On paper, roguelike game design sounds like a fantastic idea. Most small developers don’t have access to the finances or resources of big studios, so it takes considerably more time to produce a quality, lengthy video game. The shortcut, then, is that smaller developers can utilize procedural generation to make a little bit go a lot further, and this can be used to fantastic effect as seen in games like Enter the Gungeon and Dead Cells.
Unfortunately, it can also be used as a crutch, causing developers to rely too heavily on the algorithms to make the game fun, instead of investing more effort into designing that fun for themselves. Away: Journey to the Unexpected, a new first-person roguelike action game, falls closer to this latter end of the spectrum, providing a short and occasionally confusing gameplay experience that fails to prove itself as being more than the sum of its parts.
Away: Journey to the Unexpected puts you in the shoes of a nameless boy who lives with his grandparents, whose parents work in a top-secret government job and have been missing for a number of weeks. When a construction company drills a hole in the basement of the grandparents’ house – causing monsters to flood in – the boy is given a wooden stick from his dog and sets off on an adventure to get to the bottom of what’s going on. Though the narrative is kept to a bare minimum, the lighthearted and rather off-the-wall story at the core of this adventure is a welcome aspect of Away that provides just enough mystery to keep you guessing.
Gameplay takes the shape of a first-person action title with roguelike elements mixed in, but the implementation of the random elements is sketchy at best. Your character has only a hefty stick to fight with, but hit detection on strikes is a bit off, and this can make it difficult to judge when exactly to initiate an attack against an enemy. All enemies attack you in one of two ways – either by running into you or shooting something at you – but there seems to be an unusually large window where enemy melee attacks land from farther away than they should. Your stick doesn’t have very much range at all, so finding that sweet spot where you can strike enemies without them striking you is frustrating and hard to nail down. This issue with melee attacks can be combated somewhat by the consumable, rare fireworks you can use to strike from a distance, but they’re hard to come by and have a noticeably long fuse that delays the explosion.
You start out the game by exploring overworld areas dotted with treasure chests that contain helpful health or money pickups, a handful of NPCs that can be recruited to your ‘party’ (more on that later), and entrances to mini-dungeons that you have to clear to unlock the boss dungeon for that area. It’s a simple enough setup, but problems arise when you run into the randomized mini-dungeons, which can vary wildly in quality and depth. Sometimes, you get a decently-sized collection of rooms with a good mixture of puzzles, platforming, and combat, while other times, you literally get a small, one-room cave where the boss lever is guarded by three weak enemies. Then, about halfway through this five-hour (on the outside) campaign, Away: Journey to the Unexpected decides to do away with the mini-dungeons entirely and just puts the boss levers in the overworld with next to no challenges to trip them. What starts out as a potentially promising adventure gradually curdles into something decidedly sloppier; something which is unacceptable given how short Away: Journey to the Unexpected is to begin with.
A glimmer of hope can be found in the NPC recruitment system, but this, too, is inevitably squashed by baffling design choices. Once you’ve found the ‘friendship cube’ in a level’s overworld, you can talk to any of the NPCs for a chance to recruit them through a cool Persona-style dialogue system where you have to say the correct things to persuade them into joining you. If they agree, that character can then be swapped in at the press of a button, replacing your stick with something much more effective.
Whether it’s a shotgun that one-shots most enemies or a staff that shoots fireballs, each character has a unique ability that makes dealing with enemies much less of a headache. The issue, however, lies in recruiting the characters to begin with. If you happen to say the wrong thing when talking to them at first, that character can be locked off to you for the rest of that run, meaning that you’ll have to die and work your way back to that point again for another shot at attempting to recruit them to your party. This is made even more tedious by the fact that you need to have recruited all characters to beat the game, a move that astoundingly manages to introduce padding to a game with an anaemic amount of content. Granted, subsequent runs are made somewhat easier and more tolerable by the introduction of upgrades and shortcuts to speed things along slightly, but it unfortunately doesn’t take very long at all for the roguelike elements to become quite grating.
It’s a real shame, too, as the colourful anime presentation suggests a much more engaging and quality game than the one you’re actually met with. Blending 2D sprites with 3D worlds – a bit like Paper Mario – the art style is striking and lively, with the monster and NPC designs having a cutesy Shantae-esque design that looks great in motion. The 3D environments are a little less interesting to look at, and fall to tired, uninspired design tropes (of course there’s an obligatory ‘beach’ level), but are nonetheless rich with colour. Also, as a bit of a side note, there’s a remarkably well-produced intro scene upon boot up developed by an anime animation studio, complete with a Japanese theme song, and this goes a long way in cementing the undeniable charm that Away: Journey to the Unexpected exudes.
Conclusion
Away: Journey to the Unexpected is the sort of game that’s disappointing because of how good it could have been if more thought had been invested into certain systems. There’s a good game buried in here somewhere, but it’s so mired in confusing or irritating game design elements that it becomes incredibly difficult to recommend. If you’re really into roguelikes and want to try out an okay one in first-person, Away: Journey to the Unexpected is perhaps worth a punt, but even then, we’d highly suggest that you take a pass. There are far better roguelikes available on the eShop for a comparable price; you’re sure to get much more out of those.
Comments 30
I've seen other reviews with the exact same sentiments. Shame really as I really like the design of the game and the first person genre is crying out for someone to do something interesting with it.
I am very disappointed too.
Maybe Operencia will make it to Switch.
I'd probably give it a bit higher based on what I've played but that's fair enough. It has some really interesting aspects going for it that result in it being enjoyable enough to play but there's certainly a lot of squandered potential that results in the experience being a little disappointing overall. It could have been something great.
@Fake-E-Lee Exactly the same here! It's far from excellent, but it's still fun and I'm enjoying it. Maybe a high 6 or 7 would be a more appropriate number for it IMO.
This was one of my most eagerly awaited indie games.... and I've been totally put off by the reviews =0( Maybe some things will be patched / changed in the forthcoming updates, otherwise it may be something I wait for until a deep, deep sale.
Another Mitch review and again he shows that he don't know what a roguelike is.
Sigh. Each time that I came here is harder to defend Nintendo Life. Everyone outside here is mocking these reviews.
Shame. Thought this might be a more entertaining version of Skyrim (one of the most overrated video games of all time). Guess I'l slog through Skyrim and break up with this genre.
@Tirza Not everyone can be as cool as you tho
@Tirza It's true! I just went for a walk in the park and everyone from old ladies to small dogs were ridiculing NintendoLife for this review. It's sooooo embarrassing.
The missuse of Roguelike and roguelite bugs me. It’s not like it’s that complicated, if it’s turn based it’s a Roguelike everything else is Roguelite.
The hair on the main character looks terrible. Like a really ugly wig.
The main character looks like an inkling.
Here we go again. Another game review that down grades the score based on the reviewer not liking the design of the game rather than being based on the game actually being bad.
Was it technically a bad game? Did the graphics stutter? Where there bugs in the game? Is there some reason you could not play the game as designed? No. no. no. no....
So, it's a 5 out of 10 because... the reviewer didn't like the design choices made by the developer.
These reviews are starting to give the feeling that they are completely worthless unless you are just looking for shallow opinion pieces.
If you were going to make the game bad, you should have gotten the license rights to Netflix’s Hilda. It’s close enough to your character design and licensed games are allowed to be bad.
@PharoneTheGnome There's more to a game than if it technically runs well or not though. What's more important is whether the game is actually fun to play or not. If the reviewer didn't like the design choices (which I'd say is fair enough from my experience with the game) and therefore didn't enjoy the game very much then there's nothing wrong with them giving it a 5/10. It's their subjective opinion which is all a review is.
@SmaggTheSmug Probably because it's an ugly wig.
I saw the demo somewhere and it didn't look or play as bad as the review is making it out to be. Like another said the review is based on bad metric and not suited for reviewing this upcoming game.
@Tirza I don't doubt the bias. The procedurally generated areas and the rogue-like loop are the strengths of the game, aside from the gorgeous art.
@PharoneTheGnome I'm not expecting a Digital Foundry write-up here, but the performance is not great, and I do consider it an issue with my enjoyment of this game. I'd probably give this game a 6 on Switch and a 7 if it ran as smooth as some reviewers claim it does on other consoles.
ya thats really unfortunate. I was really excited to get my hands on this and now im glad I waited. maybe we can be hopeful for a future update?
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@PharoneTheGnome Because design plays a big part in whether a game is fun... Do you seriously not realize that?
That endgame bull—— he described of the challenge taking a nosedive due to lazy boss room saturation just sounds completely rushed and amateur. A game should get most interesting at its finale, not fizzle out into bland, uninspired repetition.
It’s a shame; I was really looking forward to it
I figured this would be disappointing. I loved the style which caught my attention but watching it being streamed it seemed like it was kinda iffy.
I'm confused. So, if you need to befriend every enemy and you only have 1 chance to give the right dialogue per enemy, this means that your save files can be unwinnable, unless you restart? That's not even a roguelike at that point. It's just needless trial and error.
This is what happen when your eyes are bigger than your belly.
I was hoping for a good game but I felt kind of skeptical after the first video.
That's sad.
@Bombdotorg999
Yep, randomised levels or permadeath don't automatically qualify a game as a roguelike.
@Der He looks like Inuyasha
You know a game is a stinker when even Nintendo Life gives it a bad review 🥵
Too bad, wait for a big sale
@EasyDaRon "This games was created by graphic artists obviously to create a cool looking game. But they have no clue about game programming and game design."
My challenge to you if you can do better then step up to the plate. Otherwise stop the falsehood-love how we have quarterback couch potatoes thinking they could do better but don't go and make a better game.
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