kisui is Reviewing A Space For the Unbound
Hey y'all! Today, I'm gonna be reviewing A Space for the Unbound, an Indonesian made game that received acclaimed reviews.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1201270/A_Space_for_the_Unbound/
To be honest, I really want to love the game, it has all the potential to be a great game but unfortunately the game has several "bumps" that makes it less than great. I would still give this game positive review but not so much "amazing" review.
So, the basic premise is similar with point and click games (but with keyboards or gamepad). It has that classic feel that immediately charms you into the game. You play as an Indonesian High School boy (named Atma) trying to enjoy the 1990s with his girlfriend (named Raya) with a touch of magical realism and fantasy mystery. And this is one of the game strongest point, the setting. It implements Indonesian 90s suburban lifestyle in a wholesome slow life manner. The story has a lots of great parts but also have some downfall that I will review more below pass the spoiler warning.
The art, the music, the story and world-building are awesome, but what makes this game less desirable is the gameplay. I can't describe the gameplay as anything other than tedious. Some might argue that it enhances the peaceful slow life the game trying to represent, I would I argue otherwise. The gameplay has its charms but most part of it overstay its welcome. And don't get me wrong, the game story evolves from the first two relaxing chapters into something intense from chapter 3-5. So it is not relaxing game at all. Fortunately the story was strong enough (covering the gameplay weakness while being brought down by the gameplay) that makes you want to continue playing to the finish.
Nevertheless, the game price point is cheap enough (around USD 7/IDR 100.000) and you can get it on discount (around USD 3/ IDR 50.000), making this game a great bang for bucks. Unfortunately, the bad part is the tedious gameplay, making it not great bang for beats.
For short, the game is good just enough I would endorse it but some parts of it was mediocre enough I would not rate this on top standing.
Heavier Gameplay and Story Spoiler Below
Let's start with the less desirable part, the gameplay. As you know, point and click games are not everyone cup of tea, due to slower side gameplay. Nevertheless some combine with puzzles and riddles making it attracts wider audience. This game also have puzzles and riddles, unfortunately they are not major enough or good enough to be highlighted making the whole gameplay about point and click. What makes this game bad is the infamous fetch quest of point and click. This game takes it up to eleven. A story beat in this game revolves around getting pass a roadblock or getting an item. For example a quest in this game is getting a Black Forest Cake. Oh look, there's a cake shop, surely they have cake there. Wait, they ran out of ingredients and the chef is missing? Time for a quest! Oh they have daily supply store next door, surely I can get flour, egg, chocolate, cherries there. What they ran out of them? Well, my neighbors have chickens, surely he can share some of the eggs for me. Huh? The chicken ran away from home and I must look for it. Well... okay... oh look there's the chicken. What I can't caught it by hand and must find chicken trap first!????
And worse, the game makes you really need to backtrack a lot without purpose. They don't put the item near, they put each item on the edge of 8 cardinal and ordinal directions making you have to manually walk without purpose other than filler time. The map is small but the transition is really tedious.
Sure this kind of thing might be fun, once or twice, but imagine you have to do 10 nested fetch quests, each can have 5 to 10 mini fetches inside it without progressing the story at all. It is really frustrating and not fun. They do try to insert mini slice of life story as an fun interlude when getting an item but I don't think they implement this greatly. I do enjoy some of the mini episodes but most of them are not really memorable.
This kind of thing stays even in the end game. One part of the end game was a climax of the story. You can't wait to get to see what's next... but look! You need to find a cat food to get pass two cats and the cat food was on the road 1 minute walk before that you clearly saw but couldn't pick up because "it is not time yet". To be honest, it makes sense in context but it was the climax, if you want to support the story you can just put the cat food somewhere nearby without breaking the pacing.
The whole fetch gameplay really ruins the gameplay and the pacing of the story. Some of them is needed for pacing but most of them ruins the game. There's also an issue in the animation design that boosts the tediousness more, but I'll get into it later.
Now let's get to the second gameplay. Starting mid game, you get a new style of gameplay, a pseudo fighting, rhythm game. Basically you have a time bar and must press a specific button within time to defeat your enemies. Okay, not bad. But wait, what's this? You need to do this 3 time in a row for each of 20 enemies? And most enemies are just the same without story progress!?? Again, potentially good gameplay made tedious with too much repetition. The rhythm gameplay is not that hard but after 100 tedious button pressing in the row, you tend to make mistake due to boredom. Then this GAMEPLAY STICKS UNTIL THE END GAME. Making this less point and click and more of action rhythm game. Due to the repetition, the pacing of the story is really messed up for me. Story beats that I can't wait to continue becomes "Dang, I have to do this again." Definitely the gameplay ruins the story for me.
The third major gameplay is the concept of mind-diving and time-diving, you can dive into people's mind and solve their problem and even get to bring item to real world from it. To be honest, I don't think this is a gameplay but more like narrative device. You don't do anything other than the normal point and click and fetch. It is a good story delivery tool as most mind-dive are mandatory and you don't get anything extra from it, most of them are just unimportant side episode with items mandatory to progress. It is a shame since you can use it as a tool to deliver secret side-story or more plots or foreshadowing or secret endings.
Other than that there are some nice gameplay like item collecting, quizzes and puzzles that could be great if it is not time consuming needlessly. Another warning, a lot of part the game have action sequence so if you have two left hands like me, those parts can be really frustrating (the football juggling mini game definitely contributes to the not so good review).
Now, we're getting to the good parts. The first is the world building and art. The game represent suburban Indonesia in the 90s (the game advertise as rural but I believe it is more suburban rural than pure rural) and it depicts it beautifully using pixel art. Pixel art can be hit and miss in between modern 3d realistic game but the pixel art in this game are great and represent the world amazingly. Some art especially character cut ins can be improved but the land, the people, and the objects are beautifully drawn and nostalgia inducing. The movement and the animation are also fluid, characters are expressive even using pixel art and they perfectly implement nostalgia factor by choosing the good selections of objects that integrates well with the story. Even if you don't live in Indonesia, I believe you could get the charms and learn about Indonesian culture.
Now for the animation, as I said, it is beautifully animated and fluid. Each animation with length from 1-5 second really looks good on the game. Unfortunately, combined with the gameplay, you would come to hate it. Because of the number of backtrack, and repetition, you would see the same animation again and again and again. Screen transition animation takes like 5 second and you do this every ten second. Character chat animation, action animation are pretty but becomes "too long" and unskippable with a gameplay like that. Some point and click games have faster animation after first interaction with area or object. This game doesn't have that, and again it's not bad if not for the repetitive gameplay. I'm not sure if this is issue of animation transition or CPU/GPU resource optimization, even opening the menu can be really slow.
For the music, I personally enjoys it, it is perfectly used in each story and exploration scene, enhancing your experience in exploring the 90s. I enjoys the game OST but personally I think they can choose better songs to represent Indonesian culture. The key songs (on specific scenes) are great but feels like gentrified version of Indonesian songs rather than Indonesian classic (even the Kroncong music). Still, the songs and the BGM are great and definitely a plus point.
Lastly, the strongest part of the game, the story and writing. The game lures you into the world with barely any info, giving you sense of exploration and mystery. As you explore, you get into the backstory and the world building, giving a great sense of satisfaction. NPC feels alive the town feels alive and life is great. Then you got introduced to your perfect girlfriend, and enjoy dating life with the two of you. Then strange things began to happen and you need to explore the town you live in to uncover the mystery, at least that's the basic premise. Slight backtrack to the gameplay, as mystery happens, you also need to fetch Black Forest Cake, because it would make your girlfriend happy even though the sky is breaking (who cares about that). Jokes aside, the game delivers greatly on the main arc of the story, though the pacing could be weird (even outside the gameplay). During the first chapter (which is the most enjoyable part for me), the character just enjoy slow life. The second through fourth chapter introduce side characters which supposed to ties to the main arc as the world is heading to apocalypse. While I really enjoy how the game narrates the main story and wrap it in emotional cathartic finale it has some miss. I feel the main character, Atma, doesn't evolve at all from the beginning. Character growth is non-existent and character relationship doesn't change. Atma loves his girlfriend Raya and it stays that way without any changes from start to end. Side characters like Erik, Lulu, and Marin have great backstory but not developed at all, even though they are chapter spotlight characters. Character bonds doesn't change, there are no forgiveness, no conflict resolution, no bonding until the epilogue. The game revolves around Raya backstory and it stays that way until end of game. Everything is build around Raya that the main arc is really strong but everything else is just disposable tools to support it. The story and the delivery is still great I would give it 8/10 (even with the gameplay ruining the pacing). The NPCs and the characters do feels like puppets as the game progress personality wise but maybe that makes sense narratively because the world is ending and everyone loses their sanity. I would love those side characters to be explored more especially helps with Raya's character development.
For the specific writing itself, I would say 75% hit and 25% miss. Since the game is from Indonesia, I played it using Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian Language) setting. The dialog feels like awkward and clunky, not something someone would say in real world. The dialog feels more poetic prose rather than natural conversation. I changed the dialog to English and it feels like more fluid and relatable with daily life. I do like the writing style of Indonesian dialog since it feels more like high literature but wonders if it is deliberate or not. After playing both language a while, I believe they are not blatantly translated but also re-written in context so maybe that's just two different writer style.
The main character Atma have a name meaning "Soul" while the female main character Raya means "Grand" and another female character named Nirmala means "Pure". Those name are not just name with derived meanings (like Jack or Kevin) but actual words that is used on writings although those are rarely used in daily conversation and you would find them more on artistic world.
All in all, if you have the money and like story based game, go ahead and buy it. But be warned of the gameplay.