When I first started playing Hob I was really excited about it because I'm old school and any time a game has a look and feel of Zelda I get excited. I initially thought that the game was going to have a Metroidvania aspect to it and even claimed that it was Metroidvania. It is not though. There are only a few powerups that you obtain throughout the game - 3 in fact - that enable you to reach areas that you previously couldn't. These are given to you in areas where you will immediately need them in order to progress and although there are a few hidden areas where you can backtrack and use them in areas you already completed, there is very little reason to return to them unless you are chasing achievements, which is not something I do.
Initially I enjoyed the fact that you are not given any backstory or indication as to why it is that you are where you are or what your mission is but as time went by I really started to get frustrated because the world, while not huge, is big enough that it can be very difficult to have any idea about where it is that you are supposed to go next. They took this intrigue and forcing the player to determine the story to the next level by even making the map cryptic. There are various symbols on the map but at no point in time is it actually defined what these symbols actually mean.
So mostly, when you can't figure out what you are supposed to do next you basically have to just wander the entire map hoping to find an area that you haven't been to yet and stumble upon a dungeon or area that you somehow missed when you were there before. I might have appreciated this sort of grind if the killing of enemies actually meant something in an XP sense but there is no XP or levels in this game at all and therefore combat is something that outside of a few areas of the game, isn't even necessary.
This brings me to my next gripe about the game: There is almost no reason whatsoever to seek out powerups because 90% of the game is rather simple puzzles and combat is basically a non-issue. As you would expect, the collectibles that you can go back and get from earlier parts of the map are exclusively weapon powerups but since there is so little combat in the game, most of which can be skipped entirely, there is NO REASON to aim for acquiring these powerups.
Let's look at this guy for example: He is likely what might be considered the most difficult enemy in the game but this is only because of the amount of hits that it takes to down it and because if he connects with you he takes 3 points off your life-bar. There's a catch though: He only has one attack sequence and it is exceptionally easy to avoid. The only way that this guy would ever kill you would be if you just stood in front of him and let him hit you. Combat doesn't improve with other enemies either, they are all equally easy to dispatch outside of these one guys that have a long spear and a shield and they aren't difficult so much as they are a waste of your time to bother with because they are really slow and killing them gives you zero benefit.
Another aspect of the game that annoyed me was that some of the puzzle sections are really long and involve a massive climb to the top of something that takes a while to accomplish. You fall a bunch of times thinking that there is going to be some major progression in the game and then you finally make it to the top only to discover that the only thing that is up there is a "view vista" and nothing else. So I just spent all that time arduously climbing up some vine covered wall and my reward is a view that I don't care about anyway.
Another beef I have that I can't properly display here is the bad camera angles. The camera is always fixed and you have no control over it and this leads to you not being able to see what is going on around you and this lead to me multiple times falling to my death or not even being able to see an enemy that is behind me.
I suppose if I was going to say anything good about this game it would be that it looks good for the most part and I appreciate the art style. I think it is called cell-shading but I am not sure about that. The story is left up to you to determine like I mentioned but mostly it is about clearing the land of this purple plague that has been unleased upon it. Once you clear all 7 of those areas the game is basically over and it took me about 7 or 8 hours of total gameplay to make this happen.
Hob was only a couple of dollars so I guess I can't complain too much but if I had paid full price for this back when it was released in 2017 I think I would have been quite upset about the waste of money.
Combat is mostly a waste of time and it doesn't really seem like they really even tried to make this a part of the game. The puzzles are really easy for the most part, which I guess is fine but since this is a puzzle game it would have been nice if there had been at least a little bit of variety in how these are done. Mostly you are just pushing electro boxes from one side of the screen to the other in order to powerup something over there and then you do this dozens of times throughout the game.
I'm glad I finished the game but knowing what I know now I probably wouldn't have bothered playing this game at all because even at a few dollars I don't think it is worth it. I do not recommend this game.
My search for a great game that isn't Elder Ring continues and next up on the list is Hyper Light Drifter. Let's hope that one is a bit better.