Tunic PS5 Review. Between the two but stunning isometric visual presentation and the bushy, bouncy demeanor of its primary protagonist, it’s fair to say that it’s somewhat impossible not to fall in love with Tunic. And as with all the best games that initially captivate you with that infectious warmth, Tunic’s excellence is much more than skin deep, thanks in no small part to its skilful combination of old-school Legend of Zelda and contemporary Dark Souls lore. gameplay beats and mechanics to one of the best PlayStation indie games of the year.
Tunic PS5 Review
An enchanting mix of Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls that ranks as one of the best games of the year
The way Tunic starts is somewhat symbolic of how the game develops from the first minutes to the last moments. Tunic finds our bushy-tailed protagonist washed up on the shore of a mysterious island and offers no dramatic narration, scrolling wall of text, or even a series of obvious UI indicators that gently nudge you in one direction to proceed. Instead, let Finji’s newest players pick up our charming hero and head further inland where the mystery surrounding both his identity and unfortunate circumstances slowly comes to light.
Tunic is a single-player adventure that unfolds from a third-person isometric perspective. Tunic is immediately reminiscent of Nintendo’s legendary Legend of Zelda series as our furry hero cuts through the place, performing dramatic roles and making his way through hapless lawns and other such flora unlucky enough to get in his way.
Tunic’s tribute to the Legend of Zelda series also goes deeper. In their quest to uncover long-lost secrets, our little fox regularly encounters barriers that prevent its progress to the deeper reaches of the island. Certain dense growths of local flora that shield certain areas can only be removed with a sword that our hero picks up early on. Meanwhile, a magical whip lets our cunning fox cling to distant hooks and propel itself into previously inaccessible areas, encouraging you to revisit well-traveled areas.
What Tunic really excels at, though, isn’t just how it manages the whole Zelda/Metroidvania thing to send you off to pick up a particular piece of jewelry or weapon that can help you progress, but how it plays players invites to the environment and enemies around them. Long before you pick up the knife you need to cut off those stubborn growths, you’ll find that enemies who also carry knives can do the same. Brilliant, you can then use this knowledge to progress by essentially luring enemies to make a swing at you, before dodging at the last minute and watching them break down the barrier behind you, leaving our fluffy fox can continue their search unimpeded.
This kind of out-of-the-box thinking is where Tunic excels, because make no mistake, while it’s a downright challenging affair that becomes very difficult if you make an effort to get Tunic’s ‘good’ ending, the path from start to finish. end is determined as much by observing the world around you as it is racing and making your way through it.
What is also particularly striking about Tunic is how much of the story is told through visual storytelling. With little descriptive text and no staged performances to fall back on, Tunic once again falls back on the idea that it wants players to explore and peel off the corners of its world on their own terms, rather than every concept and aspect of the game that fed them from the beginning.
This also fits beautifully into another hugely innovative concept that Tunic is proud of. You see, during the game you’ll discover individual pages from the Tunic user manual and as you start putting together the last article, not only will you become more and more aware of the different aspects of how the game works (Tunic uses a undecipherable symbol-based language for describing the items you collect), but you also gain access to special abilities, abilities, and ultimately deep secrets about the world itself. Basically, Tunic always lets you aim for these quirky pages and you’ll often find yourself straying from the beaten track while looking for them.
And this is another great thing that Tunic is embracing – not only does it enjoy letting players explore every inch of its impeccably constructed world, but it also makes them work for it. Sure, there are some areas that require different tools and weapons to reach, but there are also a ton of secret areas and locked treasure chests that you can access right away – just look a little harder than you would otherwise.
If that sounds cryptic, it’s because many of Tunic’s hidden areas take advantage of the forced isometric perspective the game uses. As such, the developer routinely obscures hidden path entrances and treasure chests with tree branches and other such objects, encouraging the player to inspect every part of the landscape and, of course, the sense of accomplishment when you find one of these perspective-cloaked secrets is palpable for those on the go. are to say the least. Quite simply, exploring every part of Tunic is an unfettered joy and something you won’t want to stop until you’ve been everywhere and discovered every secret Finji’s latest has to offer.
Of course, the other part of Tunic’s excellent offering is the combat that dictates the on-screen action when you’re not exploring and solving puzzles, and this is where the influences of the Dark Souls games are most clearly felt. Battles are instantaneous, requiring the kind of split-second calculations, halfway through the battles FROM Software’s output has long expected players to have since the term “Soulslike” entered the gaming lexicon.
Not only do most enemies in general deal a bucketful of damage, but the emphasis is very clearly on blocking and dodging, with the former only being able to perform a desperately finite number of times and the latter subject to a rapidly diminishing stamina bar . Much more than just an inhibitor to your physical movement, when your stamina hits rock bottom, our furry hero will not only slow down, but take a lot more damage – further boosting your precious stamina during combat.
This also plays into the fact that some of Tunic’s boss fights are up there with some of the most tense encounters in titles like Dark Souls, thanks to the knowledge that just one mistake can cause you to lose huge chunks of health. Fortunately, accidentally rolling off a cliff isn’t quite the kind of ubiquitous danger in Tunic that it is in the FROM Software games, but the fact remains that just about every boss fight follows the same trajectory of understanding your enemy’s attack pattern, involving all of causing massive damage and the crumbling of their substantial health reserves in return. It’s great stuff, honestly.
Aside from the combat side of things, the influences of Miyazaki’s generation defining the Soulslike genre can be felt elsewhere in Tunic as well. After you die, you can go back to where you fell to recover the precious gold left on your corpse (if you die again before you get there, you lose everything, of course). Handily placed bonfires, on the other hand, can be used not only to replenish your health and save your progress, but also to prompt all monsters to respawn.
With its super-sharp visuals which in turn are characterized by an abundance of vibrant colors and some wildly vibrant effects, Tunic is simply beautiful and conveniently illustrates what a successful synergy of great art design and technical excellence can look like on a contemporary gaming platform. A mesmerizingly beautiful and practically perfect blend of Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls mechanics, Tunic is a boundlessly charming and highly challenging adventure that does so much good it borders on ridiculousness.
Tunic is out now on PS4 and PS5.
Review code kindly provided by PR.
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