Review
Played on: Xbox One
Released: 2016
Released: 2016
There's been many 2D platformers in my gaming life. From growing up with 2D sprite based ones to experiencing the genre going full 3D. Years later, I'd see the genre returning to 2D gameplay but retaining the 3D graphics, with New Super Mario Bros. leading the way. Unravel is one of these 2D in 3D platformers too, but has a foot set in the physics based gameplay, reminiscent of Little Big Planet.
Made and set in a beautiful, rural Sweden, Unravel hits home for me on a visual level with such impact. I could literally feel the atmosphere and nostalgia build up inside. I've grown up in Norway and the countryside is very much alike Sweden's. Beautifully, detailed nature locations are blurred into a beautiful backdrop for each level. Accompanying the visual impact is a beautiful music score, echoing traditional Scandinavian folk music.
Made and set in a beautiful, rural Sweden, Unravel hits home for me on a visual level with such impact. I could literally feel the atmosphere and nostalgia build up inside. I've grown up in Norway and the countryside is very much alike Sweden's. Beautifully, detailed nature locations are blurred into a beautiful backdrop for each level. Accompanying the visual impact is a beautiful music score, echoing traditional Scandinavian folk music.
Unravel follows a little woollen figure, named Yarny, on his travels through gardens, woodlands, seasides and snow covered mountains in search of a little knitted figure at each level end. Levels have increasingly complex with climbing puzzles to solve to progress, but they're never too hard to figure out and focus on the way Yarny strings his woollen lasso to reach higher ledges.
Unravel is set in a cottage on a farm, working as a central hub. From here you your journey begins by an empty photo album, on a dinner table. Each level is found throughout the cottage, in form of a picture. Entering one and completing the level gives you access to enter the next and so forth. Each completed level ends with Yarny finding a woollen figure to put on the cover of the photo album, thus resulting in a story page and photos added to the photo album.
It's a touching and sweet story with a lot of visual atmosphere, even more so if you're familiar with the Scandinavian nature and countryside. The pictures could almost come from my own childhood photo album.
Gameplay is straightforward and simplistic. Yarny walks left to right and can throw out a lasso of string to attach to ledges, branches and hooks, which in turn allows him to pill himself up. Knotting a string on two points near each other makes it a trampoline, allowing Yarny to reach places even higher up. To progress you need to find more string as Yarny runs out and can't walk further.
Gameplay is straightforward and simplistic. Yarny walks left to right and can throw out a lasso of string to attach to ledges, branches and hooks, which in turn allows him to pill himself up. Knotting a string on two points near each other makes it a trampoline, allowing Yarny to reach places even higher up. To progress you need to find more string as Yarny runs out and can't walk further.
However, this string length mechanic was too scripted in my book, with no clear definition of how much string each yarnball gave you. Sometimes you'd walk for ages, other times it stopped suddenly after a short stroll, simply because you used a few extra knots climbing onto something you didn't need to. Luckily, I rarely ran out of string. Otherwise the gameplay rules were fairly straightforward and easy to understand.
Some issues I'd like to address, the controls are on the floaty side, think Little Big Planet. With physics based platforming resulting in some annoying misses when precise jumping or timing is required. I found it fun to play regardless, as it never requires those fast and precise skills from traditional, and faster paced, 2D platformers, but it's definitely a place the game could be improved.
I could've been challenged a little further too, I get it's a laid back game with atmosphere to absorb, rather than throwing hectic gameplay or tricky tasks to solve, but I never scratched my head for long or was challenged on a higher level.
Unravel is an atmospheric, beautiful and fun platforming adventure that deserves attention, if not mostly for the visual atmosphere it so perfectly visualises. If you're from Sweden, Norway or Finland you're gonna really need to pick up this one up and truly enjoy the environments and nature settings.
Unravel is an atmospheric, beautiful and fun platforming adventure that deserves attention, if not mostly for the visual atmosphere it so perfectly visualises. If you're from Sweden, Norway or Finland you're gonna really need to pick up this one up and truly enjoy the environments and nature settings.
Outside of the visuals and music, it objectively does little for the genre with anything ground breaking new.
