There?s more than a hint of Journey present in FAR: Lone Sails. Sure, FAR is a 2D side-scroller, but between the protagonist in a flowing red cape, the scattered remnants of civilization, and the wordless action, it?s not hard to see some similarities between the two.
The key difference, unfortunately, is that FAR isn?t anywhere near as interesting as Journey. The mute, red-caped protagonist doesn?t have the opportunity to convey the same level of personality, the desolate landscape isn?t anywhere near as visually appealing, and, overall, the game just isn?t as good.
Mind you, there?s a massive gap between ?not as good as Journey? and ?not worth playing,? and FAR is much closer to the former than the latter. Its main problem is that it all feels very circumscribed and linear. Don?t get me wrong, I have nothing against nice, linear games — especially when they can be beaten in around 2-3 hours — but it still made it hard to feel a connection with the unnamed main character. Most of the time, it felt like you were just carrying out directed tasks, rather than really getting a chance to explore the desolate, post-apocalyptic landscape through which you?re traversing.
To be fair, that?s kind of the point. FAR is all about survival, which means you?re constantly running around your ship, carrying out the tasks vital to keep it running. Feed fuel into the engine, keep the pistons pumping, raise and lower the sails, slam on the brakes when necessary — and, when everything starts falling to pieces around you, keep a cool head so you can put out literal fires and make repairs. If you?re into repetitive manual labour, this game should be right up your alley.
If you want more than that, though, you won?t really find that here. FAR: Lone Sails is fine for what it is, and I liked my time with it — but throughout it all, I couldn?t help but feel like it could?ve been even better than it was.
Mixtvision provided us with a FAR: Lone Sails Switch code for review purposes.
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