Tunic

 Xbox Series X
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 311 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 231 out of 311
  2. Mixed: 26 out of 311
  3. Negative: 54 out of 311

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  1. BrueBear
    Mar 23, 2022
    6
    Beautiful graphics, amazing music, and very creative. Unfortunately for me the combat was a too sluggish. Simple, but felt like the weapons must have been too heavy for the character of that makes sense. Just a personal preference I guess.
  2. eva3si0n
    May 11, 2022
    7
    I only met Tunic thanks to Xbox Game Pass. And Tunic is a very deceptive game. I expected, like most players, an indie game to be a vagabond, not a Dark Souls counterpart in the indie genre. Yes, in the settings you can turn on the death mode. But you don't expect harcore gameplay from Tunic at all. For a game Tunic has done for the most part looks great. It is worth trying, especiallyI only met Tunic thanks to Xbox Game Pass. And Tunic is a very deceptive game. I expected, like most players, an indie game to be a vagabond, not a Dark Souls counterpart in the indie genre. Yes, in the settings you can turn on the death mode. But you don't expect harcore gameplay from Tunic at all. For a game Tunic has done for the most part looks great. It is worth trying, especially since it is available in Game Pass.… Expand
  3. kamikazegrannie
    Apr 10, 2022
    5
    An extraordinarily good puzzle/exploration game that's bogged down by clumsy combat, and difficulty ramps that will make you want to give up. It's a shame, this could have been one of the all-time great indies were it not for the combat.

    A few things out of the way first: the graphics, music, and aesthetic are fantastic. There's a very miniature/tilt-shift look to everything, and it's    An extraordinarily good puzzle/exploration game that's bogged down by clumsy combat, and difficulty ramps that will make you want to give up. It's a shame, this could have been one of the all-time great indies were it not for the combat.

    A few things out of the way first: the graphics, music, and aesthetic are fantastic. There's a very miniature/tilt-shift look to everything, and it's almost too cute. As the game progresses and you get deeper into the world, it does a great job of bringing you along with it. This game says very little to you, but still tells its story very well. It is clearly trying to drum up nostalgia for NES-era adventure games, and it nails it without being too on-the-nose. How it reveals things to you—both in story and in gameplay—is expertly done.

    This games puzzles aren't really puzzles in the traditional sense. It reveals things to you over time, but leaves it to you to realize that they have been revealed, and how to use what you've learned effectively. Its solutions are well hidden but not obtuse; I was able to complete the game with its "true" ending, and find many of its secrets without the use of any guides. The only cheating I did was to look up some things that would've required me writing down the solution myself, which would've been tedious but extremely on brand for the feeling the game was trying to evoke. Progression, puzzle-wise, this game is incredibly fair.

    What is less fair is the combat, which felt sluggish at best and infuriating at worst. While I feel most of what it required of the player was clear, actually accomplishing it meant grinding against enemies far too often, only winning due to what felt not like better execution but a better roll of the RNG. The difficulty didn't ramp linearly, but instead at steep cliffs requiring you to grind past them. A few times, it caused me to put the game down and I wasn't sure I was coming back. The combat is tedious in a different way from the puzzles: you need to sit through somewhat lengthy battles, and a few mistakes mean "start over". Any attempt to move through them faster will result in failure. None of this would necessarily be bad if it was fun, but there's nothing fun about it, again given the tedium plus feeling you won because of a lucky sequence of attacks.

    The combat would maybe even be fine, if they didn't unnecessarily stretch it out. There's a late-in-the-game "rush" you have to do against several waves of enemies, and it's incredibly unforgiving. This feels completely detached from the story, and feels like nothing more than an attempt to squeeze out some extra time out of the game. Up until that point I was willing to go along with it, but that made me just put the game into "no fail" mode to move forward. They could've skipped this and it would've made zero difference.

    Outside of combat, navigating the overworld was pretty unintuitive and takes way too long to become straightforward. Yet, you have to do it a lot. I wasted a significant amount of time just playing the "how do I get back to that spot" game, which isn't very fun nor interesting.

    Overall this game is really difficult to recommend to anyone: the extraordinarily punishing combat will alienate people looking for the excellent puzzle/exploration mechanics, yet the combat itself doesn't feel tidy, deep, nor interesting enough to make the more hardcore want to stick with it. The developers would've been better off scaling the combat back to let the great parts of the game really shine, but as it stands it's a game with too narrow of an audience. Huge bummer, really.    … Expand
  4. Funny7Cloud
    Jun 11, 2022
    6
    如果脑子不能跟作者对上线，玩着会比较痛苦，引导实再太差了一些，这样的开放世界又有等级压制就非常不适合上手。当然游戏也有很多不错的优点和创意，但是还需精心打磨。
  5. archgrove
    Mar 23, 2022
    5
    An initially charming game with a badly designed difficulty ramp and unnecessarily obtuse mechanics.
  6. jazzy_jeff
    Mar 19, 2022
    6
    I can see why a lot of people are enjoying Tunic, but I find it frustrating. You don't know where to go so you wander for 15 minutes, finally find a passageway behind a wall, die, and then you have to re-find the path again which isn't easy because a lot of areas look so similar. It gets old not knowing where to go next in games; add in the most maddening parts of Dark Souls and you end upI can see why a lot of people are enjoying Tunic, but I find it frustrating. You don't know where to go so you wander for 15 minutes, finally find a passageway behind a wall, die, and then you have to re-find the path again which isn't easy because a lot of areas look so similar. It gets old not knowing where to go next in games; add in the most maddening parts of Dark Souls and you end up with something that makes you question how you're spending your time.… Expand
  7. Jesus2323
    Mar 17, 2022
    5
    So far it seems like a fun and challenging game but it seems to me a copy in many aspects of zelda thats why my rating
  8. xaviar_nl
    Mar 25, 2022
    7
    The game looks gorgeous, and I like the fact that initially you cannot 'read' how everything works in the game (it is revealed to you gradually while playing the game).
    I had fun playing it for quite a while, but what turned me off of the game were the considerable spikes in difficulty in the game. Also, at times it can be quite unclear what you have to do next. And as the game map is    The game looks gorgeous, and I like the fact that initially you cannot 'read' how everything works in the game (it is revealed to you gradually while playing the game).
    I had fun playing it for quite a while, but what turned me off of the game were the considerable spikes in difficulty in the game. Also, at times it can be quite unclear what you have to do next. And as the game map is quite large, that made for some frustrating gameplay.
    Maybe I'm just not the intended public for this game, but I'd say it could have done with some more fine-tuning...    … Expand
  9. balzak
    Mar 18, 2022
    7
    Buen juego, se comprende que constantemente lo referencien con un zelda aunque para mi solo toma inspiración del primer titulo de dicha saga, soltarte en un mundo y apenas unos pocos textos poco explicativos te vas adentrando en un mundo en el que desde un inicio te va atrapando el querer mejorar o encontrar aditamentos que te ayuden a vencer a aquellos enemigos que parece que no lesBuen juego, se comprende que constantemente lo referencien con un zelda aunque para mi solo toma inspiración del primer titulo de dicha saga, soltarte en un mundo y apenas unos pocos textos poco explicativos te vas adentrando en un mundo en el que desde un inicio te va atrapando el querer mejorar o encontrar aditamentos que te ayuden a vencer a aquellos enemigos que parece que no les puedes hacer frente aun, entonces habrá que explorar cada rincón y eso verdaderamente atrapa en el juego.

    Me he encontrado que a muchos jugadores les ha terminado de agradar la música relajante pero es ahí donde encuentro el bemol, si bien el juego es un indie, son aveces los arreglos musicales que tiene el juego que no me hace separar la idea de un indie barato, me hubiese gustado una mayor variedad de melodías o al menos que estas fueran algo distintas una de las otras y no la mayor parte del tiempo la melodía relajante de juego de puzzle indie.    … Expand
  10. LeicesterCityFC
    Mar 24, 2022
    7
    Good feeling of hitting, interesting atmosphere, cute fox.
    But it is so hard to understand map and puzzle especially latter part.
  11. fastoch82
    Oct 2, 2022
    6
    The game may be great, but it failed to keep me playing past its beginning (I picked up the sword and hit the first bell), because of a poor difficulty management.
    The game is unnecessarily difficult at times and navigation can be quite a pain, especially when you respawn too far from where you died.
    I much more enjoyed my experience on Death's Door, to quote a game which shares many    The game may be great, but it failed to keep me playing past its beginning (I picked up the sword and hit the first bell), because of a poor difficulty management.
    The game is unnecessarily difficult at times and navigation can be quite a pain, especially when you respawn too far from where you died.
    I much more enjoyed my experience on Death's Door, to quote a game which shares many similarities with Tunic. Death's Door is an example of a game where the learning curve is just perfect and where dying never feels unfair.
    I think Tunic is overrated and games should never be reserved for elite hardcore gamers. It's not just a matter of patience, some gamers just can't spend countless hours in the same game hoping that success will eventually come...
    Developers should know better than anyone that balance is everything.    … Expand
  12. aandrade81
    Apr 8, 2022
    7
    Tunic é um jogo de visual simplório com muita exploração, lembra um pouco death's door, porém com qualidade inferior. O nível de dificuldade é invertido, começa difícil e com passar do tempo (evolução do jogador) vai se tornando mais palatável e com isso a exploração fica bem bacana.
  13. LupinXXIII
    Jun 12, 2022
    7
    Déjà vu. Tunic is yet another indie action-adventure game with an isometric perspective and a likeness to Zelda and the Souls games, coming right off the heals of last year’s Death’s Door. Like that game, I don’t find much of Tunic to be especially exceptional and parts of it are frustrating or unpolished. Still, I think Tunic has a leg up on Death’s Door in a number of respects. The gameDéjà vu. Tunic is yet another indie action-adventure game with an isometric perspective and a likeness to Zelda and the Souls games, coming right off the heals of last year’s Death’s Door. Like that game, I don’t find much of Tunic to be especially exceptional and parts of it are frustrating or unpolished. Still, I think Tunic has a leg up on Death’s Door in a number of respects. The game isn’t as formulaic or pastiche. With less of an emphasis on combat and even puzzle-solving (for whatever little puzzling Death’s Door has) and a greater focus on exploration, Tunic finds a better moment-to-moment balance in its pacing. No area of idea overstays its welcome. The crown achievement is the in-game manual, pages of which are scattered about the world. These pages fill in some clues about how to progress through the cryptic game with things like combat tips and dungeon maps. It’s a nice diegetic nod to the manuals and guides of old in the vein of the original The Legend of Zelda. Games like Fez and The Witness are clearly an inspiration here. Tunic gets a few other details right. The camera is more dynamic, especially during boss battles. You can’t walk off ledges to your death (although I somehow managed to do so accidentally just once). Dungeons are brisk and progression through them is fairly organic, with little in the way of keys or staged combat encounters. The world is compact and it doesn’t take too much time to get around even without the fast travel options that open up later on. The boss battles can be very tough though and the game is occasionally too cryptic for its own good, but usually only for non-essential things.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

16
#16 Best Xbox Series X Game of 2022
9
#9 Most Discussed Xbox Series X Game of 2022

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 21
  3. Negative: 0 out of 21
  1. GAMES.CH
    Oct 6, 2022
    86
    Tunic is one of those games that won’t let you go until you see the credits rolling. It’s insane, what Andrew Shouldice and his small team came up with and how much lifeblood was poured into this action adventure. Definitely an indie title you should not miss.
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  2. Vgames
    Jun 5, 2022
    90
    Tunic demands all of your attention to experience its world and mysteries as intended. Fortunately, with excellent world design, fun and diverse gameplay and extraordinary ways to keep you interested in what to come next, it truly deserves that investment and focus.
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  3. XboxEra
    May 27, 2022
    70
    TUNIC is both an incredible and incredibly frustrating title. The combat lets down what otherwise is a masterpiece.
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