Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale is a Puzzle game released in 2021 for PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. This game is a sliding block-style puzzle (albeit with a ball) where players are challenged to collect all of each level’s feathers or coins within a limited number of moves.

The immediate standout feature of this game is its presentation, which is mostly excellent. The visuals on display here are far beyond your average $10 Puzzle game, with gorgeous, detailed, well-animated natural settings with lovely shadows, with nice details, like a buzzard flying around a desert level, and pigeons that can be disturbed from the cobblestone streets of a medieval town.

That medieval theme carries to the game’s soundtrack, which largely seems like the sort of thing that might be befitting a Renaissance faire. Further backing this medieval theme is a story about an errant princess told in between levels in rhyming form by voiced characters. It’s not an especially compelling story, but i suppose I give this game credit for sticking to its theme… mostly.

I say “mostly” because there are elements here that work against that theme. Firstly, the menu navigation feels like something out of a mobile game, which cheapens the otherwise great presentation. Further underlining this “mobile game” feeling are the trumpets that play when you win or lose a level. It’s a shame the game uses these out-of-place sounds too, because the sound effects for rolling your ball and colliding with objects are quite nice.

As for the gameplay, this is mostly a pretty standard “sliding block puzzle”-style game, albeit with a few unique mechanics that it throws into the mix, like statues that need to be struck to reveal hidden coins/feathers. Unfortunately, this mechanic works against this game rather than for it, as it makes for a lot of unnecessary redoing of puzzles when you can’t even see the entire puzzle from the start. At the very least I can commend this game for its solid touchscreen controls when playing the game in handheld mode.

Overall, Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale is a better-than-average Puzzle game, elevated largely by an outstanding graphical presentation. There’s nothing here that’s truly groundbreaking, but it’s a decent experience nonetheless, albeit one with some flaws.

tl;dr – Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale is a Puzzle game where players must roll a ball to collect all feathers or coins in a level. The gameplay here is mostly a traditional “sliding block Puzzle”, but this game is noteworthy for having some superb graphics. There are other elements that detract from the experience, but overall this is a decent Puzzle game worth a look for fans of the genre.

Grade: C+

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