The drum child
Nothing predestined the young Áilu to live great adventures. He was happy to be satisfied with his role as reindeer guard of his Sami village. But the story of the young boy takes another direction when he falls asleep during his work. Forced to find a disappeared reindeer to keep its place in the village, Áilu loses the animal, but finds the drum of an noadi. When his village falls ill, Áilu has no choice but to go in search of minds of nature to fight corruption that ravages the earth.
To travel !
A good part of the adventure in Skabma therefore consists in browsing the region to discover these different minds. If we are quite limited at the beginning, each spirit discovered brings us a new power which opens up new paths and areas to explore. There is for example a classic dash or an equally classic double jump. Alongside this powers which can be used freely, the player also gains the possibility of temporarily modifying certain places in his environment. This principle, called elementary "harmonization", makes it possible, for example, to reveal a platform or even an air current which propels you into the air. A small limit all the same: a particular harmonization can only exist in one copy at a time. The game therefore combines exploration, platform and a little bit of reflection.
Exchange Drum for compass, make offer
It seems obvious that the game developers wanted to encourage the player to immerse himself in the world presented to him. With the main consequence of having a game that offers little readability to the player on what is expected of him. The objectives are sometimes limited to "travel". Certainly. So do not expect a lens card or marker, this is not the kind of house. At most you can, using the drum, showing footprints guiding you towards some of the objectives. And if, like me, you don't have a sense of orientation, you risk really struggling to circulate in the world of game.
Because if the game is regularly artistically very successful, it tries to hide the loading screens by making you cross caves used as transitions between areas. This regularly leads to a very inelegant loading fog at the exit of the caves. It should also be noted that the most focused on exploration players will be able to count on a certain number of collectibles to discover, whether they are sometimes placed away from the main path or at the end of a platform phase a little hidden.
Hard hard to be noadi
During these platform phases, it is also necessary to accept a slightly imprecise gameplay in the jumps. I regularly happened to go from a much too short leap to a very long jump without really knowing why. To make sure you do nothing, the camera also complicates your life, mainly during the chain of jumps using the harmonization of the air. Jumps for which you often need to trust the slight slowdown in time that accompanies the proximity of the points with which you harmonize to turn the camera in the right direction.
But if these little cafouts can be accepted in a modest game, it is not the same with the main problem I have encountered during my 7 hours of play: automatic backups. These are indeed regularly bugged and get you stuck in a death loop from which you cannot go out, ruining your progress in fact. Red Stage Entertainment tackles the problem with regular patches, but unfortunately still remain. Falling for manual backups is a solution, but these only replace you at the last crossing point.
Conclusion
Skabma is a game that may divide, between those that the universe it offers will absorb and those that its lack of direction will literally lose. It is also regrettable that the game suffers from so many small technical problems, especially on its automatic backups which can ruin the player's progression.
Test made by GRIM on PC from a version provided by the editor.
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