Mastering it is a must, as is being able to quickly cycle through the items you might need that aren’t already hotkeyed to X, Y, and B. Even more vital to your ability to stand toe-to-toe with Tunic’s bosses, however, is the dodge roll that gives you a very brief window of invincibility.
#Eastward review ign manual#
There are no difficulty settings to choose from in Tunic there is only “Figure It Out.” A simple multi-hit sword-attack combo is both hinted at in your manual pages and something you might discover on your own anyway, and it will be crucial to your chances of survival.
They are many, they are memorable, and they are the good kind of nasty. Let’s talk a little more about those boss battles. And if you’re wondering, you can only save your game at flame-lit shrines scattered about the world, and while doing so will restore your health and magic bars, the trade-off is that all of the enemies reset, too. Larger hero versions of the vanilla baddies of various types move slower but hit harder, and that healthy helping of boss battles are not to be taken lightly. Their AI doesn’t stand out as overly smart or stupid, but each one hits with a wallop. No matter their size, your opponents are no pushovers – even the simplest of foes, like a Husher or a Autobolt, can drain your health rapidly. Like the old-school classics it clearly takes inspiration from, Tunic tells you nothing. Enemies in or around water are effectively impervious to dynamite as well, as the lit sticks instantly fizzle out if they touch water… as you’d expect if you think about it. Rather, it will hit your target, then bounce off and roll around on the ground – depending how it lands – before finally combusting. Don’t try to throw them at an opponent on a ledge, for instance sure, Tunic’s got a pretty good arm, but the dynamite doesn’t explode on contact. They benefit from a certain… unpredictability in how they work due to their physics. Sure, they’re nice for clearing out clusters of bad guys, but against a boss’s intimidatingly large health bar the TNT is one of the most reliable ways to take sizable chunks off of it. They’re useful all game long, particularly during boss fights. My favorite among those items is easily the aforementioned sticks of dynamite you’ll have access to right from the jump. From sticks of dynamite to magic items later on – all of which you’ll find hidden in chests around the world and able to be bought from a terrifying but harmless shopkeeper – figuring out what each one does and employing them with smart strategies will lead to success far more often than quick button-mashing will.
This includes making good use of not just that basic set of moves in new ways but also your items, the applications of which are also not explained at all. Importantly, you don’t really learn any new moves after you acquire the sword in the first hour instead, it’s your tactics that will have to evolve. When you’re not nose-down in your pieced-together instruction manual, you’re out in either the overworld or one of the many dungeons where you’ll be slashing, blocking, dashing, and dodge-rolling your way to victory against Tunic’s wide variety of enemies. It’s an exceptionally clever way to guide us through. Everything must be intuited, which is done partly through exploration but primarily through the individual pages of the in-game instruction manual that you’ll find scattered about the world. Less than nothing, in fact: nearly all of its dialogue and in-game language is in an indecipherable script, Tunic never speaks, and there are no objective markers, hints, or breadcrumb trails to speak of. One of my favorite things about Tunic is that, like the old-school classics it clearly takes inspiration from, it tells you nothing. Instead, Tunic caught me off guard with its challenging combat and complex puzzles, and once I regained my footing I found that it executes on that premise wonderfully. It’s not “kiddier Zelda,” as its bushy-tailed hero suggests (though Tunic himself should be made into a real-life plush immediately). Enjoy it, because even though Tunic may look like a simplistic isometric action-adventure that draws clear inspiration from the early Legend of Zelda games, it is in reality a decidedly hardcore experience that will fiercely test both your mind and your combat abilities. It’s a gorgeous game with a colorful, almost Link’s Awakening-esque art style, beautifully serene music, and an adorable sword-wielding fox for a protagonist. Actually, nevermind – go ahead and enjoy that charm. Don’t let Tunic’s first-glance charm fool you.
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