As fans of the game, we both deeply believe in going from left to right. If we waste all day playing games and feel like we’re not getting anything done, then no one can deny that at least we did it from left to right. And if a game’s story is lame and can’t find any entry for its underpinnings, it can at least go back to the old adage that “it’s the journey (from left to right), not the destination (right)”. Okomotive’s first game was about driving a giant, complex truck from left to right. The sheer left-to-right dynamics of the whole match was overwhelming. To follow up, FAR: Tide Changethey kept both left and right, but they added down and upand this will blow your mind.
FAR: Change Tides is a puzzle-flavored, low-risk exploration in 2.5D side scrolling. The world of FAR is desolate and ruined. A civilization, suddenly disappearing, leaving behind the ruins of idyllic and high-tech communities will be explored by your lone protagonist. Inclement weather is pushing you out of your home, and others have ventured before you, their results bleak. While in FAR: Lone Sails, you’ve steered a giant car to the right for a not-so-easy reason, in FAR: Change Tides, you’ll instead command a watership, for a purpose no less ambiguous part. Whether you find that type of storytelling insightful or lazy, the imaginative work of storytelling is up to you. However, there are enough good sets, props, and great musical cues that if the story isn’t engaging, it’s probably your fault.
The sound and graphic design are delightful, with the grandeur of nature not to be missed simply because the people inside of it find themselves in trouble. The rhythms of the story are moments of new discovery, not character arcs or plot developments. Throughout them, your craft and its world look amazing, the exemplary sound design makes everything tactile, then a brilliantly composed soundtrack comes home every time it’s needed. The music is ready to go big, which is important, because the whole game deals on its massive scale.
FAR: Change Tides presents a kilometer crafting tool that must travel for miles in a vast and uncompromising world. Its great achievement is to make players feel that grand scale. Size, of course, is relative: a disgustingly large slug is smaller than an adorable little pig. (We hope.) So to make a world or a game character big requires some setting, a point of reference. That reference for Tide Change is the player character, who swoops inside the gear to control it. You are required to take the person outside the crafting area to the depths and scale towers. These fundamental and confusing pieces convincingly establish a world created by and for people of that caliber. Every time we get back to our craft, it feels huge. When you have to really game the platform your way around inside the boat to steer it, you know what really is the size of a building.
A great benefit of this is that inertia grinding need not be the only trick to convey the bulk of your craft. The hulk’s maneuverability is quite stubborn, but it will also stop dying very docile, making the rides of more complex donkeys enjoyable, when it can be infuriating. If all we have is carefully de-weighted inertia the boat won’t feel big enough – because of that concession to manoeuvrability – but as you move from part to part of the engine room to brake, dynamics will be complexly felt.
All of this is a cut down from its predecessor, FAR: Lone Sails. There’s a lot of the same elements, but the car is basically one-way, rolling from left to right. In Changing Tides, Okomotive takes advantage of the water’s depth as your craft grows, more in line with player-character movement range. The dynamics feel more colossal, the controls more immersive, and your familiarity with your car more intimate.
And the physical feel of the game really matches its emotions. Items you pick up to supply your boiler range from clear fuel canisters to personal suitcases and once beloved mementos of long-lost strangers. The semi-automatic refueling mechanism helps you clearly prioritize what you intend to burn. Nondescript containers and packages can go first, followed by cherished personal effects only when unavoidable (or vice versa, if something gets you that way). This makes no difference in terms of gameplay. If it makes a difference, that’s just your terms, those are the most convincing terms.
So where does the Tides change get in trouble? Unfortunately, that is with its first impressions. The prologue features a hero without a vehicle, introducing basic controls for moving in water and across platforms. The job of teaching players to move – something that has been firmly established for any capable platformer for at least the past decade – is fading. The first lesson, jumping out of the water, occurs in an overhang of the terrace, which is not as easy to spot and is more appealing than other protrusions in the environment. Lessons for jumping larger distances have a recovery ladder if they fail, but escalation lessons are available after completing the jump. Combined with that, getting on a ladder – especially in the water – is frustrating and insensitive. In fact, once we got into the game, we dealt with the constant switching from analogue stick in water to a D-pad on dry ground, so expect to push precisely upwards. For a game that succeeds in pioneering territory of macro-scale control and playability, it’s a shame that the rudiments are flawed. However, this, once understood, is curtailed by the core achievements of the game, and fails to work out the miracles that have finally come.
Partly for this reason, we’d say playing Lone Sails before changing Tides is encouraged to the point of being almost essential. That first game was beautiful, influential and fun, and serves as an audio guide that will allow you to step right into Change Tides and appreciate the world and its achievements. However, there is no doubt that changing Tides is the better game. It’s like Okomotive made a list of all the good things in Lone Sails, brainstormed ways to make each one at least twice better, then delivered. But it’s still best to play both in order.
Like the Lone Sails before it, the Switch port of FAR: Change Tides is a prime example. Sharp graphics and fluid action. The game will sometimes shrink your character to a blob in the vast, looming world, so be prepared for that when playing handheld – but there’s still a zoom button if you lose your reading glasses book.
Conclusion
An immersive experience from the moment you set sail, FAR: Change Tides builds on the world and gameplay concept of its predecessor with scale, detail, and moments of great exploration. Okomotive started with its original neat mechanic on a left-to-right stacker, then took it in every other direction it could go.
