away: Journey to the Unexpected is a game that takes inspiration from other roguelikes, but removes freedom of choice and leaves only the illusion that the decisions in your runs actually matter.
With the grandparents in Away - Journey to the Unexpected
Away: Journey to the Unexpected combines the presentation of a JRPG with the randomly generated elements of roguelikes in an initially compelling combination. You take on the role of a little boy who lives with his grandparents while his parents go about their super-secret job. Before you can even get up, you find that a construction company has started digging in the basement of your house. This puts you on a small but big adventure that takes you to forests, deserts, tropical islands and the arctic.
The little adventure really big
Away does an excellent job of making what starts out as a very small adventure feel like a monumental task. Much of this stems from the main character being the opposite of your typical video game hero. Your character is meek and not at all equipped to fight monsters. You start out with a meager three hearts of health and have a single stick to wield as a weapon. As you leave your home and step out into the outside world, you'll face enemies that will take a hit or two to kill. However, you're incredibly weak and it takes a while to get the hang of swinging your stick, meaning you'll be scared of even the cutest enemies at first.
enemies in dungeons
Most of the enemies you encounter will be in random Dungeons found. No two Dungeons are ever the same, which makes the relatively frequent deaths less annoying, especially if you haven't got the hang of it yet. In these Dungeons you look for a lever that you must pull to open the boss dungeon in the area. Strangely, only two of the worlds you travel to actually have Dungeons. In the ice and tropical beach levels you just have to pull the levers in the overworld. The Dungeons are much more fun than simply pulling levers that are placed all over the overworld. That seems far too easy.
Tricky dungeons
Dungeons can get pretty tricky at times, especially the much longer boss dungeons. The aforementioned bosses also have dozens of hit points, making them harder to take down. Luckily, your character has a special ability to recruit other humans, robots, and animals to their party. Friendship cubes are scattered around the world and in item shops, giving you a place to recruit someone. You can recruit up to three characters, each with a unique ability, and this variety allows for different loadouts and strategies. You can use the character that can one-shot all non-boss monsters, combined with a character that drops health pickups. To keep this from making the game too easy, characters have energy meters that are depleted when using their abilities. Once it reaches zero, you can't use them anymore. If you're careful, you may be forced to fight a boss armed only with your stick.
Recruit characters
The biggest problem is that after its frantic opening pace, the game slows down. It takes you about two hours to get to the final area of the game, but you find yourself in front of an annoying roadblock. You are forced to recruit every single character in the game to proceed. There are only eight characters in total, but the way you recruit them is the main issue. In order to recruit someone, you must first talk to them while you have an open friend slot. You'll be given dialogue options during this conversation and you'll have to choose the right lines that will result in them joining you. However, finding the right paths is not that easy. That in itself wouldn't be that bad, but if you can't recruit them on the first try, you'll have to wait until you die to try and grab them again. This turns the endgame into a boring cycle where you track down characters, engage in conversations, choose the wrong option, kill your character and start over.
Boss fights
Boss fights are also a problem. There are two different bosses for the boss dungeons in the game. However, the boss you face is random, which means that the first time you run through, you'll face the exact same spider boss twice. Only when you have to go back can you take on someone else. Finally, Away features a level-up system that applies to your character when you die. Something like that is par for the course with roguelikes, but it works so awkwardly here. Most level-up rewards allow you to travel to different areas quickly, but the experience required to do so means you end up unlocking them after you need them.
Conclusion
Away: Journey to the Unexpected starts out as a fun and lighthearted romp with some very unique creases in the gameplay. Unfortunately, that quickly dissipates and is severely hampered by poor design choices that turn what was initially a pleasant experience into an uncomfortable one. Those unexpected problems in the second half of the game are one such trouble and when you are faced with a final boss fight you will wish you hadn't started the game.
More articles on Games and Poetry:
