Full Void takes inspiration from the old cinematic platformers like Flashback and Another World. It features a fast paced series of chase sequences broken up by puzzles and platforming, but ends up short, directionless, and unoriginal.
The singular stand out feature of the game is the beautiful fluid character animation, fully animated FMV's between sections / deaths, and the beautiful dark atmosphere the game presents. The world has a lot of implied depth and even though it's a short game you get a full understanding of how things are and how it came to be - the storytelling is quick, precise, and compelling. The music doesn't stand out but at least it's not offensive either.
Gameplay is simple with movement, an action button, and a jump button. However the game never breaks immersion by giving you any indication of when to do these things beyond a few themes, like interactive objects being lit in yellow. Some transitional animations that look like FMV's are also interactive and feature quick time events but have no on-screen indicators, so it may take a few puzzling deaths before you realise it's expecting you to press an input.
Similarly several scenes feature background objects you are expected to interact with despite no indication that they can even be used. There's also some scenes where you have entirely new actions which aren't very obvious and take some faffing around to figure out. The only positive of this 'hands off' approach I felt was discovering a few of the achievements naturally but I wouldn't say it was worth the confusing moments around them.
While a pretty spectacle and a breeze to get through, Full Void does nothing new, its story is not novel, it's short, the puzzles are simplistic, and the ending is a very weird note to end on - not to mention that it leaves the game feeling like political propaganda. Putting that aside, while it's nice to see a return from a dead genre it's a shame that it only borrows from better material without giving anything back. With the level of artistic talent on display it just ends up feeling like a missed opportunity.
The singular stand out feature of the game is the beautiful fluid character animation, fully animated FMV's between sections / deaths, and the beautiful dark atmosphere the game presents. The world has a lot of implied depth and even though it's a short game you get a full understanding of how things are and how it came to be - the storytelling is quick, precise, and compelling. The music doesn't stand out but at least it's not offensive either.
Gameplay is simple with movement, an action button, and a jump button. However the game never breaks immersion by giving you any indication of when to do these things beyond a few themes, like interactive objects being lit in yellow. Some transitional animations that look like FMV's are also interactive and feature quick time events but have no on-screen indicators, so it may take a few puzzling deaths before you realise it's expecting you to press an input.
Similarly several scenes feature background objects you are expected to interact with despite no indication that they can even be used. There's also some scenes where you have entirely new actions which aren't very obvious and take some faffing around to figure out. The only positive of this 'hands off' approach I felt was discovering a few of the achievements naturally but I wouldn't say it was worth the confusing moments around them.
While a pretty spectacle and a breeze to get through, Full Void does nothing new, its story is not novel, it's short, the puzzles are simplistic, and the ending is a very weird note to end on - not to mention that it leaves the game feeling like political propaganda. Putting that aside, while it's nice to see a return from a dead genre it's a shame that it only borrows from better material without giving anything back. With the level of artistic talent on display it just ends up feeling like a missed opportunity.