A clone of Limbo. So, directly, let’s start with what many will think when watching the game trailer. That this is another clone of an indie hit only with a different look.
But if we had to use the word ‘clone’ for every analysis we do, whether it be indies or AAAs, we would spend it. So we clear doubts: Yes, Never Alone plays totally in the Limbo school, but this does not prevent him from implementing
his own things and offering us an experience that is just as heartfelt and spiritual, although even more beautiful, tender and hypnotic. In fact, rarely has seen
something like this, since this work of the new e-Line Media is both a game itself and a cultural piece that seeks to preserve the culture of the Inuit, the people who live in the most extreme of Alaska, bordering the arctic circle.
They could have made a documentary, written a book or exhibited a gallery of images, but this has not been the case, showing to what extent the installation
of the Videogame has arrived in today’s society. The starting point of Never Alone is that of a story, a story of those narrated generation after generation, specifically in the Inuit legend of Kunuuksaayuka, according to relates Robert Cleveland, also known by his name iñupiaq, Nasruk. And it says:
“At a time when the Iñupiat were condemned with one snow blizzard after another, and feared to die of hunger, a small girl but already skilled in the art of hunting, went into the frozen places of Alaska in order to know the origin of so much blizzard. ”
And after a prologue that begins with force, we are given to know the two protagonists of the game: The girl called Nuna and a white fox of the Arctic. Primal style, we can alternate the control of both with a touch of button, allowing cooperative play in case of having two controls.
The control is very simple, a 2D platform with jump and two characters who must collaborate to help each other and stay together, highlighting the button Protect from the Blizzard, since from time to time it’s time to throw yourself to the ground or the blows of the wind
will throw us away , although the study has implemented imaginative ways to take advantage of the strength of the wind. The key to his proposal is to combine
the skills of one character with those of the other, such as being able to climb and pull ropes and scales that the fox has with that of dragging boxes and breaking things of Nuna, something possible this last thanks to some boleadoras magical
In the control we have some problems to put. In the case of the fox, it is difficult to jump with it in the narrowest areas, and it does not have a handle as tight as for example Simba
in The Lion King of Mega Drive / Super Nes, so sometimes it will get out of hand , also given the wide jump that it has. The girl has a very tight jump, but the problem comes from the way she throws the weapon she has. When we advance we will obtain some boleadoras, and their use will become capital to advance.
The original touch comes from that we will use the joystiq and not a button to shoot them, although it requires us to give it a side and a height to load them, and quickly move the joystiq in the opposite direction to throw them to the point we want. You get the quick trick,
but in the escape sequences of some danger, sometimes the timing of stopping, aim, charge and hit to open the stage must be measured perfectly, or the enemy
will reach us. Of course this raises a grateful extra of difficulty, but sometimes it seems a little more fault of not having polished that part of its creators than ours in control.
Given the cooperative experience that supposes, the allied AI is one of the most delicate points, and in this case it is not exempt from a somewhat erratic behavior that will
make us fail more than once a jump or avoid a danger. Therefore playing Never Alone with a friend in your local Coop is a substantial improvement of the experience.
If we do it alone, it is necessary to alternate the control of both to overcome some puzzles that will only pose some challenge in their final section, in
the last chapters of the game, proposing simple but imaginative solutions based on the spirits of nature that help us, although it is our duty to handle the divine intervention according to the puzzles they require it. And speaking of them, some make such simple platform moments when we give with their key as imaginative in their conception
