It's been a long time since I've played a video game so purely mechanics/gameplay-based; where the experience centers not on some sort of overarching narrative or character work or thematics, but rather the pure gaming experience itself, the endless puzzle of figuring things out, progressing through a particular set of environments, completing a particular set of tasks. This is just like that, except more than that, it self-consciously opts for the most purely minimalist version of such a game. It's short for game standards, it offers no helpful tutorials, its world is desolate, ruined, and lacking in the multicolored variety of, say, a Mario game. And it is precisely because of that it's so good.

By focusing on taking all the simplistic, well-known gameplay traditions and deliberately extinguishing as much unnecessary detail as possible, and by doing it in such an entertaining, beautiful way (the landscapes and music are something to behold!) the overwhelming feeling when playing this game is that of excitement, of exhilaration. It's so simplistic, but it's in the way it's simplistic, the way it uses its deliberately crafted minimalism, that it becomes genuinely exciting to play, to experience. The only 'unnecessary' part of this would be the player interaction, but that too is such a delightful way of constantly individualizing the specific occurrences of gameplay. Beautiful game. Definitely looking forward to coming back to this when I've played its more detailed ancestors/compatriots to see how it may play differently.