Albatroz

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I agree with Jorge_with_J how the hell no one know´s this game? I spent over 50 hours on it and I want to play it again.

t’s impressive how no one knows about Albatroz. One of the coolest games I’ve ever played!

A unique game that tries something new by blending genres and game styles, featuring great pacing and beautiful art. It’s a chaotic experience that’s hard to define—but that’s part of its charm. The game explores different perspectives on existentialism in a humble way, not trying to give a definitive answer but inviting the player into the discussion. It leaves plenty of open space for the player to fill with their own experiences.

Albatroz is an awesome Brazilian made travel RPG that delivers an incredible adventure! The game features stunning visuals and an engaging narrative that keeps you hooked from start to finish.

Albatroz combines RPG, survival, narrative, and open world into what it describes itself as a “Backpacking RPG”. Journeying as Isla, in search of her brother, retracing trails he loved to traverse. Along the way companions accompanying us in our quest. Has the developers, Among Giants, produced a captivating hiking adventure or is it a misstep off a ravine? As I progressed through the game, I often found myself pausing to take in the breathtaking scenery, captivated by the stunning vistas before me. Immense care and effort went into capturing the natural beauty, reminding us why we venture into the wilderness to be awed by such moments. However, despite the voice acting brilliantly bringing the characters to life, the music and sound effects sometimes detracted from the experience. Sudden and misplaced sound effects would physically make me jump at the unexpected loudness, while music triggered at certain points would clash with the ambient background music as the ambient music failed to stop playing. This left me marvelling at the landscapes while gritting my teeth at the jarring audio. The storytelling truly excels in Albatroz, whether it be understanding Isla’s personal story or uncovering the rich folklore of the land. Isla’s search for answers and her path to accepting what has occurred are beautifully woven through flashbacks that provide crucial context and interactions with the companions she meets along the way. Sence, a wannabe shaman, adds a mystical layer to the world, sharing tales that intertwine with the main narrative, and her light-hearted banter often provides much-needed comic relief. The final companion, Serpi, unfortunately, feels a bit underutilized and forgettable, like the NPCs in the villages. Despite these flaws, the game offers an engaging and intriguing storyline that kept me invested. Personally, I found numerous issues with the mechanics and gameplay loop. The survival component felt unnecessary and often got in the way. While you and your companions have different abilities intended to ease progression, I quickly realized they were redundant. The stats only decreased for the character you were controlling, so if your hunger was causing health to drop, you could just switch to another character. This made the game feel like a brute force exercise, leaving little incentive to upgrade skills. Additionally, the immersion was broken during interactions when you had to eat, drink, or use a companion's ability due to low stats. Albatroz encourages exploration, but the survival mechanics clash with this, as limited resources discourage straying from the designated path. A more linear approach, focusing on the storyline and environmental puzzles to reach the next plot point, would have been more effective. From the get-go, it was clear that the game lacked polish, and the bugs and glitches only worsened as I delved deeper. The framerate struggled consistently in both cutscenes and gameplay, making navigation, especially while driving, a unique challenge. I lost track of how many times I had to reload a save after getting stuck in the environment, being flung into the air, and becoming stuck like a scene from "The Matrix," or finding myself spawned inside an object after a cutscene. Some overlays would stubbornly remain, rendering the game unplayable. Now, I understand why there was no autosave feature and why you had to find a save point, the whole survival aspect, but it quickly became frustrating when I had to reload and lose considerable progress. To their credit, Among Giants reached out and asked me to provide a list of issues, and they have been diligently patching the game. This project is clearly a labour of love, infused with time, passion, and dedication. However, despite its stunning visuals and compelling story, it falls short of greatness. The console release needed more time to iron out its faults. Coupled with a significantly higher price tag than on Steam, it is hard to justify the purchase. A more compact, streamlined, and linear game would have been preferable to the open-world survival version we ended up with.

Le jeu est vraiment décevant. On ne sait jamais vraiment où aller, et l’ensemble devient vite ennuyant. Je m’attendais à bien mieux, d’autant qu’il est en plus très mal optimisé.