BELOW

Very interesting experience. Not for everyone, but if you like stressful alone content, with a simple yet mechanical combat and a very deep exploration and survival experience, it's a need to play

Below my expectations, but still quite enjoyable game

First, the ambiance of the game is great.
The music and mood it generates really was immersive.
Visually, you need only look at the developers 'Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP' for examples of the art style and world view used as they are very similar.

And that is probably what doomed it for me...
Spoilers below
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I got too into the game, and the protagonist, believing there was a backstory to why he/she/it was there.
Was this a quest of some kind? Perhaps a mission of revenge?
You will never really know what or why.
Even after being there at the end or perhaps cheating a bit and watching YouTube vids that covered the game as a whole or just the ending, there is no rhyme or reason for the protagonist being there that I was able to discern.
And this sorta ruined it for me.
Players are free to imagine whatever they want about it all. You can imagine your own backstory about everything in the game until the end when you get some slight enlightenment about what is going on.
And it wont be good.
If you have ever read Stephen King's novel, The Dark Tower, there are some similarities. Not exactly the same, but similar.
And that too ruined it for me, not because it happened, but because you will never know if that was the intention the game's designers had for it.
Again, you have to come up with your own narrative and it will probably be just as legitimate as anyone else's save for the developers. Maybe they will chime in at some point.

As will be noted in hundreds of reviews here or elsewhere, you are left never knowing anything.
You will continuously be saying to yourself 'What the F*** am I supposed to be doing here??!'
Well, you are expected to simply 'figure it out', which I admit you will in part but not in full, and not without feeling that if you had known some of this at the beginning, it would have prevented you from making so many mistakes.
Not knowing is probably what the developers intended simply because it if you did know the ending they strove for, you might not want to play it. Like reading King's The Dark Tower series.
But I suggest you do so anyway cause it is has a very cinematic ending.
Only thing is, after seeing it you will be asking yourself 'What the f*** just happened???'

For most of us this will create an urge to find YouTube vids explaining the game and it will ruin it for you to some degree or make some angry, but you have to admit they put the game together quite well for what they were most likely intending.

So what were my other complaints?
I do not like the fact I cannot reconfigure the key bindings. Maybe I missed something or perhaps there was some menu link I missed but I could not find it. This meant having actions requiring your hand contort quite a bit. Luckily I have large enough hands to allow me some control but if you have smaller hands it may make things difficult game-play-wise.
This too may have been the developers intentions.
Again you will probably never know unless they are interviewed about it all. If anyone finds a link to such a thing let me know.
I also did not like the length of time a torch could be used. Way too short.
Same with using the lantern. It used up resources way too fast. This is made worse by the fact I spent several areas defeating the enemies on the page only to have their 'light source' loot for the lantern go over the edge into the abyss, forcing me to restart the level by exiting knowing that everything done in the map for that area was lost and the room reset.

Now comes what ruined it for me the most.
You will die in this game. There is no real control over that. And you cannot reload a save because you cannot really save a game. There are check points and such and as will be explained in the other reviews, when you die the game goes to another boat landing on the shore and a new 'protagonist' takes over who has to find your corpse to get all the equipment you dropped. A facet of gaming that is becoming all to common today.
The fact you died made me lose a connection to the protagonist. I stopped really caring and with it much of my interest in the game. Now if my narrative told me this was a reincarnation with the memories of your predecessor then it makes sense. But don't hold your breath expecting anything vindicate that belief. Again, you make your own narrative.

If this were really thought out you would not be able to do that. At least not all of it because the game makes it sound like you are in some sort of time loop and it's you on the beach all over again like some kind of reincarnation.
That too may have been the developers intentions.
This kept it from being a complete ruin of a game for me and yes, you have to imagine your own narrative to get to this assumption otherwise you feel like 'what is the point?' and that is what you will feel at every point in the game, specially after the ending.
It seemed as if the island and its antagonist created the entire endeavor for the purposes of attracting those strong enough to survive it so they can then pull the rug out from under you making the whole thing pointless. Like a test where the higher your score the greater a potential threat you are to it so they have to get rid of you. The safest bet is not to play.
I will not ruin too much more of the ending. You can either play it or watch some vids that cover it. That is the narrative I created. That and you being a reincarnation of the previous protagonist. Or perhaps someone of a race that shared collective memories, whatever. I went through dozens of possible scenarios to help me make sense of the game so as to enjoy it more. Some elaborate, some simple. But it helped.

I was able to get around some of the limitations of the game like the fact it sorta saves things if you leave the current area of the floor into another. If I did not like what I saw then I simply exited the game and reentered it where you are just stepping into that area of the floor. Sort of like a save that happens in between maps. This allowed me a do-over. Except when you die. You're screwed then.
The inventory is limited, but I didn't mind that part. It added to the challenge.
Once you discover the 'pocket' room which you can then get to by sleeping at campfires, you can dump all your excess inventory there so your personal inventory is cleared out. I did this alot. Even though the room has 'storage' containers, they were limited. Just dump the stuff on the floor and move on. Dont even need the storage containers. And it all does pile up even in the early areas.
oh, and cold is lethal. I went into level 4's ice area and within a minute my health was down to nothing despite not taking on any enemies on that map. I could not set the map's fire source aflame fast enough.

So overall, I loved the mood, the ambiance, the music, Just not some of the mechanics of the game but if you know the workarounds you can limit this and remember, you will have to create your own narrative about the game, the protagonist, and most of the game except the ending. You will probably hate that.
And if you don't? Then simply looking for video walk-throughs beginning to end may help you see everything in this 'story' without the frustration of actually playing it.

To the developers. Bravo. You are either geniuses who created something special or whatever. Either way, I am looking forward to your other works.

Enjoy.

absolute peak (if you're patient)

A complex adventure with simple mechanics, good rewards for extensive exploration and a fair balancing system for player resources. The death mechanic is a nice touch, if somewhat very punitive at times.

it was exciting at the beginning but as you slowly progress through levels it becomes difficult with certain enemy that can kill you quickly or traps that can kill you instantly and maintaining light and hunger. After you die you have to run all the way back to where you have been killed to retrieve your items and this is where it gets really boring and tiresome.

I can tolerate the useless 5 min of slow zoomed in nothingness intro, and story that never explained, items without description of what they can do, lack of gaudiness.. however this does not excuse the poor gameplay mechanic and boring level designs.

i give it a pass

Cool game

most boring game i've ever played and i played many. no story, red enemies with geometry shape, no tutorial or any explanation, unnecesarry bonfires, low vision, wandering pointlessly.

i usually respect developers but not this one. honestly what is this sh.t ? did i pay for it? i have to check.

... those insta kill spikes, ... that long ridiculous intro. ... that starting from the beginning of the game ALL THE TIME. who s idea was this game???

Despite the nice looks and initial fun exploring this mysterious dungeon might be the game turns absurdly oppressive towards the end and you'll likely give up when all the hours spent grinding turn into hours wasted.
Even on explore mode the difficulty is sadistic even when you know what you're doing (or should be doing). Had to give up on level 16 when the key to he next level was nowhere to be found. After wasting my plentiful resources entirely searching every room for that key I've had enough. Could be a bug too, I'll never find out.

Below is a game that is nice to look at, sounds great, but is miserable to play for the vast majority of people. If this doesn't scare you off... maybe it's for you. Try at your own risk.

Wow what a game. Below is the most flawed masterpiece I've ever seen. I've never seen a game so committed to it's own core values (some may say to its detriment) and unique vision.

Below is a very bizarre cross between Knowledge-based games and Survival Horror weirdly enough. The game might seem difficult and unfair at first but once you understand the game mechanics underneath everything, it flows so well. Although at a certain point, preparing for a run takes around 30 minutes, which really raise the stakes and gives you lots of adrenaline, but it does kill the pacing of the game.

Yes the game is brutal, at time tedious and can be obtuse. but the things that it does well it does it so insanely well that I am just in awe of the game design, art, insane soundtrack, sound design (omg the sound design is just top notch), and storytelling.

Most of the most difficult and frustrating parts of my playthrough were because I was not understanding a core mechanic of the game and once it clicked, it just feels so good.

My main criticism is actually how to finish the game. I do think that the way you are suppose to finish the game is telegraphed poorly and it feels unnecessarily obtuse especially after already proving that you can surmount all of the game's challenges. I had to use a guide to actually finish the game, although to be fair I was almost there, but without it I would've been wondering around for hours.

So yeah, if you are not turned off by this game in the first hour or two, absolutely give this a fair shake because this has become one of my favorite games.

Well, let's begin...

- wrong resolution on startup (why do so many games fúck this up?)
- config menu says "back enter", if you click either word, it does not apply settings
- no ultrawide support
- no description on what the difference between survival/explore mode is
- plays MUCH better with a controller
- 5 minute long intro that does not show anything except a dark zoomed out boat (at least its skippable)
- no tutorial on what actions/buttons you got
- no tutorial about mechanics
- slow movement, need to run constantly
- no zoom, scene way too zoomed out, you can't see shít
- dark, light around player is small, hard to see anything
- even on explorer mode it's easy to die

+ good background music

Yeah, no, i have no idea why some people love this game. It does absolutely nothing for me. I'd say it's worth 5 bucks at most but even then you must be really bored to play this. Sorry, i got nothing positive to say, it's just boring.

You could study this game to better understand what "game feel" is. They nail that on every front. You could also study this to know what overstaying your welcome means and how NOT to make your game a chore instead of fun and rewarding. They didn't balance well enough in this area and as a result, that aspect overshadowed the positives. I wanted to love this game but it asks too much of you. If they cut the game length in half at very least it wouldn't be so bad. There is a glitch on the elevators where if you hold A (or something) you die for no reason. I looked up a speedrun since I couldn't waste any more time on this game and boy am I glad that I didn't see it through. The ending is not rewarding in the slightest, nor is it interesting enough to be worth the wait.

anybody who loves the first Zelda series or Hyperlight drifter - will probably love this game as well.

Below's number one problem is that, VERY early on, it asks for trust that it has NOT earned. You immediately are given the opportunity to waste resources, which I did, over and over. I happened to find key areas in a bad order. Maybe it will get fun, but so far the developers are presumptuous. I recommend this: on the beach gather but do not use anything. Ignore the first obvious room - it is more opportunity to waste resources. Do NOT hit E to camp. Climb the cliff. Get the lamp. Then go right to the tall slit door. Feel free to explore around and collect a very small number of objects, but don't shoot any arrows, and don't make camp by accident.

great game

Solid roguelike. Reminds me a bit of Necropolis in style. Includes a lot of knowledge-based systems, cool shortcuts and route unlocks. Very strong atmosphere, and gameplay strikes a really nice balance between rewarding accumulated wisdom / skill, and punishing you with emergent threats that you must learn and conquer.

There's very little by way of tutorial but that's part of the game's appeal for me. 9/10

Dive into the dark, subsist on offal, mushrooms, and grass. Dream visions by the campfire. Below, you can become so much more.

Roughly put, I see Below as a shorter Tunic with survival crafting elements. "Knowledge is the progression barrier". Does it work? Not quite. Below's atmospheric audio-visual world which asks for slow and methodical gameplay simply does not pair well with the repetition required by its roguelike half.

This leaves me in a tough spot reviewing this game. On the one hand, I absolutely loved the slow pace of this game at the beginning. Once I let my distractable mind settle to the rhythm of this game, I found myself immersed in the beaches, caves, and tombs on offer. The sparse geometric aesthetic is absolutely gorgeous, the fluid and gas dynamics excellent, and sense foreboding evil seeps from every shadow. I went from dying in the dark to recognizing enemies by their screeches, knowing how to handle every situation. The progression of attunement was very rewarding.

On the other hand, as my deaths racked up, the focus gradually turned away from immersion and progression into resource management. I wish I could say the resource management was fun. It's not hard, once you learn the crafting table and the drop tables, just tedious. Needing to do "farm runs" just distracts from the immersion.

I only played the Survival mode, but there's an Explore mode, which I may have preferred. So if you're like me, try that.

I was surprised how little attention this game received, despite having such a well-executed atmosphere and aesthetic vision. After sticking through to the end, my conclusion is that, sadly, this beautiful game found itself buried under the weight of its contradictory mechanics and ran players' patience out too soon.

good game that deserves more attention

misunderstood in its time

Below is, without exaggeration, one of the most mind-numbingly boring games I have played in my life. It looks like it will be a top-down Zelda-esque mix of "action" *coughs* and exploration / puzzle solving. And maybe it is that, it's just that within an hour of playing it all I had experienced was a complete absence of any of those things.

The first five minutes of the game is the intro, and all it comprises of is a very, very, verrrrrrrry loooong shot of an ocean viewed from a million miles away. Eventually a distant speck is revealed to be a boat as the camera moves in at a pace that would shame a dead snail, but hey! Even though its more boring than watching paint dry, its "super atmospheric" and "scene-setting" in a way that's meant to evoke 'Shadow of the colossus' / 'ico' / 'half-life', albeit lacking anything remotely interesting while it does so.

After this dull introduction you'd think they would do something to invite you in and get you excited, and you'd be wrong. The game tells you nothing of what you have to do, continues with the view being so far out that you can barely see, and does an incredibly poor job of highlighting the exit points of each single screen room.

The view is pulled back so you can see more of the landscape, and yet even running you still plod along looking for whatever it is you're meant to find amongst the washed out colours and obscured details. It took me about half an hour to figure out where to go and having done so didn't find anything worthwhile, so I thought, well, if this is the game putting its best foot forward, then it has a pretty crippled foot.

Combat is simple but unrewarding, given that, like everything else, you can hardly see it due to the view staying practically in orbit its so far out. When you add up the drab graphics, boring game-play and it obscuring everything , including what the heck you're supposed to be doing, it didn't take long before I was wondering why it was worth carrying on playing.

Maybe if you're super patient it will reveal something of interest, after maybe a few more hours of mind-numbing sh*te, but I'm of the mind-set that a game ought to draw you in somewhat faster than that. As is: it's quite helpful to be so rubbish this early on, as at least you can still get a refund if you find it to be a load of crap like I did.

It cost me about £3 and so far that's wasted money. Having played it for an hour it was the most boring hour I've spent recently on a game. Compared to the likes of Hyper Light Drifter / Tunic, which this fundamentally does share some DNA with, this is painfully dull to experience, both in the game-play and in the presentation.

If there's anything even vaguely redeeming to be had from it, they needed to push it upfront much quicker. There's no narrative to give a sense of mystery and so provide something compelling to hold onto it, so overall it's just dull as f**k whichever way I look at.

10/10

Below is an interesting and intimidating game, much different from everything I have ever played. It's strange, humid, solitary, somber, and most importantly, SILENT. Water droplets, rain, rocks dropping, small animals, fire burning, all those things can be heard clearly, the soundtrack is soft, and in the end it contrasts with the silence, making the loneliness even more apparent.

You are nothing in this giant vertical island full of immense structures. It's combat, albeit simple, is fast and relentless, one mistake and you're dead. You have to carefully plan expeditions, food, water, and remedies because the survival aspect is also steep, and you can die easily. I decided to embrace the challenge and play the game on Survival Mode. Gotta say, it feels incredible learning all its nuances in order to avoid deaths, but it can also be extremely frustrating, learning to deal with the losses is also part of this experience. 

Overall, this is a very unfair, brutalistic, and intense game. I don't know how different the Explore mode is, but Survival will make your blood boil on several occasions. Beating it, though? Makes it all worth it. I strongly recommend Below, if you are up to the task.


🎼
All of my stories are Below;
Beneath the surface, cannot grow;
Curled and naked I defer;
To shaky thoughts, all in a blur.
🎼

Great game! If you're looking to kill sometime during the weekend definitely give this game a go. It has many of the (a)rpg and survival mechanics in a compact manner. The gameplay is very captivating.

As Above So Below

This game has the most annoying beginning.

There's no tutorial, it doesn't explain what to do or where to go, you have no idea who you are, where you are, why you are. You just land your ship, presuming that it is your ship, on this island or mainland. I really have no idea which and the game isn't interested in sharing those secrets.

I spent a good 30 minutes wandering around wondering if I should even be wasting my time playing this game or is it one of those games where they're like, "Okay, we'll put a bunch of BS in the beginning so you waste about 2 hours worth of time and then by the time you figure out that it's garbage it's too late and you can't refund it. I mean this game seems very much like one of those.

There was a wall climbing portion but the design made it look like it was just part of the wall.

The game is so so very dark I could barely see anything. I mean there's a torch but it's pretty much pointless it doesn't help you see anything except the few feet around you and like 2 minutes later the torch is gone.

The whole time "playing" this game, if you could even call it playing, I was extremely bored. I had to stop playing before I literally started crying tears of boredom. This game made me physically hurt due to how bizarrely uninteresting and uncompelling it is. It was like the developers were actively trying to get the player to stop playing. As if that was their mission, make something that is so boring that people don't want to play it.

Only darkness is inside

I really enjoyed this game even tho the way i played was a bit different trying to see how far i can get in one life, i enjoyed that it had very little handholding it is simple yet somewhat difficult and at a certain point in the game feels like it introduces to many enemies but otherwise trying to figure things out all the short cuts and exploring all areas was really enjoyable tho i feel like the climbing up and down at some parts is strechted a bit to long and somewhat bothers me but overall pretty good game i have recommended it to a freind since it seems that it would be intresting for them to play too

It nails the atmosphere in a way that really sticks with you. The graphics are pretty simple, but the use of light, blur, and especially the sound design make the whole thing feel mysterious and immersive. The world and gameplay fit together so nicely and realy make exploring the world fun and captivating.

This game is clearly a labour of love and is worth every hour I invested into it playing.

It reminded me of everything great I loved about playing the original Prince of Persia/Zelda/Metroid/Castlevania and Demon Souls/Dark Souls.

No hand holding, no patronising voice over/explanations just the story explaining itself as the journey went on.

I wish there were more games like this, the visuals and music/Sound FX were amazing and the characters/enemies etc and areas/secrets to discover were brilliant!

Thank you Below, you are now among the best games I have ever played in 40 years :)

Frustrating at the beginning, but the game has something that I cannot describe that made me finish the game. Loved the atmosphere and music.

very sad that this is game was was abandoned, love the art style

kinda bullshit at times, but worth it

I wish I could give this game a middle thumb, but I think I enjoyed my time with it overall.
I think the main issue I have with the game is it doesn't commit to either of it's appeals and ends up kind of in a boring middle-ground. The visuals are really nice and the music is worth playing the game alone, but the constant stress of hunger and thirst mean you can't stay to enjoy many views. The game is also not challenging enough to be worth hardcore player investment. Combat is pretty braindead easy expect for one knife enemy, and only really gets interesting near the end of the game with the last few floors. The terrain isn't picking up much of the slack either, and its both not challenging and not very interesting to think about since its all random (expect the shops, campsites, cities, and other important structures of course). The only interesting part is that first playthrough where you don't know how anything works, but once you do after the first 1 hour, there's little left to surprise you aside from the final area.
The ending at least sticks the landing and honors the premise of the game, which was really cool to see considering I've never had that kind of experience before (if you know, you know)
I think if this team goes on to keep making games (which I hope they do since this was a good game), they need to focus on a specific crowd instead of trying to play it safe on a product that already doesn't have mass market appeal. It's the only way to stand out in this harsh industry.

Great game.

This game must be approached like you would Outer Wilds for an ideal experience. Explore everything check for random item interactions. Puzzles in the map will blend in. Shoot at things with arrows they might be buttons. Carry bombs and torches you might find passages. That said it is not for everyone. It is not merciful and death can be brutal and instant. That said this is a very pure adventure game and every death for me felt fair. You can beat the game in one trek if you know what you're looking for so play time can vary. I ground out resources a lot more than I needed.

Good game but not for everybody. If you have the patience and curious about a mysterious world then you should give it a try.

I played through Survival mode (big mistake) but I highly encourage new people to play on EXPLORE mode. You will still get the achievements and enjoy the game more. Survival mode is dumb ignore it at all cost.

You are being thrown into a random world to explore. There is no specific story.

Remember EXPLORE MODE

Interesting for the initial few hours, then it falls below sub zero.
Artistical views are not often well represented that also works well in a "gameplay" and "usability" environment.
A game that is impossible to see at 100% brightness settings (just to give "the feeling" of dark areas) and gives you headaches because you have to watch every pixel at total darkness with depth of field blur that can be oversaw, is taking the respect of time of life of the player.
I will relay in a longplay to see how this game looks until the end, having an adult life every minute is super precious.
We should consider adding a min and max age for games to be play, as an indicator that a teenager can loose 10 years (or more) of life sitting in a room meanwhile an adult can only spend some hours without going mental.

I love Capy's games, but this one didn't do it for me. I loved the aesthetics of this game, but they all come at the price of game design. I can see what they were going for, and I think my twelve-year-old self in the nineties would have loved it. Now? Not so much. I don't have time for this.

I like the music and atmosphere but I don't like playing it very much. Yes I played on Explorer.

One of the best i've ever witnessed. I didnt know i needed it.

Thank you Capy.