The Free Ones Review

I’ve been eager to find the perfect “first person grappler” to add to my list of no-combat adventure games. I’d played two similar games not that long before this one—Valley and A Story About My Uncle—and was really hoping The Free Ones would finally fit the bill. It certainly has the best grapple mechanics of the three. It’s much more about leveraging your momentum, because you often have to propel yourself towards a target and then let go early so you can sail above/past it. There’s a great sense of height and speed as you whip yourself through the game’s environments. When the levels are open and forgiving, it’s a lot of fun. Alas, that’s not always the case.

The thing is, the level design is really repetitive and obnoxious. Large stretches of the game have you making your way across bodies of water or traveling downstream, where your only aids are tiny floating wooden boxes. These stupid boxes are difficult to aim at, easy to fall off of, and constantly crash into other obstacles. It’s infuriating how many rivers there are in the game. And then they basically do the same thing with little bridges and mine carts suspended above deadly chasms. You have so little room for error that it really sucks the fun out of it. I know grapple mechanics naturally escalate to difficult challenges, but trust me, you will be so sick of looking at tiny wooden boxes by the end.

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.