Jett has a phenomenal atmosphere in the intro. It’s effectively solemn leaving your life and loved ones, knowing that soon your planet is going to die out along with everyone on it.

I love all the worldbuilding of this mysterious and reverent civilization trying to hold onto their customs as they constantly grapple with the words of their deceased prophet and see how his visions converge and diverge from their new reality on the far shore. There is a lot to parse initially, but it’s not too bad once you understand the most important terms. The game also has a small glossary in the main menu if you get confused. I think the story starts a bit slow but gets interesting as you make your way to the mountain Tor. The more you engage with its narrative and lore, the more you’ll get out of it.

A major problem that I have with the dialogue is that since it’s in a foreign language, during tense combat and exploration moments it can be troublesome and overwhelming to read and fly around. They do have a chat log if you miss anything, but it’s clunky to keep going back to read the missed dialogue. It seems this was probably the biggest issue for people playing this game. It’s tough though because I found the use of the foreign language made their culture so much more immersive and believable.

The other complaint people had was the handholding. It’s a valid complaint but only really an issue initially. They do allow you to find the solution most of the time.

The first campaign is very linear and is a series of missions with some story moments back at your home base sprinkled in. I found the structure to be stifling when I wanted to explore and research this vast new world, but the second campaign completely made up for this.

In the free dlc, you are allowed to explore at your own pace, solving a series of BOTW-like environmental puzzles that culminate in a satisfying and thought-provoking conclusion. This is where you take everything you learned from the first campaign by researching and interacting with the flora and fauna and apply it to a more difficult puzzle-based experience. None were real head-scratchers (a good thing imo), but many require some trial and error. The most interesting story bits also take place during the second campaign and provide more backstory for the prophet and their dying home planet.

The music is the perfect accompaniment for the fluctuation in gameplay from the flow state you get into zipping around the peaks and valleys to the tense aerial dogfighting with a pack of griefers. The music isn’t just background noise and actually elevates the experience.

I learned to love the flight controls for your ship. It took some getting used to, but once I mastered it, it felt great to fly around pulling off perfectly timed jumps and keeping your boost maxed out. It’s so satisfying once you’ve learned the advanced techniques for making quick turns, angling your ship up and down to hit slopes better, using jumps and slides strategically to maximize how much boost you acquire, etc. It feels like snowboarding more than flying quite honestly, which makes sense given that one of the developers (Craig Adams) said it was inspired by SSX.

Here are some minor points I’d like to make: Jett uses haptic feedback effectively and has one of the best uses of adaptive triggers (controlling your engine from overheating). I think the first and second campaigns have some of the best title reveals I’ve ever seen. I got goosebumps during both. The seamless transition from the ship’s overhead perspective to ground level was very cool. Reminded me of GTA V. Also booting up your ship’s OS was an awesome visual. All the environments look so good and crisp.

I was completely immersed in this haunting and inspiring world and it will stick with me for a long time. It’s easily a masterpiece in my eyes.

A wonderful expansion upon the world presented in JETT: The Far Shore, Given Time takes advantage of the mechanics and systems the Jett Squad set up in the original release.

The open-exploration puzzle game they've built here was welcome fresh air. I enjoyed The Far Shore, but it is linear as far as game systems go, and I found it extremely compelling to hop aboard my Jett and explore the planet, solving puzzles as I go.

I highly recommend you give it a go!

Before we get into the expansion Given Time, let me share my thoughts on the base game first, since they're obviously connected. The Far Shore is one of my favorite games in the year it came out. Its story of interstellar travel to flee a dying planet is certainly not a new idea, but the way it approaches this premise with a heavy dose of surrealist religious perspective, while still having a strong, rational scientific presence is remarkable. As the story driven campaign goes on, I grew attached to the smart characters who are trying their best to coexist peacefully within the new world they're in, even when a mysterious force forces the scout crew to adapt, or risk taking humanity's last hope with them to the grave. The game has a lot of small annoyances and rough edges, especially concerning how to progress the story at certain parts, as the game doesn't hold your hand often, but overall its unique qualities makes it a very worthwhile experience.

Jett's gameplay centers on driving the titular futuristic hover-glider vehicle, as you master its throttle overheating tendencies, the ability to postpone said mechanic by collecting and using vapors at the right time, and learning the art of handling it in order to tackle objectives or outrun hostiles. I'm playing this on the PS5, and I consider the Dualsense implementation to be essential to the experience, as the haptics and adaptive triggers and such contribute to a deeper understanding and connection with your vehicle. For example, the triggers will rattle when you're close to overheating. It's important to add that the vehicle has a learning curve, and it may take some time to fully understand how the game wants you to use it, which is not going full throttle each time, and not brute forcing your way through obstacles. Once you do, it truly feels like no other video game vehicle. Personally, the Jett is one of my favorite video game vehicles ever.

Now, with Given Time, the game capitalizes on the potential that TFS left on table. Like TFS, it is also a open world vehicular based experience, but this time around the story is much lighter, and you'll get to tackle the game's objective with much more freedom. After a short story-driven opening, you're set free to find and solve various obstacles in order to collect Brine Wisps, which are basically sentient flying orbs. These obstacles follow a couple main templates, which includes keeping up with a fast creature flying across the land, baiting certain creatures to activate a mysterious local flora, and blowing up rocks with heavy bombs. The game does not overstay its welcome, and although the variation of these objectives may seem limited, the way it tests your knowledge of how various objects in the world interact and the mastery of handling your titular glider makes it very engrossing. It reminds me of something like Skyrim or BOTW, where your solution to one of the puzzles may feel like you're cheating the game's mechanic, and it's quite satisfying because of it. If you have mastered the game's mechanics in TFS, then GT will be much more fun, in pure gameplay terms.

GT also seems to fix one of my slight complaints with TFS, which is the usage of its music. The soundtrack is pretty great, but a lot of the best tracks in TFS felt underused. In GT, they seem to use these tracks more liberally. I will post a video highlighting one of these tracks at the very bottom of this review, which I really recommend you to check out.

Are there still rough edges here? Absolutely. In fact, I think this expansion is slightly buggier than TFS. The framerate gets sluggish when you're going between the large sections of the map, the sun seems to be violently shaking at times, and the ending glitched out on me a few times (which was saved by a very timely patch). But I do not think that these are close to be dealbreakers.

TFW is a unique sci-fi game that pushed it self to be as unique as possible, while maintaining a coherent but somewhat limiting structure. GT lets go of that structure, and instead pushes the game to be the very best version of itself, without losing its identity. With this expansion, Jett has become one of my favorite games of all time.

Here's the video I talked about earlier, highlighting one my favorite tracks!
https://youtu.be/OadANTTiUJA