AWAY: Journey to the Unexpected Switch Review by SwitchWatch
Developer: Aurélian Régard, Jim Gennisson
Publisher: PLAYDIUS
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Release Date: 7th February 2019
Price as of Article: $16.99 USD, £14.99 GBP
Game code provided by PLAYDIUS for review
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What you see above is the awesome anime intro that plays when you load up AWAY: Journey to the Unexpected. It took me completely by surprise, but itâs a nice little summary of the gameâs story. The protagonist is not a hero or a warrior, just a regular boy whose world changes with a bang. A sinister construction company burrows into his grandparentâs house, at the same time as your parentsâ mysterious disappearance. You need to adventure out into the unknown to find out whatâs going on and where theyâve gone.
Itâs not the strongest story ever, but I certainly enjoyed the presentation. The game is set out in a style reminiscent of Super Mario 64, with doors to new areas locked behind star requirements. The game refers to itself as a âfeel-good FPSâ?, which is a pretty good summary. You have light platforming sections and some rogue-lite elements with multiple runs required through the short campaign to reach the true ending.
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Not being a traditional hero, your protagonist is quite frail and doesnât do a lot of damage with his trusty stick, either. You start with 3 hearts, so only a few hits and youâll be keeling over and heading back to the beginning of your adventure. Itâs not all bad, though, as thereâs a hidden EXP levelling system. When you die or restart a run, it will show you how much youâve earned and unlock new powers, including a charged attack, a shield, and more hearts.
To help you on your journey, you can find ally cubes that let you convince NPCs to join your party. This is described as ânegotiationâ, but itâs often unclear why some options lead to a dead end and feels more like pot-luck than a tactical conversation at times. Once they do decide to join you, you can swap to them with the L or R button. Allies will often have stronger attacks than you, and you donât have to worry about them losing health, so youâll find yourself swapping to them regularly.
As AWAY: Journey to the Unexpected is a game predominantly developed by just two people, itâs understandably a little rough around the edges. There were a couple of instances of enemies glitching through the floor, and the controls let it down a bit. Y is the run button and you use B to jump, with no way of changing these, which makes running, jumping and adjusting the camera almost impossible. The hitboxes feel somewhat delayed, too â either your swing is much further in front of you than the animation suggests, or the hitbox lasts for an extended amount of time. Itâs not a massive issue, but it does make combat feel a little clunky.
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The sound effects and music in AWAY are all reasonably high quality, with a familiar home-life anime theme playing while youâre at home and more dynamic action tunes while youâre out and about on your adventures. The jingles when you collect currency or open chests are quaint and fitting, too.
Itâs far from perfect, though. Away could definitely do with some voice talent to pad out the audio quality, and the ambient sounds of the wilderness often arenât enough to distract you from the fact that there are large barren plateaus in the environments.
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I loved the cel-shaded 2D sprites in AWAY: Journey to the Unexpected, it was what drew me to the game originally. These are definitely the highlight of the game, though the rest of the visuals are generally pretty to look at, too. The environments have decent variety but, as I mentioned, there are large expanses that are pretty bare. One nice little visual touch was time slowing down and âCRITICAL HITâ? splashing on the screen in capitals when you get a critical swing of your stick.
The performance was decent overall, but it doesnât run as smoothly as other titles on the Switch. It runs at a pretty stable 30fps, though there were the aforementioned technical hitches I experienced. Iâd definitely recommend docked play over handheld for this title.
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AWAY: Journey to the Unexpected will set you back $16.99 USD or £14.99 GBP on the Switch. Considering the developers have estimated 4-12 hours of gameplay, thatâs more than Iâd like to pay for the amount of replay value offered, but itâs not unreasonably high, either. I think itâs a solid buy at £10, so it might be worth waiting for a sale of 33% or more if youâre not thoroughly sold on the offering provided. If they do implement some quality of life patches, the value will undoubtedly increase though.
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Pros
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Charming visuals
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Cons
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Rough around the edges, visually and technically
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Feels somewhat hollow
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