It's pretty much Shadow of the Colossus with some Breath of the Wild sprinkled in, which should've been amazing.

There's a lot I loved about this. I loved the visuals of course, I loved the way you could see the end point of the game in the distance from the very start (a la BOTW), I loved the mobility, and I loved the structure overall. You step into a new area, explore a bunch of ruins and solve some puzzles to find some thingamajigs to activate three towers and then you fight the area boss and move on to the next area. Simple and reliable formula. The problem is that the gameplay itself is rarely ever that interesting.

The puzzles are all really basic and never get very challenging, and the boss battles are the exact same way. And what's even worse is that all of the boss battles, and even most of the puzzles, are the exact same thing. The reason Shadow of the Colossus didn't become monotonous was that each boss battle was unique. You couldn't beat any two of them in the same way, so despite the fact that pretty much all you do in that game is "ride horse to giant monster, kill giant monster, repeat", it stayed fresh the whole time. In The Pathless, every boss, down to the final one, is the exact same. They even have the same attacks. Not to mention they're all super easy, so you're not even getting a good challenge to go with your monotony.

That's pretty much my biggest gripe. Story was generic as it gets for a game like this but the game makes it pretty easy to totally ignore it if you want to, so it didn't negatively impact my experience that much. I did enjoy exploring the ruins and solving the puzzles, and if nothing else, the bosses were a fantastic visual spectacle, so overall I did enjoy the game. Plus it's pretty short and doesn't overstay its welcome at all, so I would recommend picking this up once the price drops.

Mobility on par with Titanfall 2, wonderful level design, simple yet satisfying combat, this is exactly my cup of tea. My only real complaint is that there weren't enough bosses. There are 3 total, only one of which felt like a real fight to me. That and the final level is utter bullshit, I can't even begin to express my hatred for it. Those relatively minor gripes aside, I adored this game. Almost feels like a cross between Doom and Mirror's Edge. Doom because of the general flow of combat encounters, where you frantically run around an arena trying to deal with various types of enemies who all behave and attack differently, and Mirror's Edge for reasons I probably don't need to explain. It's also one of those "everything goes down in one hit including you" games, which usually tickles my fancy. Also it's short and sweet, I beat it in 5.8 hours (that's with a lot of dying and minimal secret hunting), which is long enough that I felt like I got my $30's worth, but I could totally have played another couple hours. Really loved this, would love to see it get a sequel or DLC with more bosses and possibly some more varied environments.

EDIT: also what if this game had a PVP mode where it's like 9v1, 9 being different enemy types found in the game and 1 being the ghostrunner I think that'd be sick

Kinda annoying that this is being called a "retro" shooter when the only retro thing about it is the graphics. This isn't like any other game I've played before, and it's amazing. Hard as nails (definitely worth playing on the "violent" difficulty), and extremely satisfying, with a very high skill ceiling. Actually for that matter, the skill floor is awfully high as well. There are two bosses in this that will annihilate you within seconds if you don't do everything exactly right. Certainly helps that there aren't any loading screens upon death, you just tap "R" and jump right back in, with the only consequence being a restart penalty on your score. It's demanding, but so worth it. Amazing fun, very easy to recommend.

I appreciate what it was trying to do. It was going for a very minimalist approach. No real story, not that many enemies, only 4 areas, and I'm all for that idea. My issue is that it took this minimalist philosophy much to far for my taste.

For instance, every boss battle in the game is the same boss over again, just with one added attack. Kindof a neat idea, but I would've preferred different bosses. This game also has next to no enemy variety, and none of the enemies in it are interesting to fight aside from the boss, which is far too easy. With one exception outside of the boss, every enemy in the game either moves back and forth in a static path like a Mario enemy, or sits in place and launches projectiles in a specific direction. That is all you'll be fighting for the entire game until you move through the final area, where giant bat enemies will actually chase you around (again, they're the only enemy that does so outside of the boss). And they are supremely annoying to fight because you can't shoot diagonally. You can shoot in 4 directions. Again, it's the whole minimalist approach being taken too far. Even the platforming suffers, as you can't even jump at different heights depending on how long you hold the button down. I was infuriated before I learned this because I kept jumping into enemies and projectiles.

So yeah I don't really like this game very much. Its strong suits are its length, which is just over 2 hours, its artwork which is very good, and a couple of its abilities being fun to use (the plane shift ability is the best thing about this game by far). Overall I'd say this is skippable.

Not gonna give it a rating because I honestly have no idea what it is about this game that doesn't click for me. It's objectively very well-made, it's got some interesting platforming, and it's got some interesting puzzles. Maybe it's the fact that I don't enjoy the digging, which is an extremely prominent aspect and also kinda what sets this apart from others in the genre. I also hate the combat, which you're forced to engage with on many occasions. I would recommend it purely based on the fact that most everybody else seems to have enjoyed it a lot more than I did.