Imagine a love unlike any other. Maybe it’s who you’re with right now, or maybe it’s someone you’ll meet in the future. You find your soulmate, the one that you couldn’t imagine living without. You spend almost all of your waking time together, at home and at work. You travel the galaxy with them, studying the societies of alien species, and even interacting with them side by side. They complete you entirely, and suddenly, they die. Death is already a hard concept to come to terms with for most, but it’s impossible to do so when an alien world speaks of eternal life. Would you be willing to give up everything in the hopes of bringing your love back to life?

The Way has a very dark, emotional opening that will likely drive you to completing the game. You dig up your wife’s grave and put her corpse in a capsule, steal a ship from your place of employment, and fly off to a planet in the hopes of bringing her back to life. You’ll spend time with alien organisms, learn about the explorer’s past, and solve puzzles which may or may not requiring precise movements lest you fall victim to death. But don’t worry; with a game that takes influence from Another World, you’re bound to die over and over.

From the get go, you’ll realize this is the type of game with puzzles that you’ll either be doing trial and error for, or you’ll be taking notes as you go along. Instead of writing down notes like I used to year ago, I resorted to taking pictures with my phone – nonetheless, these are the types of puzzles that are the most rewarding. Hints about lemons as descriptors, codes for sequences, and abilities later on that force you to do a lot of back and forth while timing things perfectly. Other games with notable influence here are Flashback and Heart of Darkness, with a heavy use of the y-axis in some levels.

With puzzles involving a shield to reflect light or lasers, teleportation to get past locked areas, telekinesis to move blocks and create projections or simply allow your four legged friend to tag along, there’s a lot of mind exercises contained within. You’ll face large beasts that will require your wits to defeat, and plenty of platforming that may seem unfair at times. Just know that it’s doable with time, and maybe a few spare controllers.

The game has plenty of jokes that you may or may not be able to appreciate, depending on your exposure to Science Fiction. One of the first ones that made me chuckle was the name of the ship you commandeer, although I only recall it being mentioned on a computer screen. There are also some characters that appear to be nods to the old LucasArts point-and-click games that Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert worked on. The final boss will even test your twitch-like reflexes with something you likely would never expect based on the rest of the game. And make sure to stay after the credits, as there is an answer to something you’ll notice throughout the game that is never properly addressed.

Control wise, the game plays fairly well. Aside from some frustrating portions due to button prompts not doing what you expect (namely the shield not being deployed despite you pressing the right trigger), everything worked fine, if not a bit clunky. Platforming itself is less than ideal, as you’ll often go too far when falling or jumping, meaning you have to time it just right, if not be a bit short so that you climb up. Amusingly, I fell from higher up than I should have and landed where the climb animation would initiate, so I climbed up the side of a cliff and then died. That climb was exhausting. However, while the platforming is less than perfect, it fits right in with the games that inspire it, although that certainly appeals to a niche audience.

The main draw here really is the story, although the many puzzles offered certainly add to it. There’s plenty of emotional weight from the very beginning, and you run into more later on, although it’s an expected outcome from something like this. Regrettably, the intrigue in puzzle solving felt in the first couple hours seems to disappear later on as trial and error becomes a much more common trait. Luckily, the repetitive nature found in the latter portion is met with different landscapes as the environments are lovingly crafted, ranging from modern day to alien deserts, forests, and cityscapes.

If you’ve been searching for a new puzzle platformer, this may be for you. If you like the art direction, questioning the meaning of life, and projecting yourself on characters that have to make big decisions, I’d say you’ll quite enjoy this. However, if you struggle with puzzles, precise platforming, and simply don’t have the patience for trial and error gameplay, you might want to wait to play this, if you pick it up at all. Overall, The Way is an emotional adventure that is told exceptionally with plenty of head scratching to boot.

8 out of 10

Pros

• Narrative
• Early Puzzles

Cons

• Trial and Error Puzzles
• Responsiveness of Controls

The Way was developed by Puzzling Dream and published by PlayWay. The game launched on PC May 20th, 2016 for $14.99 and will launch on X1 August 4th, 2017 for $9.99. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of The Way, check out the official site.

 

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