Windfolk: Sky is just the beginning knows how to make a pretty good first impression. Right off the bat, there?s a tutorial where you get to fly. And not the kind of limited flight you get in most games — you know the type, where you hover a little bit and then run around on the ground, waiting to repower whatever is helping you fly. No, Windfolk gives you a jetpack with unlimited fuel right out of the gate, and you can soar immediately as much as you want. Given how few games get that right, this game deserves all the credit in the world for doing something that seems so obvious.
Unfortunately, that?s the beginning and the end of what makes Windfolk interesting. Despite the fact you can fly everywhere, the whole game essentially consists of: fly to a waypoint, shoot all the bad guys, wait for the dialogue to tell you where to go next, and repeat.
This wouldn?t be the worst thing in the world, except for…well, all of it apart from the flying. The dialogue is painfully boring, and voiced by voice actors whose boredom with the material shines through. It doesn?t help that the story is zero percent interesting, and does nothing to engage you as a player.
Even worse, the shooting is lousy. The enemies mostly just hover in the air, waiting to be shot, and the weapons at your disposal all feel underpowered — even though most of the enemies are pretty ineffectual. It?s kind of baffling that a game that makes flying seem so thrilling can?t also make shooting down bad guys fun, but here we are.
In that respect, Windfolk may be one of the most frustrating games I?ve played in recent memory. I had no expectations for it going in, but it shows immediately that it can do one thing exceptionally well. If they could have made a game that lived up to that — or even came close to living up to that — then it could?ve been worth playing. As it stands, though, it just feels like a lot of wasted potential.
Gammera Nest provided us with a Windfolk: Sky is just the beginning PS4 code for review purposes.
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