It all starts with a chase between a little girl and a polar bear and, from these first seconds, the charm of the game works. The wind is blowing, the snow is swirling and the clean graphics hit the mark. We also immediately notice the quality of the animation, the little girl turning around regularly to better see the terrible threat. That's when a pristine white fox appears to divert the beast's attention and lead it to a fragile patch of ice, which will break under its weight. Fully playable, this introduction sets the tone of the adventure and lays the foundations for the gameplay, which meets the canons of the genre. In addition to running and jumping, both useful for moving from platform to platform, our young heroine can bend down to escape the grip of the wind. otherwise inaccessible to him. We will also have to push a few crates here and there and, once we have our hands on some bolas, destroy some ice barriers to help us in our progress. This fairly simple gameplay is complemented by the fox's abilities, which you can choose to control at any time when playing alone, or which you can entrust to the care of another player if you want to go through the adventure. in co-op. Thanks to its claws, the canine can climb for a few moments on certain vertical surfaces and, thereby, jump from one side to the other of vertical tunnels. On two or three occasions he will also be able to sneak into places that are too narrow for the girl. But her most interesting ability is to reveal the presence of benevolent spirits, and to materialize them so that they serve as temporary platforms and thus help the little girl to progress. These spirits, both white and transparent, never distort among the white of the snow, the blue of the ice and the green of the aurora borealis.
(NEVER) ALONE IN THE WHITE
Because one of the strengths of the game does indeed come from its graphics and the artistic direction as a whole. One might fear that we will get tired of seeing only ice, water and snow, but this is absolutely not the case. Everything forms a coherent whole, and each new level brings a little additional visual satisfaction. Even the cinematic scenes, made up of primitive cartoons (prehistoric cave style) have an undeniable charm. And just to score points on the substance and not just on the form, the game asks us to find owls in the scenery (very easy to find for the most part) which unlock around twenty bonuses. Called "Cultural Notions", these videos teach us more about the reality of Alaska and Inuit legends, without ever being off-putting. The same goes for the poetic aspect of the adventure, which never seems too silly. To tell the truth, Never Alone is a bit reminiscent of LIMBO in negative or a Child of Light platform version. But alas, its gameplay doesn't quite live up to those benchmarks. First of all, the game has some bugs, especially regarding the fox control. It happens that our companion climbs into the void or finds himself blocked for a few moments. But it remains punctual, so hardly embarrassing.
To tell the truth, Never Alone is a bit reminiscent of LIMBO in negative or a Child of Light platform version.
On the other hand, the artificial intelligence which supports at all times the character that we do not control (when playing solo) lacks sagacity. Basically, it tries to follow us and reproduce our movements. But it can happen that she misses her jumps and, above all, we would sometimes like to tell her to stay still for a few moments. This is the case with one of the puzzles of the adventure, which becomes unnecessarily complicated to carry out because the fox stupidly retraces its steps when we are just trying to join it. However, all the developers had to do was program a "do not move" command to definitively solve this problem. Similarly, one or two passages require a minimum of dexterity, due to the need to switch between the two characters at the right time, while in co-op the pace remains more relaxed. It is therefore clearly more pleasant to play with two than alone. Finally, we can always blame the title for its short lifespan (allow four hours to complete the adventure, not counting the time for watching the videos), even if the selling price fortunately takes this fact into account.
