Never Alone (Xbox One)

A game with heart is a very special thing. A game that can move along an engaging story with the ability to change the player’s feelings from the best of times to something perhaps even worth shedding a tear for. Often times, all of that heart can help to overlook technical issues and things that a game without heart would get scrutinized against. Today’s review is Never Alone, a game with a maximum dose of heart and storytelling. But I would be lying if I didn’t mention the faults of such a heartwarming tale.
Information
Game Rating: T(Teen)
Size: 2.94GB (3.1GB with Foxtales DLC)
Release date: 11/19/2014
Developer: Upper One Games
Publisher: E-Line Media

Never Alone is the story of an Inupiat girl named Nuna as she runs through various levels of the Alaskan wilderness. She is not alone (as the title implies) and is aided by an Arctic Fox who is her constant companion. Using their wits and survival skills, they will need to solve puzzles and get past deadly enemies in this journey of Alaskan indigenous folklore.

Graphics

This first thing one will hopefully notice about the Alaskan Wilderness is that it is not only majestic but also haunting. The game captures this theme perfectly. The snowflakes are so lush that you can’t help to look at the scenery around you except that a polar bear is trying to eat you for dinner. This blizzard isn’t so bad, but yet I see nowhere to safely land and continue my journey. There are plenty of these examples.

But there are a few moments graphically which I felt were crude and these mainly involved “The Spirits” that you come across. To me they didn’t have enough depth and often times I couldn’t tell where one might begin and where it ends. This wouldn’t be so bad but when you are timing jumps, the tiniest details do count. I can’t tell you how many times I took a flying leap and hoped I hit the next ledge (followed by the many times where I missed).

Sound

I often find myself turning down volume when I enter a game. My wife or son are usually trying to sleep and I want to play a game quietly until I enter my own dreamland. That and most games want to boom the bass and crank it up to eleven. Not Never Alone. The game is quiet. That Arctic breeze sure is nice and it comes through very well as does the danger aspect when an enemy is close. But its quiet and it requires turning up the volume some to fully enjoy your surroundings.

The voiceovers in the Cultural Insights as well as the main game are much better but then this of course becomes one of those things where you are fiddling with the remote control instead of playing the game. I guess the point of the music and sound effects is that they should be peaceful and serene (one with nature). Never Alone certainly falls into that category.

Gameplay

The game can be easily described as a platformer with some minor puzzle elements. Nuna and her arctic fox companion start off with a few basic moves. Jump here, hang onto that ledge, hunker down for the blizzard coming, etc. As you progress through the story, both characters gain some new abilities. The fox can wall jump, lower a rope down for Nuna, and eventually guide a spirit to Nuna’s location. On the other hand, Nuna can swing on that rope, push and pull boxes and throw a Bola. Yes, a bola which is mostly thrown into ice which impedes your progress. Not so much for directly dealing with any enemies.

The first couple of stages go smoothly enough. Jump here, jump there, it’s about as basic as the first level of Super Mario Brothers. Then they start adding elements to compliment the additional moves. This is where the game starts to lose focus. The wall jump is a great example. Remember the old NES games, Batman or Ninja Gaiden? It was an easy mechanic, jump to one side and grab, jump to the other side and grab. Sometimes it was spiced up that you could climb the last couple of feet.

Except your fox companion doesn’t always grab correctly or heck he might miss the wall entirely. Then that climbing the last couple of feet? More likely, he becomes stuck in place (with his legs kicking) and as a result he falls down which usually means you start the sequence all over again. It’s fixed on some kind of timer once you start climbing and only by trial and error do you eventually conquer the task. It’s further complicated by the fact that you use the wall climb a lot which includes a really bothersome polar bear encounter where you have to really have to master this ability.

Other moves are like this too including throwing a bola (the ice is right in front of me!) and the pushing the sliding box gimmick (get a better grip already!). All of them seem to work right on luck rather than skill. Switching between the characters is also something of a misstep as you are never sure what the other character is going to do while you are not in control. The worst offender is when you are not controlling Nuna who has a horrible habit of missing her jumps or running right into an enemy’s waiting hands to be devoured. It as if the developer’s didn’t quite compensate for her slow nature when the fox moves so darn quick.

In the graphics section, I mentioned that I was not a fan of the detail on the spirits. Well, later in the game the fox gains this power that he can control the spirits, usually right to left, up and down and even sometimes diagonally. This is so Nuna jumps on them and then the fox and the spirit get Nuna to a previously unreachable point. Except the fox’s power only goes so far and then you have one of two scenarios. Scenario one, you are in a time crunch for example, something is chasing you and the spirit doesn’t move correctly. Death by mauling. Scenario two, fox gets too far away from Nuna and she’s still standing on a spirit. Spirit completely disappears, and Nuna falls to her death. The later is rage inducing but I suppose it does teach you to keep the fox close to Nuna at all times.

The game’s difficulty is not meant to be hard. Heck, one could classify it more as an educational title with some game elements if you really wanted to be crass about it. But the game does have tedious spots where you will die over and over again until you get it right (Final Chapter, I’m looking at you). And sometimes, dumb luck plays a role too as once you die three or four times in a given spot, a glimmer of a clue will appear because of where Nuna or the fox respawn on the last checkpoint. Frustrating game mechanics should not be a determining factor in difficulty but it is the case here.

Foxtales DLC

The Foxtales DLC is available separately or as a part of the Arctic collection bundle. The basic premise is that Nuna and her fox companion are chasing a mouse through the wilderness. Eventually the mouse gets lost in the currents of the ocean. This leads to an altercation with a much bigger mouse as Nuna and her fox learn to respect all things equally.

In terms of gameplay, it’s involves a lot of rowing a canoe, getting off that canoe to solve a puzzle and then hopefully that canoe is in the right place so you can continue. It’s an absolutely frustrating mechanic as rowing requires a lot of practice and never quite seems to go in the direction you want it to. They also introduced Orbs which you grab from Spirits and then throw into certain rocks that block your progress. This is also pretty frustrating as they shatter very easily and require you to try the same action umpteen times.

The DLC is completely separate from the main story and can actually be played before the main game. But I wouldn’t recommend it as it will probably deter you from playing the main game. It’s that bad. The story is nice and has the same heart we are familiar with but it takes twice as long as it should. The three chapters are fairly short, but I died easily more times during playing Foxtales than I ever did with the main story. It all had to do with rowing that #%(*^ canoe and dropping that Orb yet again in the wrong place.

Replay

The game is not very difficult to complete. Most of the difficulty doesn’t come from the game itself but from the game mechanics explained above. Honestly, you can run through the adventure in about 3 hours if you don’t care about anything except the story. The Foxtales DLC is even shorter, only lasting about an hour of gameplay (as long as you are adept at piloting a canoe). However, where the game does become longer is when it comes to Cultural Insights.

Some are given over the course of the game but most will have be collected via owls that are sometimes in front of you or hidden in a minor fashion. One can also go back to previous levels via a chapter select as well. I honestly wish they added a “Lego” aspect to the owls where you have to go back to previous levels and use your new abilities to get to a hidden or secret area (and as a result, more owls to collect). But unfortunately, it is very straight forward to collect almost all of the owls.

Once you unlock an insight, you can then watch them in any order you wish. This will highlight a various aspect about the Alaskan native people and their culture. I found these to be very entertaining and educational. My wife found them to be an absolute bore, so it’s not for everybody. This will add about another hour to your game time.

Achievements are as straight forward as can be with 15 of them for a 1,000 points. Eight of the achievements are story based and cannot be missed. The remaining seven deal with the Cultural Insights and honestly are very hard to miss except for a couple of them. Even if you do miss them, you can always back to Chapter Select and try to find that one elusive owl or two again.

The Foxtales DLC adds four more achievements for a total of 175 points. Three of the four this time are story driven and then the remaining achievement is related to five more cultural insights which must be found (2 of which are received automatically, and 3 are “hidden”). Again, none of these are hard and shouldn’t present any problems.

Heart

While I tend to be pretty strict when it comes to scoring criteria, I felt the need to add a category below in my scoring: Heart. The game has plenty of heart and the story will touch you (provided you have a soul). In addition, if you take the time to watch the Cultural Insights, you will learn a thing or two (I would have liked an option to watch it all the way through instead of only segments). It’s sweet, the story of Nuna and her arctic fox companion and it has a satisfying ending.

Summary

No surprise to anybody reading this who knows me, but I can be very cheap. I bought the Arctic Collection bundle on sale through Xbox Live recently and certainly do not regret my time with the purchase. However, I would be hard pressed to pay full price ($18.99) for basically a weekend of gaming fun. It has frustrating controls at times, and despite the giant heart of this game, it can be very tedious.

With that said, the game is beautiful and if you turn up the volume enough one can almost become a part of the Alaskan Wilderness that you are traveling through. If you are willing to forgive some control issues and can catch this on at least a 50% sale, I think you will be happy with your purchase. Recommended (except for the DLC) and always be sure to keep your fox companion close by so that Kisima Ingitchuna (translated to “I am Not Alone”).

Disclaimer: The reviewer bought a digital copy from Xbox Live. He spent his 8 hours of game time learning how to wall climb with a twitchy fox, jumping into the water dozens of times to his doom with a cumbersome Nuna, watching all of the cultural insights with his son and bringing the balance back to where it belongs (that would be my wife). He also managed to gain 19 of 19 achievements which includes the main game and the Foxtales DLC.