Using the framework of the self-directed open world adventure game as metaphor for the great directionless unknown of fresh adulthood is a great idea, and the first few hours of this soar - not since Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild have I found so much genuine pleasure and emotion in just moving a character around a big "you can go there!" sandbox.
That probably has something to do with the fact that Raw Fury and Shedworks have unashamedly lifted and shifted every aspect of Breath of the Wild's traversal mechanics, right down to the stamina wheel that gets a little outline as you upgrade it. In a weird way, it's refreshing to see a developer just openly admit (within the limits of copyright law) that they can't beat another game's implementation of certain mechanics and would rather just borrow them to tell their truth. Combine Breath of the Wild's climbing and gliding with the sparrow from Destiny, and you essentially have a complete picture of Sable's core game-feel.
There are a ton of other influences worn proudly on Sable's sleeve - Prince of Persia (2008), Shadow of the Colossus, Journey and The Last Guardian were the ones that immediately came to mind for me - but once the game was done intentionally wowing me and had settled into the real meat of its experience, I found myself thinking about Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker the most often. Sable shares that game's conflicted feelings of mindlessly traversing a big beautiful wide open virtual space for so long that everything that was initially unique and mesmerising about it eventually falls away by hand of tedium; you stop looking at cliffs and dunes because they delight you, and instead only see the little technical nit-picks that lie beneath the surface because there's nothing all that interesting to look at on the horizon.
Don't get me wrong - Sable lives up to its promise of being a playable Moebius comic (in aesthetic terms, if not content - my favourite Moebius comic has a dude harness his sexual love for a woman into a beam sword, and that sadly does not happen here), but keeping the artistry of this world together seems to have caused a ton of technical issues to leak out. Inventory management is messy, with items sometimes disappearing or becoming unsellable for no apparent reason. The YA novel thought/dialogue system is cute, until the point where it starts giving characters the wrong names and splicing different pages together. The aesthetic decision to have everything move in simple frame-by-frame animation is a delight, but when it starts to clash with genuine frame-rate issues, it's a one-way ticket to a headache - and in a game that so badly wants to induce introspection, that's the very last thing you want.
Complaining about technical problems in a beautiful BOTW-like made by a indie team with a double-digit staff roster feels a bit like criticising your grandmother for laying out a Michelin-quality ten-course tasting menu for you, but at the same I so badly wanted to be fully immersed in this experience and never could be because of its weird bugs, quirks and issues. The open world is beautifully crafted, but often reveals itself to be made in a hurry - a breathtaking Land Before Time graveyard of dinosaur bones amazes from afar, but quickly falls foul of frustration when it's revealed that trying to walk along the skeleton bridges to your objective triggers a ton of awkward jerked-together movement animations. Certain areas don't feel like they were play-tested quite so much as they were designed by an artist who was hurriedly prioritising form over function.
As a big fan of Japanese Breakfast, the soundtrack was one of the things that initially drew me to Sable, and the more vocal and melodic compositions here are a real treat - the game's big "Link runs up and stands on the edge of the Great Plateau" moment is given a superb bit of pop pomp, and certain character leitmotifs really sell the alien-ness of the experience; but just like with the gameplay, it feels like Michelle Zauner has played a bit too much Breath of the Wild and let it seep into her work a bit too often, and that prevents the more atmospheric notes from making their mark. Some tracks sadly just feel like preset drum loops on a keyboard or random notes being hit a few dozen beats apart - and as someone who soundtracks most of their work days with abstract-ambient music, I don't say that lightly. I'm still holding out for the day Brian Eno soundtracks a new video game.
I might come back and finish this at some point if the technical stuff can be flattened out, but at the moment the detractions sting too hard. I want to love this game, but every so often it does something to irritate me hard enough for my soul to leave the controller.
That probably has something to do with the fact that Raw Fury and Shedworks have unashamedly lifted and shifted every aspect of Breath of the Wild's traversal mechanics, right down to the stamina wheel that gets a little outline as you upgrade it. In a weird way, it's refreshing to see a developer just openly admit (within the limits of copyright law) that they can't beat another game's implementation of certain mechanics and would rather just borrow them to tell their truth. Combine Breath of the Wild's climbing and gliding with the sparrow from Destiny, and you essentially have a complete picture of Sable's core game-feel.
There are a ton of other influences worn proudly on Sable's sleeve - Prince of Persia (2008), Shadow of the Colossus, Journey and The Last Guardian were the ones that immediately came to mind for me - but once the game was done intentionally wowing me and had settled into the real meat of its experience, I found myself thinking about Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker the most often. Sable shares that game's conflicted feelings of mindlessly traversing a big beautiful wide open virtual space for so long that everything that was initially unique and mesmerising about it eventually falls away by hand of tedium; you stop looking at cliffs and dunes because they delight you, and instead only see the little technical nit-picks that lie beneath the surface because there's nothing all that interesting to look at on the horizon.
Don't get me wrong - Sable lives up to its promise of being a playable Moebius comic (in aesthetic terms, if not content - my favourite Moebius comic has a dude harness his sexual love for a woman into a beam sword, and that sadly does not happen here), but keeping the artistry of this world together seems to have caused a ton of technical issues to leak out. Inventory management is messy, with items sometimes disappearing or becoming unsellable for no apparent reason. The YA novel thought/dialogue system is cute, until the point where it starts giving characters the wrong names and splicing different pages together. The aesthetic decision to have everything move in simple frame-by-frame animation is a delight, but when it starts to clash with genuine frame-rate issues, it's a one-way ticket to a headache - and in a game that so badly wants to induce introspection, that's the very last thing you want.
Complaining about technical problems in a beautiful BOTW-like made by a indie team with a double-digit staff roster feels a bit like criticising your grandmother for laying out a Michelin-quality ten-course tasting menu for you, but at the same I so badly wanted to be fully immersed in this experience and never could be because of its weird bugs, quirks and issues. The open world is beautifully crafted, but often reveals itself to be made in a hurry - a breathtaking Land Before Time graveyard of dinosaur bones amazes from afar, but quickly falls foul of frustration when it's revealed that trying to walk along the skeleton bridges to your objective triggers a ton of awkward jerked-together movement animations. Certain areas don't feel like they were play-tested quite so much as they were designed by an artist who was hurriedly prioritising form over function.
As a big fan of Japanese Breakfast, the soundtrack was one of the things that initially drew me to Sable, and the more vocal and melodic compositions here are a real treat - the game's big "Link runs up and stands on the edge of the Great Plateau" moment is given a superb bit of pop pomp, and certain character leitmotifs really sell the alien-ness of the experience; but just like with the gameplay, it feels like Michelle Zauner has played a bit too much Breath of the Wild and let it seep into her work a bit too often, and that prevents the more atmospheric notes from making their mark. Some tracks sadly just feel like preset drum loops on a keyboard or random notes being hit a few dozen beats apart - and as someone who soundtracks most of their work days with abstract-ambient music, I don't say that lightly. I'm still holding out for the day Brian Eno soundtracks a new video game.
I might come back and finish this at some point if the technical stuff can be flattened out, but at the moment the detractions sting too hard. I want to love this game, but every so often it does something to irritate me hard enough for my soul to leave the controller.