The omnipresence of Mr. X in Resident Evil 2 is one of the most innovative pieces of game design ever thought up. An inspired visual metaphor for the Survival Horror genre as whole, the threat of him ever looming, each moment out in the open spent looking over your shoulder and praying not to hear the sound of his crushing boots moving towards you. An experiment on the audience's relationship with tension and time, every turn of the corner, every body looted , every moment weighed; the mundane forced to become conscious and strategic, ostensibly making every second playing Resident Evil climactic. A truly brilliant piece of innovative game design.

Clearly I'm not the only one who feels that way, Studio Pixel Punk has designed a world and set of characters around a similar mechanic. A large cast of automotans are slowly losing their sentience, you Alma are tasked to find five shards that'll defeat the automotans that are already lost, the Unsighted. Along the way you will find meteor dust that'll keep whatever ally you choose in the game alive, the rest will disappear for good.

On paper this is a brilliant concept, similar to Mr X this acts as an ever looming threat that pushes you out of the reflexive part of your brain and forces you to approach exploration and combat with the weight of a chess move. Each new location a chance at finding more meteor dust, each repeated battle spent learning the attack patterns of an enemy weighed against literal clocks counting down, and whole parts of the game being possibly lost, the game constantly urging you to move on and move fast. This paired with its Metroidvania elements create an interesting formula for player engagement, atleast in theory.

The automatons at risk provide you with weapon upgrades, shops for materials, crafting opportunities and most importantly, context for this world, so when you lose these characters, you feel it. It's a mechanic that takes more from the player than it gives in return. Where Mr. X was a physical barrior to parts of your map, a pacing mechanic to literally push you from point A to point B, Unsighted feels more artifical, the countdowns constantly reminding you that you are playing a game and you need to move on to the next level, otherwise you might never have that chance.

Look, I'm sure this idea clicked for somebody out there, I'm sure that choice between life and death feels heady and satisfying for a certain kind of person, thematically, narratively, it's brilliant, it's innovative but in practice for me it's just anxiety inducing and not in a fun way. It's uncomfortable and above all else it feels forced on you in a way I can't fully describe. I found myself saying multiple times, ‘let me just do what I want’, as opposed to teleporting back to base to give another character 2 Hours to live.

Unsighted gives you a chance to turn off it's core mechanic, so I did and played the game as a really crafty patchwork of more traditional ideas. It's parry centred combat mechanics managing to be both challenging yet approachable , it's characters campy but endearing, it's world seemingly always bigger than you'd expect (both vertically and horizontally). It's not a masterpiece but overall I can't complain, it's a really weighty offering. The developers really took a risky swing on a novel idea and though they didn't hit it out of the park, they endeavoured to make the rest of the game worth your time regardless. I recommend.

Really great overworld and dungeon exploration, nice atmosphere, fun progression. Every dungeon has a unique mechanic and the map is so interconnected it's great seeing how it all fits together. Story is pretty simple but it's just enough to give the game a unique vibe and never feels like you're stuck in cutscene or textboxes for too long. Character designs are nice but they don't have much dialogue sadly, even as you rank them up with gifts, and even when they do speak they're kind of all the same archtype of "Yay friends! I love you! Let's work together and save the world!" but whatever, they're fine. Combat is smooth and fun. It's based mostly on a parry system, and I am just not good enough to parry if there's multiple enemies or bullets on screen, I can only do the perfect parry timing if I'm focusing on specifically on one enemy and nothing else and can nail the timing lol, but there's enough overpowered equipment and synergies in the game that even I could get by anyway. The game seems like it can fit various playstyles, so no matter which NPCs you keep alive, you can form a strategy based on either weapons, consumables, accessories, etc.

The timer system is controversial - I kept it on the whole time because I am trying to challenge myself to go outside my comfort zone, however I can say in retrospect that I would have enjoyed the game a lot more without it. If you are the type of person who always finds yourself taking 12 hours to beat games that all the reviews say are "a short 7 hour-game", if you like taking your time, going back and exploring everything on the overworld again when you get a new ability, or just if you feel stressed knowing that every time you die, every time you go the wrong way, every time you're slow solving a puzzle can have permanent drawbacks - don't do what I did, Turn on Explorer Mode!

As far as "accessibility modes" go in games, it's really not much of a cop-out, you can still get basically the full intended experience, and if you're like me, you will enjoy the game way more without that stress. You can actually explore instead of bee-lining to the next marked destination. If you're like me and hate ever wasting a resource or knowing you might be missing stuff, just turn it on and don't look back. It was like being forced to play a game with your left hand when you're right-handed, I just could not go against the way my brain is wired to go slowly, and every time I skipped a room because "well I can't explore right now" it was painful. But a lot of people seem to love the timer system and feel it added stakes to the game! It's just... not for everyone.

Time is running out.

The old world is ablaze. It’s dry rotten foundation, built upon exploitation and the worship of hierarchy, has been exposed. Igniting into an all consuming inferno. Without the prospect of salvation to the return of ‘normalcy’, the dying throes of empire spitefully seeks to prevent a new world from taking it’s place. It’s administrators would rather self-immolate and see us all as turn to ash, than forfeit any concessions. And so, until that which imposes it’s order is decisively suffocated, we are all left burning. Left only to rely upon community to sustain us so that we may survive through this calamity.

Virtue is found only in crisis. Our self-prescribed ideals are conceived hollow, only given substance once tested through fire. How strong is our commitment to each other once faced down the barrel of material reality? Your energy, your time, your resources, your attention, your love, your emotional spirit. There is a limitation to that which you can provide for those whom you would wish to care for. A limit that falls short of the needs of all you meet. An uncomfortable truth becomes apparent.

You cannot save everyone!

Whether you are actively aware or acknowledge it, you are conditioned to make social choices. To become increasingly selectively of those whom you would seek to connect with and form bond. Gatekeeping those whose company you should foster. Lest you become aware, and therefore culpable, in the starvation inflicted upon those with untreated needs. Especially needs which you had the means to alleviate. To then assign a cost and expected return in the maintenance of the relationships around you, and make judgement that you are able and willing to sustain them. To also reappraise these judgements as necessary so that you may jettison away those whom exceed your capacity. You convince yourself it is not in cruelty nor malice but pragmatic necessity in which you do so. To overextend yourself jeopardises the survivability of both yourself and everyone who relies upon you, at least while you still prioritise their lives.

As so thanks to your considered discretion, you make it to see the rise of dawn. The fires have finally embered away. New life and a new world is to be re-birthed from the ashes. One that requisites a new foundation. An ethos. A shared conviction to form the basis of our lived relations. What virtue were you able to forge within the flames? A selective love? Deliberations upon whom you can extend kindness? Is it really so disparate from the exploitation and hierarchy before? Or are the marks of the old world branded deep beyond your skin?

You may not have been able to save everyone. But did you even try?

(Unsighted is a game that attempts to invoke desperation. To challenge your conviction as you are pressured by the clock, as a colourful cast of slowly dying characters is left to the mercy of your video-game acumen. This imposing mechanic centralises much of the experience, you don’t have the luxury to absorb its scenery, to explore every nook and crevice, to find the specific key to an inconvenient placed lock. And although this option is able to be toggled off, this discomfort is an integral part of the experience. So that you may introspect your response, and internalise how you adapt to it’s presented scenario. How severe such a lesson is, is varied. The game’s play time with large range as it is heavily based on how quickly you are able to adapt to it’s systems, and in turn how much you are forced to engage with it’s pressure.

Beyond this the game is very satisfying to play. It is quality of life enhanced parry-slop. Through positioning and parrying, assisted by very generous audio and visual cues, you are able to push through all of its combat challenges. And while the lack of variety in how you address each conflict may intuitively seem to be a concern, due to omnipresence of the clock you are instead grateful for this predictability. Efficiency is your main and only pressing concern. This is another trapping of course, as the game through making it so clear on what it demands from you, leaves only you solely accountable for your failings.

My only wish is that the game leaned more into it’s frictional aspects. The game overall too polished and streamlined for it’s own good. For example, the ‘relationship’ mechanic with NPCs is simply associated with how many units of the life extending items you have provided to each, which I feel could have been repurposed to be more involved. The main narrative is fairly removed from your ‘performance’ and operates independently from it without any commentary, likely due to logistical complexity. I recommend this game to all those fairly acclimatised to action games, as in more than ways than one it will challenge you. Just make sure you have the current capacity to deal with the additional anxiety it would impose upon you, lest you be forced to jettison it away.)

What if dark souls, classic zelda and the plot (and visuals) of megaman X had a child? That's Unsighted.

It's very clear this is a love letter to 90's era gaming. I was filled with memories of those days immediately from the art style to the gameplay to the writing. This game was made of my childhood.

It's very by the book in everything. The writing will not be something you remember forever, but it'll do. The structure feels like playing link to the past for the first time. If you loved those days and you love top down rpgs, this isn't a bad thing. It does exactly what it should do and it does it well.

It's somewhat challenging but it's a gentle accessible challenge. despite the classic zelda style combat, it incorporates parrying, as do all games these days, but the timing windows are very very very generous. There's an impending doom about the overall story as all the npcs are dying and you have to collect items to keep them alive. if you don't like that, you can turn that part off and relieve the pressure. I recommend at least trying to live with it and accepting the looming threat of failure. It adds to the narrative.

This is the video game of video games. In it's every piece, I feel like I'm following the recipe for such a game. This is both charming and somewhat tedious if you are not in the mood for questing and crafting and such.

the good:

• unsighted has a great world building and overall setting - the setting itself is nothing too exciting, but well made nonetheless. loved the atmosphere while exploring the vast, abandoned and unsighted infested cyberpunk city.
• the story was well written and engaging. quite emotional as well at some point. told over the course of the game with simple dialogues and gorgeous cut scenes.
• characters are adorable and memorable throughout the game.
• combat feels polished and plays excellent. the whole combat is more or less built around parry. the parry windows are fairly big and the payoff for a successful parry is huge. the mechanic itself works kind of like in sekiro, so if you whiff it's still a block in the end.
• metroidvania aspects are well made and fit into the game. honestly they're actually fun and some of the "tools" are useful outside of standard "metroidvania"-progression and mostly based around all sort of range weapons.
• bosses are unique and somewhat challenging. may need a couple of tries (or not if you abuse cogs [consumables]), but nothing too fancy except two bosses tied to the secret ending.
• exploring the areas is quite enjoyable and feels rewarding at any point in the game.
• the difficulty settings. difficulty isn't built around a simple mode like "easy", "normal or "hard". you have certain settings and option at the start of the game and while playing, for example: deactivation of the time limits (robots going rogue), easier combat, some combat power ups called cogs and more. kinda like the build your own difficulty kit.
• the puzzles are decent. crosscode comes to mind even tho the puzzles in unsighted are overall easier and less complex. i personally liked it that way, but that's preference.
• top notch pixel graphics and a well crafted art style in general. soundtrack is quite good and atmospheric. unsighted just wants to be part of the speed running community from the core of the game.

the debatable:

~ sequence breaking the game is easily done even in the first play through and can potentially be done in many places all over the game. for me this one's a huge positive, since such things always ad up for future runs and speed running in general. could be a bad thing for some people getting stuck cause of it tho.

~ unsighted mechanic - every single character (the main character is no exception to this) has a given time next to it's name. if this time is over, the character goes unsighted and is basically lost for the rest of the play through. it's definitely not a negative even if you dislike permanent loss and / or time limits, since u can simply disable it at any point in the game. on the other hand it does add a lot to the atmosphere and plot tho, so keep that in mind if you're planning to deactivate it.

~ there could be overall a bit more text and dialogue for my taste.

~ you can offer "meteor dust" to the named npc's, increasing their live span and affection to you. this whole thing itself isn't a bad feature and i kinda liked the idea. sadly the npc's answers are the same after every single gift, with an exception after the last one, yet kinda disappointing. this could be so much more in terms of character development.

the bad:

• iris talking bs about parry after every single death. i do love you little one, but it starts getting annoying quickly. add an instant skip button for this dialogue or a disable option in the settings.
• the "wind" in the upper level wasn't that great. it didn't add anything to the quality of platforming and is constantly slowing you down for no reason.

This title is a top-down action adventure and Metroidvania developed by Brazilian indie studio Pixel Punk. The MC is called Alma, an automaton warrior in a world where machines are losing their sentience because the life-giving resource, Anima, is running out. This sets the stage for a story full of urgency and difficult choices, as every character has limited time before becoming “unsighted,” a mindless husk.

The game’s strongest feature is its time mechanic. NPCs have real in-game timers, forcing you to decide who to save and who you might have to sacrifice. This gives emotional weight to exploration and replayability, with multiple endings depending on your actions. Combat is another highlight: fast, responsive, and skill-based, with parries, melee weapons, and guns creating a satisfying flow.

Its pixel art, atmosphere, and music also stand out, making the world both beautiful and haunting. Despite it's main standout for me being the time mechanic, and it's story, I also consider it's vibe to be one of the best I've experienced. But I'm biased since I love Cyebrpunk and Synthwave, so if you are also into this sort of thing, than this is definitely a must-play.

However, the ticking clock won’t appeal to everyone. The constant pressure can feel stressful, discouraging leisurely exploration or full completion. Some areas suffer from confusing platforming and navigation, while occasional difficulty spikes can frustrate. The writing and pacing can also feel uneven, with moments of filler dialogue or mechanics that don’t land as well as others.

Overall, this game is a distinctive and memorable indie adventure. It blends solid combat, emotional storytelling, and unique urgency in a way that few games attempt. For people who enjoy tension and meaningful decision-making, it’s a hidden gem, but those looking for a relaxed Metroidvania experience may find its time pressure overwhelming. This is definitely one of the best indies that I've ever played, and I highly recommend looking into the next work of the same developers, called "Abyss X Zero" if you liked this one, I'm very excited to play it.