Road Not Taken

An entertaining oddity that never panders, enriching through tasteful adult gags and a truly earned sense of progression. [Oct 2014, p.90]

Road Not Taken proved to be a very unique game for its genre, or genres actually. The interesting marriage of what could feel like a mobile title, with the punishing difficulty and creative narrative of a console indie makes Road Not Taken a great game to have in your PS4 library.

A really deep and powerfully hitting game. On the surface you have a rogue like puzzler, with simple pick and throw mechanics. But give it a few hours and you soon realise that it’s more than that; it explores the concept of loss, fear and self-preservation.

Road Not Taken might not have too much in common with the Frost-written poem with which it shares a name, but it does manage to deliver a meditation on the value of choices and the importance of making the right ones, while also offering the player a complex layer of actual game mechanics to explore.

It’s tough and sometimes even unforgiving, and I should add that it’s not entirely stable. I came across several bugs in the game and it crashed on me twice, so that should be mentioned. However, the procedurally generated puzzles and areas really boost the replay potential, and the overall charm and originality can’t be ignored or understated.

Classic puzzle adventure with interesting characters and fun gameplay. Not for every gamer, though.

Road Not Taken is a good game, puzzle game fans will definitely appreciate it. We loved the procedurally-generated levels and the great variety of enemies, but the management of the difficulty is not perfect. Spry Fox is certainly a brilliant developer.

The more I played Road Not Taken, the more my hesitations mounted. Mixing rogue-like restarts with puzzle mechanics is an intriguing concept, and I like the opportunity to see new puzzles on each playthrough. However, the resulting problems and sense of repetition on similar (even if not identical) puzzles isn’t worth the trade-off.

Spry Fox does a solid job in presenting a polished, attractive-looking package, even if the gameplay doesn't quite meet the same standard.

Randomly generated puzzles results in increased replayability, but it also means a lack of variety – and that forms the ultimate demise of Road Not Taken when it is so clear there is a direction, an end goal, a climax. Original and novel it is, but there just simply isn’t enough reward to keep you going against the odds.

It’s amazing how sometimes the simplest of puzzle ideas can turn chaotically complex.

When I first started playing Road Not Taken, I was completely enamored by its premise, style, and world. Slowly, bit by bit, I became more annoyed and started having a little less fun as the levels progressed and as the game's initial intrigue wore off a little more.

A well built puzzle game for PlayStation 4 with beautiful visuals. However, it's quite a short game. It's best asset is the absolutely random system of maps creation.

It's an acquired taste, though, despite its popular ingredients.

An interesting puzzle game, but the roguelike elements does not perfectly match with the gameplay mechanics and the overall structure.

Niggling performance issues aside, it’s hard not to enjoy being the star of your very own fairy tale world – even if that fictional realm has a particularly odd approach to infant safety.

Road Not Taken has its charms, but it's ultimately a very harsh and unforgiving roguelike puzzler that only ultra-hardcore players might enjoy.

The cute stylings hide the deceptively difficult and overly complicated gameplay mechanics. [Nov 2014, p.76]

Artistic, and absorbing for a time. But the whimsy gives way to shallowness. [October 2014, p83]

Developer Spry Fox' first few steps into the console market definitely has its charms, but doesn't hold up in the long run. While the combination of match three game and roguelike games sounds like a good idea on paper it doesn't really work in practice.

Road Not Taken, ironically, feels like it’s stuck between two ideals. It can offer very interesting puzzle mechanics, but gets bogged down by over-complicating matters with enemy types that add frustration.