Windbound (2020)

I played this on PS5.

I went into this game with low expectations. It was one of those games I was curious about due to its aesthetic (Windwaker/Zelda vibes), but wasn't too sure on the survival aspect. I bought it on sale for $3 or $4.

I have to say the game really drew me in at first. I loved the exploration, sailing around, and how chill it was. I was playing on adventure mode. I liked that things were learned by doing; there wasn't a lot of instruction or handholding.

Up until late game, there were several issue I encountered, but I was enjoying the game enough to see past them. But somewhere during chapter 4 the character would glitch during combat, causing her to freeze in place until she was dealt damage. This was incredibly frustrating, but I was able to finish the game. It definitely made me rush things at the end, though.

I'll try the game again in the future, since I may have discovered that bug that made the game nearly unfinishable. It's a shame the other more minor bugs couldn't have been fixed because I really did enjoy my experience, otherwise.

BUG WORKAROUND? After reading around on reddit, the freezing bug may have been caused by crafting one of the "mark" items. Someone else said they encountered the bug shortly after crafting it and this was around when I encountered it, too. I'd avoid crafting any of these to be safe.

I got a good deal of enjoyment from this game. Chill music and ambiance, with a crafting/survival progression that doesn't take a ton of grinding to get through; feels challenging enough to keep you on your toes but not so much that you can easily doom yourself with a stupid mistake. Enjoyed the story too.

Do yourself a favor and don't play survival mode unless you are a super hardcore survival game masochist. I made the mistake of starting on survival mode and almost burned out on the grind before restarting in adventure mode and completing the story to great satisfaction.

This game was really good. The visuals, story and soundtrack were amazing. The levels and combat are well designed.

This is a game that can go from casual to a harder survivalist experience, so I would recommend it to those two kinds of players. For me, I don't like grind games where you have to completely start over if you die so I chose the storyteller mode and I didn't feel overwhelmed with the survival aspect. Once you get into the groove of combat the enemies are fun to fight against, even though you feel unprepared in the beginning. I appreciate that there are ways you can customize your boat and your character with the gear and weapons.

As I said, I don't like grind games where you have to start over so even though I had fun this game is more of a one-time experience for me but you can definitely choose new game + if you want to explore more and unlock all the collectibles. There's even a free sailing mode for ultra-casual. I'm excited to see what else 5 Lives Studios puts out.

The visuals and graphics are aesthetic. It brings a Zelda-like nostalgia. The game environment is also relaxing and beautiful. I had no problem when it comes to combat and survival. However, a few things this games needs for improvement. The repetitive quest in all the five chapters is a bit tiresome and boring. If there were only different tasks and quests in each chapter, then it would have being enjoyable. The save mechanism in this game should include an autosave option instead of an only-manual save option. One can easily forget to save their progress.

Bugs, crashes and glitches can be a gamer's overall nightmare, and Windbound is the center of all of it. At one point the game can crash, and, like I explained, without saving, you loose all your progress. Even though you saved, the game crash can wipe out all your saved progress. Lastly is the game combat, I liked the game combat to be honest, but at one point it becomes slow. If they added something like skills and combo mechanism, it would make the combat a bit quicker and easier. Overall, this game is promising and enjoyable, but requires more room for improvement.

I got this game just after release after being lied to by marketing from (I think) gog.com which promised me a Zelda experience with survival elements. At that time I was considering getting a switch with breath of the wild and was itching for something similar. Such a wasted potential.

Windboud is a rougelike where you set sail and travel through various islands to… I’m unsure what it is you’re trying to achieve apart from climbing different structures, acquiring “knowledge” or other forms of “science” and repeating until whatever happens - didn’t feel like pushing through the end.

There are some good parts of the game so I’ll start with this. The visuals are really nice and beautiful. The whole world, islands, water, creatures, main character - everything looks great. Also the sailing is very nice - probably the strongest part of the game. Crafting your catamaran and sailing either by using your oar or by adjusting sail to the wind feels really satisfying and fun.

And that’s all from the fun parts. The rest ranges from annoying to simply bad. I know it’s a roguelike but the main game loop is just stupid. So what you do in the game is you try to sail to three islands on each map, activate “something”, sail to the skull island, then you get to sail through some cave, unlock something and do the same on another map. If at any point you die - you start from scratch from the first map, and they’re not randomly generated as far as I could tell (or at least are the same in the same playthrough).

And that probably would not be a deal breaker but:

• Crafting is pretty annoying
• The main character is constantly hungry
• Fighting is really bad
• Climbing is pretty bad
• Durability of items almost same as in breath of the wild
• Carrying slots are few which makes crafting even more annoying

I’ve noticed that there has been some free DLC (or content updates) added so I might check it out again (after paying full release price I feel like this game owes me something) but from the notes it doesn’t look like enough has changed to change my opinion. A real shame.