FEIST - Review

Fresh off the back of playing Wilmot's Warehouse, I was curious to check out some of Finji's other games.  FEIST was one that really grabbed my attention due to its art style which is reminiscent of games like Limbo and Badlands. I decided to download it for iOS as it had been some time since I played a game on there apart from Boom Beach.


I am one of those few people who really like Bounty Bars, but not the dark chocolate ones.  In honesty, I love a lot of coconut flavored treats, and there seem to be few coconut things I haven't tried, some of which have been horrible. There is a Bounty Bar knock off that Aldi sells called Romeo Bars.  They are pretty good, but they just ain't Bounty Bars.   Playing FEIST I found myself asking was this as good as a Bounty Bar or a poor imitation?

Story

The game starts with a bunch of large lumbering hedgehog looking creatures moving through the wilderness.  One of them has a small wooden box on their back.  The camera then pans to a tree with a wooden crate hanging from a tree, this is where the story really begins.  After escaping you get to take control of a dust bunny style creature, his mission is to chase after and save their friend from the creatures.

Overall there is little to no story is FEIST and the small bit you do glean comes from short cut sequences showing the creatures moving through the wilderness and showing the differences between them.  The story itself isn't the important thing, it is the journey itself.

Visuals

I cannot overstate this enough, the visuals (even on a mobile device) look amazing.   The creatures you are following and the smaller enemies in the game are all black with the exception of their eyes which are red.  The northern lights coloring shines through the backdrop of each level, sometimes it becomes more pronounced and other times it turns to a simpler lighter shade of green.  There was one point, in particular, I really had to take a moment to admire the beauty of the game - the starlight was reflecting off a body of water and it looked amazing.  

Overall the game is visually stunning and helps show you not only the beauty of nature but also the darkness that can hide within it.

Music

The soundtrack for the game is very eerie and really works well with the visuals used in it and if nature was to have a dark soundtrack it might sound like FEIST.  The soundtrack is composed by Swiss composer and musician Tomek Kolzynski.  This is his video game soundtrack but has provided music for a number of other projects, albums including, Popple Music, Igloo, & Drama, and Vastzapinside.

The soundtrack runs at around ninety minutes, some of my favorite tracks include; 'After A Long Night', 'Down By The Lake', 'A Bad Hair Day', 'Dwellers in the Dark', and 'Ruins of the Past'.

Overall Kolzynski's soundtrack is perfect for this game and would be worth listening to even if you decide not to play it.

Gameplay

The game at its core is about strategy, how to get over obstacles, how to beat enemies and sometimes how to avoid them altogether.  The game is also a side scroller, you have left and right move, jump and pick up.  The on-screen controls work well for the most part but later in the game can be a little over/under sensitive ending in a few unnecessary deaths. 

The smaller enemies can often be avoided, however, doing this too often can end up with you running from a vast number of them trailing behind you.  The main enemies/bosses need to be defeated, they can be tough but using traps and throwing rocks and a bit of tree will eventually take them down. The final enemy was a particular pain as it involves you playing ping pong with balls of light.

The games work but can feel overly fiddly at points, especially when it comes to jumping.  One part in one of the end chapters had me pulling my hair out (which is a mean feat with the little nubs of hair I have), you had to jump from one branch to another. Simple? No.  It was necessary for you to jump in the opposite direction and then back up to get to the next branch, it might hard to read but far harder to actually do it.

Overall the gameplay is mostly solid, the awkwardness of the controls could be just due to it being on a mobile device, but if that was the case it should have been tested a little more first.

Final Thoughts

So, how did I feel after almost five hours?  A little mixed.  The story was lacking but that wasn't really a big deal, the visuals were amazing and were certainly the highlight of the game.  The music was really good and certainly helped enhance my overall experience.  What let the game down at times was the gameplay, simple things could be overly awkward and the controls were not always as responsive as they could have been.  Overall this one gets 3 out of 5