The Pathless review: live an incredible adventure with bow in hand

If you are looking for a game that mixes puzzles with adventure and combat, Pathless is definitely for you. Put yourself in the shoes of an archer called to save a world dominated by the godslayer and defend with the invaluable help of your companion the eagle a beautiful and raw story that will test the Dualsense if you play the version of the new Playstation 5.Tighten your bow, prepare your senses and join us on this journey.

This story is familiar to us

The Pathless takes us to a beautiful world that is now under a terrible curse. The goddess Eagle is contaminated and weakened by the attack of our archenemy in this adventure, the godslayer. This enemy will cause the children of the goddess Eagle to be in a state of trance that turns them into evil. It will be against the children of the Goddess that we will have to fight throughout the adventure. It is a broadly known story, which we have already experienced in other proposals such as Shadow of the Colossus or the highly recognized and innovative Zelda Breath of the Wild. The story of the hero (in this case heroine) who has to save a world that once knew only glory and peace, now trapped in a curse that makes it dark and uninhabitable by the dangers it harbors

The differences come in the playability section

The difference between The Pathless and other gameplay proposals is undoubtedly the way in which this journey takes place and the mechanics it presents. At no time do we feel the danger of death (since in The Pathless it is impossible to die, only the edges of the screen will turn red as we receive damage and our "energy" will be depleted) nor does the game pretend to. It's all about reaching the end of the story and enjoying the journey. And the journey is exciting and very beautiful

The main character will have a bow that she will use to move around the stage, in which we will find a kind of markers that we can aim and shoot at in order to advance faster. With the left trigger we will run and with the right trigger we will aim and shoot with our bow. If we hit that marker at the exact moment we can propel ourselves in the air to gain even more speed. The Dualsense makes the difference with respect to other versions, since its adaptable triggers will allow us to feel the resistance of the bow in our hands

We will not be alone in this adventure, but we will count practically from the beginning of the adventure with the company of a small eagle that will give us a claw. As we advance through the different worlds or levels of The Pathless we will have the possibility of grabbing the eagle to propel us in the air and be able to gain more height. We will also count on its help when it comes to solving puzzles

Prepare your mind for puzzles

The Pathless is not just another adventure game. And not only has it marked us for its story, artistic beauty and a different gameplay, but it also has some very well worked puzzles that will make us think about how we can solve them and what we need to do it. As we mentioned we will have the invaluable help of our eagle friend, who will be able to carry a kind of weights and place them on platforms or buttons on the floor and thus unlock closed doors or leave an open space to launch our arrows

The puzzles are not extremely difficult but they do require us to stop and think about the elements on the screen and how to use them to solve it. For example, in one of the puzzles we will have to place ourselves in the exact angle between a lit fire and a vase without fire and shoot at that exact spot so that our arrow goes through the fire and can transfer it to the next platform

Face the "final bosses" fights

The gameplay mechanics of The Pathless follow a fairly guided structure. With a button we can identify on the map a series of towers that we will have to purge to be able to face the final boss of that area. That same button will also show us in which areas of the map (since there is no world map as such) we will find the puzzles that will give us a kind of eagle-shaped tokens to place in those towers

But... be careful! It will not be all a bed of roses, but in each area we will have to walk very carefully. Every time we enter the area dominated at that time by one of the children of the goddess Eagle (our enemy in each phase, world or stage height) we will have to go to save our eagle companion. The "boss" of that area kidnaps her. Facing the wind and the watchful presence of our enemy (he will detect us if we move when we enter his field of vision) we will have to reach the eagle to be able to count on her again in the adventure. And it is here where the use of Dualsense comes into play again, since after these confrontations we will be able to calm the eagle by stroking it and removing that small halo it has around its body. And we will do it using the Dualsense touch panel, so that we will feel like we are stroking its fur as if it were real

Once we have purified all the towers in the area comes the confrontation against the final boss. In a first phase we will have to chase him dodging his attacks and relying on our bow to move forward and be able to hunt him. Once we have weakened him we will pass to a combat typical of a platform game, with its weak points that we will have to damage with our bow and its two or three phases. If we win we will pass to the next level

Art and soundtrack are equally enamoring

The Pathless stands out both in its sound and art. The soundtrack comes from the composer of other video games that also marked us as players: Journey, Abzu or The Banner Saga. The melodies will keep you in tension throughout the adventure (especially in the interaction with the final bosses) and in general terms are a perfect accompaniment to this beautiful journey that we recommend playing to all those people passionate about games made with love and with all the care in the world

Art and music go hand in hand in The Pathless, one of the most beautiful artistic video games of the last decade. It has a world with a variety of elements and whenever we play this game we will be in a constant dichotomy between calm and restlessness. We will not face great dangers (except for the bosses) but we are aware that the game is much more than admiring its beautiful scenery. The finish in a kind of drawn similar to what we saw in Breath of the Wild gives it a great personality, both for the designs of the main characters and enemies, as well as for what makes us feel like being in the middle of that big and deserted world knowing that its fate depends on ourselves. It does not have an art as worked as Ghost of Tsushima (nor with such a big budget) but it is capable of transmitting more than many triple A of the current video game market

Final conclusions

If you are looking for an adventure in which the difficulty is not a barrier and want to enjoy between 8 and 15 hours of journey (depending on how complete you are) The Pathless is the game you were looking for. Let yourself fall in love with its art, soundtrack and gameplay and play it if you can on a Playstation 5 to experience first hand all the Dualsense functionalities

The best

• Gameplay with a variety of situations, puzzles and clashes
• Soundtrack and artwork: a treat for the ears and the eyes
• An indie that could be perfectly triple A

The Worst

• There is a small chance that some puzzles may become repetitive

We have made this review thanks to a Playstation 5 download code provided by Meridiem Games