Review | Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale

LifeisXbox’s Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale review | Puzzle games come in all shapes and sizes but rarely have I seen one with so much polish and charming atmosphere. Developer GrimTalin created a simple but challenging game wrapped in a fairy tales jacket. I have played a lot of similar games throughout the years but this one managed to surprise me! In Long Ago you can move a ball around a grid but you have a few things to consider. The ball only stops moving if it hits something and you have a limited amount of moves to reach all the collectables. It is actually very similar to one of the mini-games in Super Lucky’s Tale, a platformer I highly recommend!

This is a short review, our usual the good, mixed and the bad was difficult because of the nature of this game. We played Long Ago : A Puzzle Tale on Xbox Series X

Rolling the ball around an attractive and colorful grid is the main mechanic of Long Ago, spicing up things are limited moves and different kind of mechanics like bridges, moving blocks or deadly spikes. This ain’t an easy game so prepare to have some healthy annoyance before you finally find a solution. In total 80 levels, playable in two modes are waiting for you. Making everything a bit more special is a fully voiced – something rarely seen in a game like this – story, with original rhyming dialogue. Together with the soothing soundtrack I absolutely loved the sound in Long Ago.

If you’re afraid that the game might be a bit too difficult the dev created a useful hint system, I’m not shy to say that I used it quite often and it was balanced enough so I couldn’t use it every time or didn’t get frustrated with levels either. Speculating about how to move the ball is part of the puzzling fun and I was glad that there isn’t a time constraint. You can take all the time in the world to use your imagination to find a path that leads you to all collectables. With as few steps as possible, that is the only thing that matters.

80%

A relaxing and cute puzzle game from developer GrimTalin. A voiced story will charm you with rhythmic dialogue and the friendly hint system doesn’t make Long Ago frustrating or too challenging.
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