Welcome to our review of North! A game out now on Nintendo Switch!
In NORTH you play a man who applies for asylum in a city filled with strange creatures and strange customs.
Dealing with the issue of the contemporary refugee crisis while at the same time being deeply rooted in a classical cyberpunk atmosphere à la Blade Runner, NORTH features a dark synthpop soundtrack, a sprawling mega-city and weird monster-like inhabitants.
The gameplay is very straightforward and mostly consists of exploration and simple puzzles. The main difficulty is to understand what you have to do in order to get asylum. You’ve come from a foreign land in the south and find yourself lost and confused – a confusion you convey through letters to your sister back home. An important part of the gameplay, these letters help you understand your tasks while at the same time moving the narrative of the game forward.
So far the official description of the game, a game that is anything but nice. From the confusing puzzles, the immediate demise you often suffer and all lack of guidance, you are stuck in a trippy world, to say the least. Most times, you can barely see beyond a few meters. This renders the game and its surroundings a pain in the ass to walk around in.
This was clearly done on purpose to make sure the game length is not further compromised.
Supposed to be only 1 hour long, I can only imagine how quickly this game would be over without the awkwardly reddish graphics. But then again, the game does not provide any real guidance, it all comes down to figuring out what you need to do.
When you first start the game, you are thrown into the story after reading a basic letter, which will become the red thread throughout the game. You walk around the place you are at and eventually, you arrive in the mines.
I will say clearly what you need to do, I hate spoilers but this will become clear why I decided to write it all down. You have no idea what to do in the mines. Do you walk around? Do you need to find stuff? There seem to be a total of 3 buildings in these mines, which you, if lucky, can find within a game or three, maybe four. Oh, did I mention yet that you will die if you don’t head back to the hallway of the mines? No, I did not. You are every time stuck with a time limit. Too late, you need to restart.
So in short, Find the buildings, start the jack hammers in front and then pick up the stone it drops off in the back of the building. Repeat this 3 times and head back inside to talk to the creature in the pit you already passed on the way to the mines. You cleared this puzzle and can head back outside, to your place.
From here on, you are back on your own. Much like I was during my gameplay. An experience that can not be called the greatest.
I mostly disliked any sense of being able to see what I was really doing. I know the game was intended that way, but really, I was at one point walking around and I had no idea I was walking into a wall until it suddenly dawned upon me to just turn around… I saw a light in the distance and I headed back there, just to get lost again.
At another point, I entered a church where I was given the chance to convert but when I tried to, it restarted the game from the point after my last successful save point. No, really not good.
I also had some issues on my switch when it tried going from the inside of a place to the outside, often crackling could be heard and well, it seemed to suffer some lag at the same time. No fun at all.
In conclusion, for the cheap price this game comes at, I still can not, in all honesty, suggest buying the game. Do check out some gameplay vids on sites like YouTube in order to see whether or not you think you’ll enjoy it. I most certainly did not. The only thing worth mentioning is a great soundtrack, but music or graphics do not make the game.
My rating is a mere 20%
Tested on Nintendo Switch
