A Poetic and Dreamlike Journey
A lot of games deal with their themes head-on, in a straightforward manner. And one of the biggest themes in games is revenge. We have Ellie in The Last of Us Part 2 or, most recently, in Ghost of Yotei, showing someone tracking down the killers of her family.
It’s an easy device to centre a game around, mostly as it gives the player opportunity to go killing with a purpose.
But lately, other games have tackled more sensitive subjects, and one of these is suicide and loss. Torii is a game that focuses on these themes in a unique and poetic manner, but it’s also a kind of open-world adventure. Curious? You should be.
This is a game that was released on PC in 2022 and has gone through the mill with a few changes after feedback, finally getting released on console. It’s a third-person arthouse narrative adventure featuring an unusual, trippy take on a narrative and some puzzles to solve in a strange, dreamy world.
You play as a young girl called Ipa, who is looking for her sister Lulu after a terrible event tore their world apart. She is travelling with a living rucksack on her back called Moswig, which is also the name of the studio who has developed Torii. From there she journeys into unreal landscapes, meeting strange creatures as she looks to find her sister and, hopefully, allow the healing to start.
As you might have guessed, Torii is a straightforward story. The themes are there to be deciphered, and you have a feeling rather than a straightforward answer to the questions about the game. Distorted images will appear, bits of fragmented text will be shown, and most of the story is symbolic as to what Ida is feeling and going through.
I liked this a lot, and loved the ambition. In fact, I adore it when developers go creating something very different from the norm. However, this will be hard for some gamers out there, those who like their story straightforward and full of handholding. This doesn’t offer any of that.
The Core Gameplay Loop
The gameplay runs as a mixture of stealth sections, exploration, and platform puzzle-solving. Ida will journey around these landscapes, and there are a number of “wings” to collect, as well as memories dotted around these semi-open world areas. You also collect rings in each level, and you can interact with these little beings called Kublins, who will give you information about the world, or clues to what you need to do next.
Throughout the game, there are also floating pyramids which when you engage with sees the world change, allowing you to do other things, like putting Ida into an Astral dimension within the level. These result in challenges like platforming or triggering platforms to get to a memory.
Patience and Stealth
And then the next big thing to worry about are the stealth sections.
There are these little beings going about their business, and they are called Hums. You need to capture these little creatures, and to do that, you need to hide from their field of vision and wait for them in a bush. When they come near, you can capture them, but it’s a hard waiting game, and you have to be accurate, or they run away. As you progress through the levels, these Hums get harder in their challenge. There might be more than one scuttling around too, so that means more fields of vision to hide from. Of course, there are special ones that you need to find too. There are also ones with triangle-shaped heads that you need to avoid altogether. I like these challenges, but there is no doubt that these segments ramp up the difficulty of Torii, especially once you are a few levels in. Patience is key.
Dreamlike Serenity
Torii comes with a very unusual and unique art style. It looks a bit like Journey at times, but is more surreal and dreamlike. There are cutscenes like a hazy memory or a distorted dream where it all comes across as calm and serene, but there is an uncertainty or disquiet in the world as well. I liked the use of colour in the game with its mixture of vivid and desaturated tones. Accompanying that and the sound is pretty basic, though the soundtrack has the same unusual quality that matches the visuals and vibe of the world itself.
A Boundary-Pushing Experience That Loses Its Sheen
I cannot stress enough about how important it is for games like Torii to exist, as they push boundaries and try new things in the gaming space, working all-new narratives. I like how this game uses symbolic visuals, rarely spelling out the narrative to the gamer, leaving them to instead figure out the message being told. The visuals are great, as is the world, but whilst everything works nicely, and it delivers a decent challenge, after a while the sheen you experience in the early moments does begin to wear off.
Should you be in the market for something a bit different though, give Torii a try.
Important Links
Torii Opens The Door To A Surreal And Emotional Journey On Xbox – https://www.thexboxhub.com/torii-opens-the-door-to-a-surreal-and-emotional-journey-on-xbox/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/torii/9PBVJS763FK6/0010
