I cannot remember the last time a game burrowed so deep into my head like Animal Well has, so much so that I've played an honestly slightly-unhealthy amount of it in the last two days. Initially Animal Well seems like a charming, atmospheric, and highly creative Metroidvania, with a gigantic, gorgeously pixeled map, an emphasis on puzzles, platforming and exploration with combat only present in the loosest sense, a keenness to break past the usual genre trappings. If this is where your experience with Animal Well begins and ends then it will likely register as a very good entry in the Metroidvania genre, one that stands out from the crowd in a variety of enjoyable ways. If this already sounds appealing to you then stop reading this review, go fire up a copy of Animal Well, and consider reading the next paragraph once you're nearing the end of the main game.

You see, there's a lot more to Animal Well than you might initially see on the surface, and the rabbit-hole can go very deep if you want it to, echoing games such as The Witness, Fez and Tunic. To avoid dipping into actual spoilers I will simply say that the design here breeds an obsessive search for understanding within the right players in a way that I find very enticing. I've seen differing takes on the merits of the various secrets this all entails - some people complaining that the game's most obtuse secrets simply can't all be solved by any individual person on their own - but I adore when a game is able to take on a life of its own and make you desperate to see how deep it will all go (even as you can't necessarily find out the answer to that entirely on your own). To set expectations for those ready for this journey, the main game ("layer one") is very doable without any outside help, "layer two" is arguably doable without outside help (though I looked up my very final few percentage points of this for quality of life reasons), and "layer three" - by design - absolutely requires looking things up or collaborating with many others who are playing the game in order to be completed (though seeing what steps you can manage on your own is certainly rewarding).