The UI is as minimal as any you will ever find. In a game that is light on gameplay the presentation is everything, and that is one of the areas that Abzû truly excels. The game goes out of its way to make sure you never have to worry about failing, no matter how novice or experienced a gamer you are. In a sense it is actually refreshing to go from games which require dozens of button combinations to play properly to a game which could have been played on an NES controller. If the game went on longer than its roughly two-hour length I would definitely want to see a wider range of actions, but for a game that is mostly about the simple experience of swimming and discovering it is enough. Still, even with just that small list of things to do you will find that it is all you need to enjoy this game. You can swim, you can swim slightly faster for short periods of time, and on occasion you can interact with your environment. In terms of gameplay there is not much to speak of. At first it is a cause of worry that a fight against one of nature’s apex predators in imminent, but after a while the shark is encountered a few more times and it becomes apparent he was just doing what sharks do and what else can you expect a shark to do? I named him “Bitey” and we had several adventures together. They are not evil necessarily (and in many cases they are not evil at all), but their motives may not be pure or they may be doing bad things for good reasons.Īs an example of that within Abzû, early in the experience you encounter a great white shark who savagely destroys one of the camera drones that occasionally follow you in your adventures. This is largely where I drew my Miyazaki comparison from earlier: his movies don’t tend to have proper villains, just characters who have their own goals which may run counter to the protagonist’s own. It is also, of course, possible that they are exactly as malicious as they first appear. There are antagonists of a sort, but no real villain to speak of, and even things that may seem malicious at first may be more sympathetic than you first see. To be fair there are not many of these, but they are there and they can give you goosebumps. I had moments sprinkled throughout the game where I truly just wanted to get through a particular spot as fast as possible to get to someplace more welcoming. If you have a fear of deep water where you can see nothing below you but endless blue depths, then this is not the game for you. Even further into the game you encounter stuff that make those deep sea denizens look warm and cuddly by comparison.ĭo not let the multitude of bright and happy screenshots you have seen so far fool you, there are parts of this game that are downright creepy and dark. Things change rapidly, though, as you descend deeper into the ocean and the number of animals goes down drastically in favor of leviathans like humpback and sperm whales, as well as large sharks and squid. The first few levels are bright, colorful and filled with playful reef life. That is a little easier on a second playthrough once you have experienced more of the game, but trying to puzzle it together the first time isn’t going to get you far.Įach area you visit is distinct, and eventually you start to realize that what you see in the environment is a reflection of actions taken long ago. The story of Abzû is told through pictographs that you occasionally find on undersea ruins, but there is little context to them and it is up to you to give them meaning. Some pieces would no doubt line-up, but many others could be quite different. I suspect that if you were to take two people who played Abzû and had them each describe that story you would get two distinctly different answers. There is a story to Abzû that is slowly told throughout your journey, but it is never explicitly explained. In all likelihood you will have done all three multiple times by the time you complete the short, but satisfying, adventure. You can choose to move quickly from area to area unlocking pieces of the slowly expanding puzzle before you, or you can linger in each place to explore the nooks and crannies for secrets, or even just to float in the water and watch the sea life flow around you. You are given a sandbox to explore, a loose but defined path to follow, and then Abzû let’s you make of it what we will. It relies on the wonderment that comes with being immersed in a weird and strange environment without much guidance. It is a game of elegant simplicity that will give you back as much as you put into it. Abzû is what would happen if you took a Miyazaki film and distilled it down into its most basic elements, and then attached simple gameplay elements and choices to it.
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