Released on PS4 and Switch, Farlands Journey is a Sometimes You published retro platformer. The 2D pixel art is quite colorful but gameplay is tediously repetitive.
Playing as a young witch, the goal is to reach to the exit of each overly long stage. Although one button jumps and another attacks, there is a gimmick to the combat. Instead of simply swinging the witch’s wand to attack, the player instead needs to hold the attack button to make a bubble grow to full size. Remember blowing bubbles with that little plastic wand with the circle at the end as a kid? Dunking it in the container of liquid soap? This is what the witch uses to attack only the bubble needs a few second to grow to full size. Since it is a bubble, if the wand bumps into any part of the environment, it pops and you need to start over. This gets tediously quickly and made even worse that sometimes the bubble needs to first be launched, then jumped on like a trampoline to reach higher areas. Over time, each bubble requires longer and longer to grow too.
By the end of the first stage, it is better to just jump over each enemy since the bubble mechanic is so delicate and inaccurate. Unfortunately, the rest of the experience lacks polish and variety. The level design of each stage is cheap at best and never changes. Sometimes there are dead ends. Sometimes you might fall down and have to painstakingly retread steps. Hazards also repeat just as much as the same pig enemy. The worst part is the gem system. At the end of some stages, I collected 400+ gems and murdered dozens of pigs with soap bubbles but the game doesn’t give the player anything for doing this. Since the player cannot spend the gems to unlock or upgrade anything, and killing the same pig doesn’t provide any XP, it is much more entertaining to try and reach the goal as fast as possible by avoiding as much as possible. And when you want to avoid everything as much as possible, this is a clear indicator of the game’s overall fun factor.
Sadly, Farlands Journey contains some colorful spitework but isn’t fun to play. The repetition is mind numbing and the bubble combat is a chore. The music also repeats and seems to mock the player during the long stages. Finding the hidden puzzle piece in each stage and the unnecessary hat wearing mechanic isn’t enough to save this game from its deathly boredom.
SCORE: 3/10
Also Play: Witchcrafty
Not As Good As: Witch Rise
Don’t Forget About: Pocket Witch
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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