Surprisingly, the fox isn’t saving a princess from a pig-man.
The opening moments of Tunic fooled us into thinking we were in for a derivative Zelda-like adventure. A diminutive fox-like character wearing a green tunic reminiscent of a certain hero wakes up on a beach. From an isometric camera angle, this fox (known as the Ruin Seeker) finds a sword and not long after a blue-and-red shield. Surely, it wouldn’t be long before we discovered boomerangs and bows to solve puzzles with – yet such item-based puzzles never came. Instead, Tunic cleaves its own identity with a handful of brilliantly unique mechanics and with combat pulled from that bottomless well of design that indie developers have yet to run dry: Dark Souls.
You’ve seen it before: a stamina bar dictates how much you, as the Ruin Seeker, can block or dodge attacks, and when you die – and you will die – an echo of your body can be recovered to regain the gold you lost upon death. Spending this gold with the proper upgrade item in hand, increases Attack, Health Points, Stamina, and so on. Your sword has a simple three-hit combo, but the complexity of combat against Slorms and Chompingnoms comes from recognising attack patterns, making use of invincibility frames in dodge rolls, and parrying if you’re brave. Throw in a handful of magic items, and the combat never grows stale in this 15-hour adventure.
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