(Mini Review) Herdling & Carto
- Narukoopa
- Apr 19
- 2 min read
Herdling
Herdling is a third-person adventure game that sees you shepherding a herd of animals known as Calicorns. Starting in down-trodden conditions, you and your herd must journey through a vast landscape in search of a safe harbour for you and your new-found family.
What makes Herdling stand out the most is its beautiful presentation. The screenshots show a glimpse of that, but seeing it in motion will leave you in awe. Coming across a new vista that stretches out as far as the eye can see is a unique experience that is hard to describe.
In truth, Herdling is a game about freedom, and nothing encapsulates that more than being able to run and stampede across a vast, open landscape with your herd of Calicorns, with not a fear in the world. Couple that with the game's beautiful soundtrack, and you have one of the most remarkable flow-state games to be released in recent years.
It's not all fast-paced though. There are plenty of slower moments, whether that's tending to your herd, solving puzzles and removing obstructions, or stealthing past hostile birds. How you guide your herd is important, and while getting them to move the way you want them to move can be frustrating at times, it is all part of the challenge.
Ultimately, Herdling is more varied than it initially comes across. I actually think it deserves a lot more recognition than it has received so far. Okomotive's previous titles were the FAR games, and Herdling is a notable change of direction for the developers. Regardless, their effort was a resounding success, and I can highly recommend Herdling to anyone.
Carto
Given the review rating for this game, I realise my opinion might be a controversial one, and if there was a mixed rating option I could pick, I would've preferred to choose that. Alas, because I didn't finish the game, and I left it feeling frustrated, I decided to pick the negative option.
There is a lot to like about Carto. The art style is really nice to look at. Environments are vibrant and distinct, and the characters that inhabit them are full of charm and wit. Likewise, the core gameplay mechanic is really clever and I enjoyed the various ways the game plays with the idea.
But unfortunately, I was frequently frustrated by it. I don't fault Carto for being challenging sometimes; a puzzle game being challenging is obviously a good metric to have. But puzzles should be fun to solve, and more often than not, I wasn't having a good time with them. Their logic would make sense, but their execution left much to be desired.
It also gets very repetitive, and while new things are introduced each chapter, they are not substantial enough to keep me fully invested, and the fast paced nature of the story meant that I couldn't push past my grievances with the gameplay loop. There was nothing else to hook on to, so I gave up.
Nevertheless, if you have more patience than I have, maybe you will have a better time. I see plenty of people enjoyed the game a lot more than I did, so don't let my review stop you from checking it out. Just perhaps on a discount instead.
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