Our Review of a Short Hike

Warning up top on this one, lads, it’s rough, first attempt at something like this. Next one we will improve on audio and handle the review mixed with the Dad and Son Reviews a bit differently.

Dad’s Review

Okay so my review of A Short Hike.

First of all, the vibes were class.

Initially, when I saw the pixelated 3D graphics I was kind of put off if I'm honest. I don't really like that art style, but in combination with the animations and the ambient sounds and stuff like that, I really sank into the vibe as the game kind of continued on.

In those first few moments, like grabbing the glide and feeling how that feels to move around the world, felt really good.

Talking with all of the characters wasn't tedious, which sometimes it can be. You're kind of mashing X to get through conversations sometimes in these kinds of games. Each of the pieces of text was very, very short and kind of nice and digestible. Short conversations, but they add a lot of character to them.

And when you did multiple conversations with the same person, it seemed to have a lot of iterations, which was nice and reactive. I like that.

The world itself was very nicely built, especially when you started getting golden feathers. You felt like almost overpowered in the amount of flight you had. So your ability to explore and navigate the world just expanded so much as soon as you got those golden feathers. Which was really nice.

I don't know how scalable that would be in a longer game. And that's something to point out. The size of the game helps an awful lot to how much of a quality package it is. I don't necessarily know that this would scale out long-term. There might not be enough mechanics and stuff like that.

But I enjoyed exploring the world.

I especially enjoyed the very last part. It was almost like a puzzle where you couldn't just walk straight to the top. I had all the golden feathers I could want, but there was a little bit of a puzzle of just, oh, you can't go this way, you have to go that way. So it was just like one last barrier before you got to the finish line.

When it comes to the story itself, I liked all the interactions and the dialogue for sure, but the final scene felt like it was trying to land a punch that I didn't quite understand. It didn't land quite the way I felt like it maybe should have.

This could have been a symptom of me not talking to enough people and getting a good context for what's happening in the story.

But yeah, I like the idea of having that kind of emotional payoff in the end, and like flying back down to your, I think it's your aunt or something like that. The end was a nice kind of circle of the story.

But that actual phone call on the top about your mother and surgery — I wasn't really sure what was going on there. It felt like it was supposed to have more emotional weight than it did.

Overall, awesome game. Super liked it. I loved how short it was, and the vibes are just top quality for sure.

Definitely worth the playthrough.

Lukes Review (Weird Audio at the start)

So this is my short review of A Short Hike.

So first of all, I imagine they could do a lot pretty easily since it's so simple.

I was honestly surprised by how good the movement was. Because I knew something about the game before I started playing. I knew it was kind of like artsy. So when the movement was actually good, I was kind of surprised by that.

I didn't get stuck very often, which is good. Some of the puzzles I thought I'd be stuck on them for a while, but they were pretty straightforward, but not too easy, so I still had to think about them, so it was a good balance of difficulty, I think.

Music was amazing. Like it was, it was really good.

The dialogue was like, I feel like it was kind of, it was pretty realistic. It was pretty funny as well at certain times.

The golden feathers mechanic was, like, it was really good for making you explore. I also liked how you didn't have to get all, like, you didn't have to get, like, ten feathers. You only needed, like, seven, I think. But I went around and got more feathers anyway. Like, I think I got ten. Yeah, I got ten feathers. And I know I didn't do everything in the game, but I think I did most of it.

I liked the treasure mechanic as well, where you had to dig things up.

I'm trying to think, is there anything I didn't like about the game?

The ending section in the snow is kind of unclear, where I had to go. I was wandering around there for a good bit. But the thing with the feathers freezing was pretty cool. Like a way to mix it up.

And that ending flight down the mountain was just, that was amazing. Like getting to fly over everything you've seen and then landing back at the cabin.

The inventory system, I didn't really engage with that. I don't know if there was like things to be done with that. But I basically only ever used it to equip the shovel.

And yeah, I think that's everything I have to say about the game.