![]() ![]() This isn’t a review exactly, but I thought it would be worth doing a post about Google Stadia. If you have a Stadia Pro subscription and a few hours to creep about and solve some puzzles then Gylt isn’t the worst way to spend it, but outside of that your time and money is better spent elsewhere. Otherwise there’s nothing to write home about. It deals with it’s subject matter pretty well and this is where’s it worth is. Whilst it’s a solid enough package, as one of the few Stadia exclusives at this point, Gylt is a disappointment. However, Gylt wants it’s message to have weight but you are left having to choose which things to take on board and which to ignore. This is fine in and of itself – it would have been easy to spoon feed the audience in a game with a child as the protagonist. So much in the narrative isn’t explained.To begin with in these situations I would look about in panic but after a while you can predict it happening. Gylt can seem janky and unfinished, whether it’s the inconsistency of being spotted when you think Sally is hidden, or some plain textures on some surfaces or the countless times that, despite already dealing with the monster in a room, the music would kick off as if I was surrounded.There were one of two places where I got stuck and had to repeat platforming challenges or sneak past other rooms of enemies to get back to where I had failed. Save points can be few and far between at times, for reasons that aren’t obvious.Perhaps rightly so – who said a small, scared girl would have great monster-slaying skills?! But it doesn’t make for great gameplay – Gylt’s combat is clunky at best. Combat, when you can’t avoid it, is bad.There are multiple different endings and, without spoilers, all I’ll say is that if you make sure you explore every nook and cranny in Gylt, you will be rewarded at the end! It’s not overly heavy handed with it’s message about bullying and comes to a good conclusion. Particularly how it reveals itself over time, which makes you want to keep going to right the wrongs of the situation. Speaking of the story, it is pretty good.The cable car area at the start and the arcade are both very evocative and the gym, which turns into a prison, is the scene of one of the best parts of the game, combining all the puzzle, stealth and story aspects that Gylt does best. There are a few great locations in the game.It has a nice couple of touches to, like the way Sally’s backpack moves when she runs. Actions work well, there’s never any collision detection or unresponsive presses. This is where the horror aspect is at its best, when you know you have limited scope to survive if detected. Although you can fight back to an extent, most of the time you’ll want to avoid them so you’ll spend a lot of time crouching around corners hoping not to be seen. Some of them are genuinely creepy and frightening, particularly ones that look a bit like birds and that classic horror trope the little girl. There are lots of monsters in Gylt, from weird eyes that just stare at you to big bosses.The innocence of it’s young protagonists is a good fit for this combination of parts but unfortunately it doesn’t add up to anything special. However, none of this is really the point – Gylt is actually about the mental effects of bullying and of not standing up for others. To be fair, a lot of the monsters that have infested Sally’s town are genuinely creepy, and crawling around in the dark is always nerve wracking, even in Gylt’s surroundings. Even the horror aspects are sanitised somewhat: there’s no blood or dead bodies. You play as Sally, a small girl searching for her cousin and graphically the game is quite simple – everything is larger than life and clear. In terms of it’s gameplay, Gylt is a cute-horror-puzzle game. ![]()
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