Initially, we thought Pine was going to be a very pleasant surprise. It definitely doesn't bode well from the outset when the initial load takes just under three minutes. In situations like that, you can't help but wonder if the game has crashed. But no, patience was a virtue and in the time it took to fry a quick egg we were immersed in Pine's ambitious, Breath of the Wild-esque world.
Obviously, using Breath of the Wild as a point of comparison is fairly audacious, but the opening genuinely does have a tiny little sparkle of the biggest Zelda's raw potential. Recall when you first ascended to the plateau; that sense of possibility. Pine – just for a fraction of a second – makes you hope not for an equivalent experience, but a game that might recapture a fleeting, hesitant whisper of Nintendo's magnum opus.
It's borderline crushing when it descends into a murky quagmire of bad decisions, ill-defined objectives and downright technical incompetence. Don't get us wrong on that last point – it's impressive that Pine is running on Switch at all, given its scope. It can't have been an easy conversion, but all the same, it's visually unimpressive. After that long, long loading screen you'd be forgiven for thinking it'd be worth the wait aesthetically, but Pine is an ugly, grungy mess to look at. It's like they couldn't quite fit the square peg of a game into the round hole of the Nintendo Switch, so they went at it with a hammer and, while it went in, they left it in a right state. It's so horrendous to look at with egregious pop-in, pea soup fog so thick it might as well be an actual plate of peas, low detail to the point that some objects look like they've been flat-shaded, and sharp-edged lighting that flickers almost constantly. It begs the question; why even try to put this game on this system just as it was? It hasn't worked.
Thankfully, it isn't all bad news on the optical side of things. The character models, while sparsely detailed, are attractive and appealingly designed. The game's framerate is also quite good given the aspiring size of its world – it doesn't feel quite like a locked 30fps, but it isn't far off. Maybe the graphical fidelity had to take the hit it did to keep things moving relatively smoothly.
Naturally, poor graphics don't necessarily mean a poor game. While it's a Zelda clone in its movement and basic gameplay tropes, Pine's major focus is on the relationships you have with the various species of creatures that you'll encounter, and how making friends with one tribe may cause another one to take umbrage with you for siding with their enemies. Your actions play into a rather effective little inter-tribal relationships simulation. The problem is the core gameplay and controls are so weak that you'll never get enough into the swing of things to appreciate the cute little system the developers have clearly put a lot of work into.
Your playable character – who goes by the name of Hue – moves around the scenery in a sadly unconvincing manner, with his jump being particularly bizarre. It's loose and sticky at the same time, seemingly opting for whichever flaw is the least convenient for what you're trying to do. There are seemingly-simple platforming challenges scattered around the world, but you won't even want to attempt them after butting your head against the first few.
Speaking of butting heads, the combat is remarkably difficult in a way we're not sure is conducive to the overall experience. The vibe of the game is so chilled-out that it's a genuine shock when the first enemy comes at you as hard as it does. The foes here have plenty of health and are strangely resilient, making Pine feel more akin to a mature hack-and-slash action game than the laid-back socialise-'em-up that it really ought to be. Not only do the monsters hit hard, they also take a lot of blows to finally take down. Enough that you'll find yourself wanting to actively avoid encounters because they simply take too long and aren't all that varied or enjoyable. Your only real strategy is blocking with your shield, which often simply doesn't work for no discernible reason (a bug which, in fairness, could be patched later). You've also got a slingshot, which you can switch to using the X button, but the aiming is extremely rough and imprecise. Gyro controls would have been very welcome, but then a lot of things would have been with this game.
Conclusion
Pine could have been a lot better. There are genuinely impressive systems at play here – for example, the other creatures inhabiting this world are gathering resources in much the same way as the player, and will even snatch up crops and objects that you were making for. But its smarter touches are totally obfuscated by the shadow of absolute technical unsuitability to the Switch hardware. When you look at ports like Doom and the recent Alien: Isolation, you'll wonder what exactly went wrong for Pine to be so disastrously sub-par in purely technical terms. We can only imagine how cool it looked on the design document; it's just such a shame about almost literally every single aspect of the execution.
Comments 36
NintendoLife (noun); a fanboy website that can sometimes be pretentious with their reviews.
Man. That's a rough review. I had high hopes for this one. Oh well, back to The Witcher 3 now.
This and decay of logos are still going to be purchase by me as soon as they on sale. I am over look flaws and issues knowing that it’s not a AAA experience and I’m not going to pay that. And $25 is too much when gameplay wise, doesn’t run well. Comparing games like those to dark souls and Zelda is not fair and games should be judged on their own merits, which may still be bad.
@LUIGITORNADO Not sure what is pretentious about this review. They've pretty much hit the nail on the head here.
Hmmm, will see if there's a patch then. Wanted to play this one, but will wait.
I think you are being to generous with a 4. This game is an absolute broken mess on Switch and deserves a 1 at best.
From disappearing scenery that reappears to trap you so you have to re start. To horrendous load times, horrible graphics, shadows made up of boxes and broken sound loops to name but a few of the games issues.
Does the NA version have the same issues? That one is still available on the eShop, but the EU version isn't. Makes me wonder if there's some major problem with that version in particular.
Considering how we have two great Zelda games on the Switch I really don't see the need for these pretenders. There's even some cool stuff like the Zelda rhythm game, I feel pretty well set with that.
What a shame. I thought this looked really cool when they showed it off on one of the indie videos, but I’m definitely going to pass now.
Despite this review, I'm weirdly interested in BotW knock-offs just to see how other companies would spin that experience.
@LUIGITORNADO Imagine being mad because someone gave an honest review?
@HeavyArmsSS Yeah it's kinda weird how they are covering games like this when they seem to ignore so many great games that come by.
A watched a video review of this last week and the game is a bug riddled mess, such a shame.
I find it a little odd that there is a notion that only good games should be reviewed? Where to you make your comparisons if that’s the case? If it saves me a few £ too I am always grateful. If they feel a game is bad purely because it’s a bad game I let my own judgement come into play but if a game is riddled with bugs then it’s good to get a heads up.
@HeavyArmsSS what an odd thing to say, so they should play a game for hours to review it and be like ahhh bummer it's not a good one.. guess we move on and let no one know about it.
@HeavyArmsSS Apart from warning people about broken games, talking about bad pieces of media can be a good platform for talking about how to make good pieces of media. This game sounds like a lesson that to make an open world game, you have to pay attention to the technical side of game development and can't just let things which don't work slide because this genre is built so much on atmosphere and awe.
It’s a shame that Pine didn’t turn out too well, I remember seeing it in a Nindies presentation and being pretty impressed by the project. There seemed to be a decent scope to the game.
Considering all the technical problems, and how poorly it runs (the framerates does NOT hold up), and the insane pop up, I'm shocked it got a 4. Shame. Game looked so good. Never got a Zelda vibe tho. I was really interested in the different factions, reactive world, and survival stuff.
Pine probably had a much much smaller budget and staff than Doom and Alien Isolation. They just tried to do more than they could possibly like Decay of Logos.
Just my two cents on this article:
1. That subheading is pretentious and borderline redundant with regard to the game being reviewed. ‘To languish, decline, or weaken.’ Hmm, Okay... But in context to what? As opposed to BoTW? Surely that’s an unfair standard to set the bar?
2. ‘Initially, we thought Pine was going to be a very pleasant surprise. It definitely doesn't bode well from the outset when the initial load takes just under three minutes. In situations like that, you can't help but wonder if the game has crashed. But no, patience was a virtue and in the time it took to fry a quick egg we were immersed in Pine's ambitious, Breath of the Wild-esque world.‘
Interesting that in criticising the game’s opening, the writer makes such a hash of the opening to his review. There’s far too many contradictions going on here. It’s further exacerbated by, ‘After that long, long loading screen you'd be forgiven for thinking it'd be worth the wait aesthetically, but Pine is an ugly, grungy mess to look at. It's like they couldn't quite fit the square peg of a game into the round hole of the Nintendo Switch, so they went at it with a hammer and, while it went in, they left it in a right state.’
Is the game impressive, or not? Is it ambitious, or is it a mess? A consistency of opinion is required here.
Oh, and one more thing: that game’s logo is unbelievably sterile and dull—ironic, considering all the connotations of freedom we associate with
Pine (noun)
A FRICKIN’ TREE.
@HappyMaskedGuy Seriously? This criticism was 100x more pretentious than the review. Let’s just all hope you were joking and move on, shall we?
@HeavyArmsSS the review was paid handsomely for their time
@Indielink the sub-head rubbed me the wrong way.
I had high hopes for this. Shame! rings a tiny bell
The review was fine.
Usually the sub headings are punny or cringy. This one was more intelligent, but still got the message across.
@NotTelevision What exactly is ‘pretentious’ about my criticism?
Do you actually know the meaning of the word?
Maybe they can fix some issues, but it seems Switch is the wrong platform to get it on.
@HappyMaskedGuy Yes I do. Your criticism of the review comes off as overly pedantic and was written in so you come across more knowledgeable and able to better identify nuances in judgement than the reviewer. Pretentious fits the bill.
@LUIGITORNADO Almost sounds like the reviewer is shedding light on the numerous flaws with the game, doesn't it? Clearly not a bad thing to inform the general public of a potentially worthless purchase now is it? No, of course not. Now if this was a CoD or R* title it'd have gotten a 9/10 (generally speaking) and the flaws would have been casually tossed aside with an "it'll eventually be a good game" approach. This is refreshing to hear, if not disappointing, after years of jaded AAA reviews all handing out 8's or higher. If you're so sensitive to take offense at a reviewer, whose job it is to accurately depict a game's quality (without bias), then maybe that's your cue to stop reading reviews and start writing your own.
Too bad it wasn't that good. Almost makes you wonder why it was delayed so much only to still be a poor game in the end. Maybe they should've delayed it to 2020 and gave it a little more time.
That's a shame. I was really looking forward to this game - thought it would be one of the more memorable indie games to drop on Switch this year. But alas...
Not a good way to win customers. I wonder if they mentioned this on Twitter???
For what it's worth, the game does seem to have about double the draw distance of Pokémon.
A pity, it could have been great.
Really is a shame this game runs so poorly on Switch. I played on PC and loved it, but the port is downright awful. Review was a bit harsh, but hit the nail on the head. Def a game I say get on PC, but my partner bought on Switch anyway and regretted it day one.
This game is a mess, 2/10
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