Tunic - Charming Mix of The Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls Gains Recognition

The gaming market may live mostly with big launches like Elden Ring or Horizon Forbidden West but we can't forget about smaller productions. One of them is Tunic created by Andrew Shouldice and released yesterday. The title turned out to be a little gem.

It's worth adding that the game was immediately included in the offer of Game Pass service on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. This may explain the modest number of reviews on Steam, although there are more and more of them and they give the game a very good testimonial.

Tunic - selected reviews

1. Gaming Trend - 100/100
2. VG247 - 5/5
3. Game Informer - 9.75/10
4. Destructoid - 9/10
5. Dexerto - 9/10
6. Everyeye.it - 9/10
7. GameSpot - 9/10
8. God is a Geek - 9/10
9. IGN - 9/10
10. Easy Allies - 8/10
11. Metro Games Central - 8/10
12. Wccftech - 8/10
13. IGN Italia - 7.8/10
14. Multiplayer.it - 7.8/10
15. Spazio Games.it - 7.5/10
16. Digital Trends - 4/10
17. Metascore - 87/100 (average of 39 ratings for the PC version)

At the time of publishing this text, less than two hundred users of the platform have rated the title on Steam. Nevertheless, even these relatively few texts show that Andrew Shouldice and Finji Publishing have hit the mark.

Tunic can be briefly described as a spiritual heir to the classic games from the The Legend of Zelda series with a touch of Dark Souls. The inspiration of the first of these brands can be seen at first glance through the charming audiovisuals, isometric view and equipment of the main character.

Discover it yourself

However, the game captivated players with another reference to titles from many decades ago - the need to discover everything yourself.

Remember the story about the map included in the original release of Zelda on the NES so players wouldn't get lost in the game world? In Tunic we use the book present in the game itself. However, it's not enough that this manual is incomplete and we have to find its subsequent pages, moreover, most of it consists of pictures and subtitles in a fictional language.

This opaqueness is a feature of the whole game, but it is what makes it charming. As long as we do not succumb to the temptation of using the Internet, discovering even the smallest secrets Tunic on our own will give us great satisfaction. This also applies to the plot, which is like in Dark Souls, meaning you have to decipher it based on clues in the manual and environmental elements.

Difficult, but not without frustration

Another thing that refers to the old games and titles of From Software in Tunic is the difficulty level (although it should be added that the game does not overdo the challenges), level design full of shortcuts (sometimes hidden thanks to the isometric view) and secrets, and combat based on dodging, blocking and a stamina bar. There are also no difficulty setting options, and the use of save points involves respawn of defeated enemies.

At the same time Tunic doesn't force the player to bang their head against the wall. It's a game that gives satisfaction from dealing with challenges without preceding each success with hours of frustration and severely punishing each death. Of course, this stealthy approach to gameplay will not be an advantage for everyone, and may end up irritating less patient players.

Few bugs

The other thing is that the reviews don't mention many flaws. It's just that one or another journalist found very rare bugs or wasn't thrilled with the boss battles or the overt copying of The Legend of Zelda. Even in the most critical texts the accusations focus de facto only on the game's "smallness".