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You are created

Tamashii was completely unheard to me when I decided to buy it from PS Store. There’s so many indie games coming out, that it’s impossible to keep up with them. What made me buy Tamashii, was the overall style, plot and settings that sealed the deal. If I would make a video game it would be pretty close to Tamashii; dark atmosphere, horror–infused, unsettling, confusing, unique puzzles and vibes of gothic. I haven’t seen much of J-Horror, other than some games, but I can also see some influence of that.

The plot of Tamashii is kinda cryptic; you are born and go to fulfill your purpose, which is to seek out the source of evil that comes from somewhere within of the hellish world.

The story is simple, but interesting. As playing on it’ll get more depth to it with occasion of choices as well (even though I’m not sure does the choices change the story and ending).

Video games are art

What adds extra layers to the gameplay is the visual effects that resembles distorted old TV screen, scanlines and pixelation. Artistically I love how everythings been executed, with all sorts of weird and unsettling imagery. Body parts, fetuses, bones and skeletons, blood, flesh… It looks very much like Hell (I’ve been there, but, anyway).

I played Tamashii through in about 2–3 hours and it’s great amount of playtime for this kinda game, since the longer the game is, it would start to feel repetitive and the horror-aspect could easily vanish. The puzzles, areas and bosses varied imaginatively, that is something I value greatly. The soundtracks and sound effects had nice peculiar take with adding more weight to the horror –scale.

In the end

Tamashii is amazingly bizarre and different platformer, that everyone should play—who can deal with lots of flashing images and unsettling stuff. What was extra good was the settings that allows to turn off distortion and other visual effects for those who are unable to watch that, and also other things like slow–motion mode. I played with all visual settings on and without slow-motion mode to get the full experience. I tried to think of something negative to mention, but I found none serious. Only thing that bothered little bit, was the huge size of the text with hard to read font, but that’s just nitpicking.

I hellishly recommend you to play this, because Tamashii isn’t just a game—but a piece of art.

5/5

“It looks very much like Hell”

RELEASE DATE: Dec 18, 2019 (PS4 EU)

GENRE: Horror / Puzzle

DEVELOPER: Vikintor

PUBLISHER: Digerati Distribution

PLATFORMS: PlayStation 4

Nintendo Switch

Xbox One

Steam

Microsoft Windows

From Vikintor official website:

Who is Vikintor?

Vikintor is a Brazilian independent artist and game creator; his work it’s mostly about Metaphysical punk, Transgressive Gnosticism and Philosophically subversive subjects. Making small and medium-size games with the proposal to conceive experimental interactive medium of expression.

As an independent game developer, Vikintor aims to bring the sense of discovery and strangeness that weird obscure games of the past brought. Believing that art also lies in chaotic experiences, In the absurd, confusion, ugly, cryptic and unusual styles.

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