Exo One Review – You’ve Really Scored

There’s something rare about an indeterminate experience. Exo One takes the player on a journey to unknown worlds by unknown means, placing an emphasis on traversing above all else. It’s a deeply creative endeavor, brought to life with vast, barren areas that the player must dash through at absurd speeds. The game doesn’t last long, but it’s not necessary. It offers compelling visuals and responsive, streamlined gameplay, along with a mysterious story that all merge to achieve something completely unlike anything else I’ve played. I have a few questions left, but am satisfied with the overall package.

Exo One Place the player in the cockpit of a vehicle. Sort. The medium in question is a gray orb powered by what I can only imagine as energy similar to a star. The story is confusing, but it’s mostly understandable, even if I’m not sure what happens in the game’s ending. Giving nothing away, the plot deals with the aftermath of a failed spaceflight to Jupiter. We see snippets of this through instant messages and short conversations. It’s effective and has room for explanation, something players will definitely want to get into after the roughly 4-hour experience is over.

The game is divided into individual levels where each person drops orbs on a planet. Your goal is mostly to get to a strange transport that emits a blue light. All you need to do is follow the light and you will eventually get to where you are going. There are no checkpoints in these levels, but you cannot die. However, if the game crashes, you will be asked to start the whole level again. Fortunately, Exo One for me is stable, always running at over 100fps without any noticeable crashes, glitches or crashes.

Watch the weather change

The levels are almost meditative. There are different types of planets. You’ll be rolling with rocks or ice under your feet, gliding while sliding out of the water, or floating among the clouds. The levels are huge and your orbs move at breakneck speed. You will almost always be hurt towards blue light in the distance. After finding it, you roll up a device and witness a triple sequence as you fly through space to the next planet. All of this brings Exo One a little ephemeral quality. My heart pounded in my chest as I stared at the vast expanse of space before me, not knowing how long it would take to reach my destination.

The orb has little chance. You can control it, and holding on will keep you going. You can also jump and double jump. Then there’s the ability to glide, which simply allows you to fly through the air, depending on your arc how long you have energy. No HUD in Exo One and the energy is indicated by the red color of the interior of the sphere. As you glide, the sphere flattens out and you can see the energy diminish before blinking, sending you falling out of the sky like a rock.

Finally, the orb can increase its gravity, which will give you a speed boost when traveling downhill (or wherever the drag is strongest) and allows you to descend quickly while gliding. You can actually use gravity to give yourself a little bit of energy to keep the glide a little longer. It will also give you some extra height when used properly. The controls are highly responsive and feel natural, although the camera is glued to the back of the sphere, which takes some getting used to.

Forward momentum

At first, I was a bit worried that Exo One will become boring or lose its welcome. The beginner levels have you to keep moving forward and moving to your destination and not much else. While this To be What you will spend most of the game doing, there are multiple levels that change things dramatically. One level requires you to find a few energy sources to power up the transporter. Another person has you rolling a big ball for reasons I’m not sure. But the most dramatic, most surprising scenes come later.

One places you on an asteroid and requires you to fire a slingshot at the carrier using gravity. It’s complicated and perhaps not more obvious than it needs to be, but it’s all part of the fun. It helps that asteroids close to a large red star make for a beautiful division. Other levels are almost similar to ranked players, requiring you to find your way up to pass. You can fall in many ways, but Exo One doesn’t make you tall and dry and has fallbacks to get you back, even if you mess up seriously.

One of the smartest levels in the game removes most of the orb’s functionality, save for gravity, so you have to navigate through parts of the level with nothing but the ability to pop it. at the right time. If you reduce gravity as the sphere is approaching its incline, it will fly, allowing you to cover a large amount of ground. It’s a sight to behold. The levels also look amazing, as they have a lot of variety, which really adds to the appeal of the game. The game’s use of color is also often quite striking.

Exo OneIts ending is weird and a bit offensive, but it’s probably the best way to end such a mysterious experience. It doesn’t last that long, but I feel the length is appropriate, as the gameplay will probably start to drag if it goes on any longer. However, I still think there’s a lot of untapped potential for a more gameplay-oriented experience built around challenging players to use the orb’s abilities to conquer extreme challenges. direction. Those don’t necessarily fit all of that well in such a particular game, but its mechanics are so compelling that they’d want to do such a thing well regardless. However, I am quite interested in Exo One and appreciate the things it tries to be daring, even if it might exist to have a little less “retain several minutes continuously” in its runtime.