A code for Away: Journey to the Unexpected was provided for review.

Unexpected in every sense of the word.

There’s not many games that totally catch me off guard when I play them. Sometimes this can be seen as a good thing and/or a bad thing depending on who’s playing the game and writing the review. For some, the surprise is just that, a surprise which is followed by excitement and joy. For others especially in gaming, it might be seen as a shock, as you may have gotten yourself into something that you weren’t expecting (as perhaps, the name of the game hints at). Either way, I think Away: Journey to the Unexpected is going to be divisive with its audience.

Away first came to my attention during the Kinda Funny Games Showcase with its mix of 3D FPS gameplay and its wonderfully rendered 2D Japanese anime art. The game looked different and really stood out against some of the other indies shown in the Showcase. Plus, with designers like Aurelian Regard (The Next Penelope) and Jim Gennisson (Rayman) I was excited to dive into the game when I got my review code.

‘How Unexpected’

However, when exploring Away’s world and experiencing my first death I was totally shocked to find that the game is in fact… a rogue-lite!

The Story

You play as a young boy living with his Grandparents. After a loud explosion, part of your Grandparent’s basement is destroyed. When investigating this strange explosion, you discover that the local evil corporate Labiworks has been mining for precious materials in your neighborhood. As always in these types of stories, the miners have uncovered something more sinister than the ores they were originally looking for. Having dug too deep, the corporate has uncovered a mysterious looking liquid which seems very harmful to the human body.

You, with some of your local friends, have to infiltrate the corporation’s bases and uncover what is really going on with their mining operation. Be careful though, as the truth is really out of this world….

The story itself is quite short and can be finished in around 4 hours. The main loop of the game however is it’s rouge-lite gameplay.

Gameplay

The aim of the game is to try and find allies to help you solve the mystery behind the construction company and the huge hole in your Grandparent’s wall. Every character you find in the game can be added to your party and played in first person mode. However, to do this you first have to find ‘friendship cubes’ to increase your party size and then convince the weird and wonderful characters to join you. This can be done in interesting ways. Some will just join you if you have a free slot, some will want paying and some will have to be coaxed via a dialogue tree.

‘Weird and wonderful’

I really liked that each character was distinguished from one another. Each one left their mark on me and helped me make decisions on whom I should pick in my team. My favourites were the slightly tipsy tree Woody who uses spores as mines or the one-shot-one-kill robot who will work for you for 500 gold. At the start of the game your team is pretty similar as you always have to use the same characters, but the further you progress the better the cast gets. This is because you gain a star every time you add a new ally to your team. The more stars you have means the more doors you can enter in your Grandparent’s home. Therefore, more areas to explore!

Progression also plays a huge roll in the game’s rogue-lite mechanics. As you play you earn experience, which when you die levels you up. When reaching certain levels you’ll also unlock new features for the main character, which make his stick swinging a lot more effect. You unlock a charge attack, extra hearts and the ability to use a shield that all do a fantastic job of making you feel more powerful with every run.

Like any rogue-lite worth its salt, Away gives you many choices to make on each run. Which door should you take? Which ally should you recruit? These things make each run feel a little bit different, even though the dungeons and areas don’t really change. Each world has three smaller encounters that you have to beat to unlock the main dungeon for that world. When you enter a dungeon it always says ‘randomising’, but I believe it’s just the enemies that get randomised and not the lay out of the dungeon.

Art and Music

The 2D anime sprites in Away are the highlight to the art direction. The 3D spaces are also nice but you can tell the difference in quality between the two. The best way to describe it is like saying the 2D art is a crisp 1080p and the 3D rendered environment is 720p. It’s still HD but you can tell the difference.

‘It’s still HD but you can tell the difference.’

What’s awesome is that at the start of the game there’s a full cartoon/anime cutscene that (sort-of) explains some of the game’s story. Like the 2D sprites, it looks great!

The music is fine but not that memorable. I feel like it was functional but not that special. However, the intro track and the shop keepers beats are banging!

Problems

The biggest problem with Away is that I think the developers have aspirations for the IP that is much higher than just this game. What I mean by this is that I feel like the devs have put the horse before the cart. They’re looking into the future, maybe thinking of a TV series or a movie about this game. However, I feel like because of this they’ve forgotten to actually set the scene for the player and tell you what is going on in this game and what you’re actually supposed to do in it.

Like I said, the rouge-like element was a total surprise to me. There’s no real introduction to the game’s mechanics or the game’s protagonists, whose name I can’t even remember. There is a brief message about him living with his Grandparents and that his parents are missing; but that’s it.

The game seems like it’s full of lore and the characters seem interesting but the game does a poor job of telling you about them. Sure there are the dialogue trees but it felt like the game was made with the thought of ‘ah don’t worry about the lore/characters, you’ll find out about them in the TV show’.

‘I was expecting the gameplay to be like C.O.D, when in reality it turned out more like Minecraft.’

Furthermore, the ‘first person shooter’ description might be an over statement on the game’s gameplay. When I heard FPS I was expecting the gameplay to be like C.O.D, when in reality it turned out more like Minecraft- you just swing and hope for the best.

Furthermore, with the combat the protagonist becomes so strong and the enemies in the early game are so weak that most of the time I’d run around as him and just hit enemies with my stick. This felt a little off since I’d be fighting huge robots and beat them up by spamming the attack button. Even the characters with projectiles still didn’t feel like an ‘FPS’ as aiming with them could be a challenge and cumbersome!

Summary

Overall, Away: Journey to the Unexpected is just that: Unexpected. The game does a poor job of setting the scene of its story and explaining what the player should do in the game! I was completely surprised when I discovered that the game was a rogue-lite after my first death.

Nevertheless, when you get your head around the rogue-lite surprise, the game is actually quite enjoyable and offers lots of variables to make each run feel different. In addition, the strongest part of the game is its unique characters and their awesome anime sprites, even if using them in combat feels like swinging Steve’s pickaxe in Minecraft!

That’s why I give Away Journey to the Unexpected by Aurélien Regard and Jim Gennisson my score of

Are you going to pick up Away? What did you think of my review? Let me know over on Twitter or on our community Discord server.

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