Reviews:
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While certainly quite text heavy, this sea-faring survival adventure sports strong character development and moral quandaries aplenty
One of the genres I’ve tended to struggle with the most over the years has absolutely been survival games. Too often saddled with too much of what I’d say is the wrong sort of minutia in a loop (overly focused on collecting resources to simply eat and drink on an ongoing basis), it can feel a bit limited in the greater scope and building something more interesting. The Pale Beyond, which is absolutely a challenging survival game, does things its own way and very differently… and I really appreciate that change of pace. The format won’t be to everyone’s liking, substituting direct action with a whole lot of conversations and text being thrown at you. However, in general it does a great job of being difficult, forcing you to make some rough decisions, and never dragging you down too much in repetition. Yes, concerns like how to manage your rations and fuel, trying to keep balance with crew morale, will be revisited often, but that’s in part because every move you make or person you bring on introduces new risks and problems down the road with those same resources. You can count on having to burn quite a number of runs before you’ll really have a handle on the depth of the challenges you’ll face on this expedition, but if you’re a fan of strong writing in general you’ll be rewarded with a compelling adventure chronicling both your successes and failures. That may make it a bit niche, but for people who don’t mind the challenge and walls of text it’s an adventure worth your time.
Justin Nation, Score:Nindie Choice! [8.4]