The Way (2016)

This game is amazing if you enjoy a very specific genre of puzzle platformer and know what to expect. If puzzle platformer makes you think of games like Ori, Trine, Fez, Braid, etc. and you enjoy those types of games, then I wholly recommend this game but you can't be expecting silky smooth controls and modern polish.

This game is specifically trying to emulate two classics from the 90's Another World (aka Out of this World) and Flashback. It does an amazing job of doing so.

Expect to die a lot. Trial and error is the method for making progress. You will definitely be frustrated at repeating sections over and over due to lack of checkpoints, but part of this genre is finding the fastest route through sections and using muscle memory to get through it. You'll need to take notes, recognize patterns, experiment, etc. But the appeal to these types of games is figuring out the puzzles and patterns.

Favorite Parts:

• Interesting sci fi story
• Strange Alien Planet to explore
• Breaking into secret military bases
• Reprogramming robots
• teleportation puzzles
• Combat puzzles (eg. killing the shielded robot or making 4 shots count against 5 enemies)

I can see why this has come under fire for its controls - especially towards the end it is inevitable that the player will die many times through no fault of their own. But if, like me, you have a great deal of nostalgia for the punishing earlier era of gaming then this is actually... quite fun? It's possible that growing up with a C64 broke me in some way, haha.

Anyway it's worth persisting with the controls because everything else about this game is just lovely - the pixel graphics are a perfect evolution of that Lucasarts 16-bit style and the music is full of gorgeously wobbly Vangelis synths. The story is sweet and sad too, maybe not on the level of the best game writing but it works very well. The puzzles are just the right level of difficulty to be frustrating and then rewarding, and I like that the game itself offers hints after repeated failures.

Really enjoyed this.

I finished The Way this evening. I really enjoyed it at first, but towards the end, the controls diminished the experience considerably. Oh well, it was worth the $1 I paid for it during an eShop sale. Maybe now the Fastball song will play in my mind less frequently 😅

What to play next?... I have several shorter games I'd like to knock out before starting something longer like Mario Odyssey.

I'm going to have this song:

stuck in my head for a while, or at least as long as it takes me to beat the game. It's none other than The Way Remastered on Switch! I bought this during an eShop sale for 99 cents and, after getting 2 hours into it, I can say it was well worth the sale price!

I liked this.

There's a decent story in here if you're looking for it, but it wants to punch you in the gut and give you a moral lesson and it's just a little too melodramatic and simplistic to succeed at this in my opinion. But it's effective enough to move the action forward.

The price of admission is earned primarily by the level and puzzle design. Each level of this game gave me the same feeling I get in an escape room, where you know the objectives but have only a couple of disconnected threads to pull on. While I would stop short of saying the puzzles in this game are particularly difficult, many of them involve actually using your noodle a bit instead of brute forcing an answer or just walking between things to interact with, and they're satisfying to solve.

The environments are lush with detail and colour, which is important since you're often scrubbing through them for clues or retreading them as you go between objectives. There's a fine line to walk between making important background elements pop out and popping them out so much that it's too obvious that they're important, and The Way walks it almost perfectly (looking at you Filter No. 1). The sprite work and character animations are also a joy to look at.

There are some light platforming and arcade elements which are comparatively weak. The controls are just not suited to some of the precision jumping you're asked to do and the elegant sprite work is wasted and looks cartoony when it tries to be Mario Bros. As if to make up for the fact that you die often, the game falls over itself offering you check points and immediately respawning you after you misstep. This is more of a work around than a design solution.

The dying often thing also sits a little awkwardly next to the fact that this game plays out over decades of Major Tom's life. I feel like this game in particular would have benefited from paying some lip service to the illusion that a successful playthrough represents an unbroken chain of events from the opening of the game to the credits. But that's a bit nit picky. We all recognize that games are games and you need a retry mechanic.

The gameplay is nice and stripped down which suits its retro aesthetic. The marketing material compares it to Flashback and Another World, but I was mainly reminded of the original SpaceQuest. There's even a jet scooter desert planet chase sequence. The HD resolution aside, I felt like these mechanics could run on a 286.

The Way is not a long game (8-10 hours) and has little replay value. I'd hesitate to pay full price but it's a great pick up on sale.

Played the remastered version on the Switch.

A puzzle platformer with pixel aesthetic and nostalgic feel of Another World and Flashback.

The game's a lot of fun. Way more than I initially expected as the first level is a little off putting and probably the weakest part of the whole game.

The story of the game is interesting without over-exposing itself. The premise is simple - there's no lengthy dialogs but you have no problem understanding what's going on. There are however two parts of the story that are really annoying - beginning and the very end. In the game you play as a scientist of sorts whose wife dies. She gets buried in the ground. And then you decide to save her by taking her to an off world planet to seek out the temple of eternal life. So you dig her up, put her in some stasis chamber and off you go. But she was dead... Really and completely dead. Putting dead body in any sort of stasis pod would not restore brain functions - that part was very annoying.

Game's pixel art - and apart from the main character design and very bland first level it's pretty good. At least you get used to it but I do feel it's much better later on.

Game mechanics consist of a little bit of platforming and a lot of puzzle solving. The platforming feels a bit floaty at times and the control of the character is not the best. Luckily there are just a few truly platforming sections.

The puzzle aspect is much better and well designed. The puzzles feel interesting, make sense and are fun to solve. It all feels very natural and satisfying. And the levels do get so much more interesting with that mysterious alien feel to them.

Overall a very good game. Had it been made around the same time as Another World it would have been a classic now. Worth playing not only for a nostalgic reasons.