeat myself I feel that as important as it is to play these games in order, it is to read my thoughts on them.

Changing Tides, rather than having a “car” like the first, you have more of a “boat”.
You’re still collecting junk which can be used for fuel or saved if you like, you still have nature as a pushing force as well as engineering and the places it goes in terms of travel are arguably more interesting and diverse.
However again, bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better.
I found this vehicle a lot more hassle, this not only gives some unwanted friction but doesn’t help build the bond I found myself having in the first FAR title.
What also doesn’t really help with this is I felt like I spent much more time away from my motorised-mate in this game than I did the first.
Swimming beneath the sea and doing some mild puzzles and platforming isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. Puzzles are predictable, some reveals are astounding and that scale is one place where Changing Tides does trump Lone Sails but the emotional connection to the journey feeling less didn’t help those moments stick.

Joel Schoch returns to play another beautiful, lonely, sometimes sad and sometimes uplifting OST and much like Lone Sails I can see myself listening to this when writing in the future.
An issue though, not of the music itself, is the weird lack of it in places.
There are points where silence is powerful but it felt too often, almost as if maybe the game was broken.

FAR: Changing Tides may not hold a place in my heart like Lone Sails did, but I had a lovely time and the ending, which I will not spoil, will at least be something that does stick with me. Powerful stuff.

Changing Tides is worth your time, but sadly it does almost everything worse than its predecessor, not terribly so but enough that it loses some magic.
I can only theorise that perhaps the four year gap between games gave the studio time to overthink what they wanted to do, what they wanted to say and what they were making.

I will take a FAR 3 though. Please and thank you.

Não imaginei mesmo q eu fosse chegar tão longe nesse game! Eu baixei só pra testar e o começo dele não parecia me fisgar, mas acabou sendo uma experiência muito agradável e até viciante de certa maneira, o jogo é curto mas eu não queria parar de jogar tão cedo porque é uma ideia tão diferente e única, uma mecânica tão criativa e uma vibe tão tranquila... realmente eu viajei e fiquei preso no jogo, senti até que reacendeu um pouco o meu amor por indies, já q faz um bom tempo que não entro de cabeça neles.