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Humanity review roundup: Luminous puzzle game led by an adorable Shiba Inu - - News | humanity review,puzzle game | GamesHorizon

Humanity review roundup: Luminous puzzle game led by an adorable Shiba Inu

Tanay SharmaBy Updated:7 Mins Read Reviews

Over the years, puzzle games have evolved into different sub-genres, gameplay elements, and challenging adventures. Every once in a while, an awe-striking game makes us refresh our perspective toward solving a problem. 

Humanity is a distinctive fusion of action-platforming and puzzle-solving. You play as a lone Shiba Inu tasked with leading enormous, marching masses to the objective in Story Mode, or peruse a vast selection of levels created by players using the in-game Stage Creator!

Let’s take a look at what the latest reviews have to say.

“Manages to intermingle platforming, action, and real-time strategy elements with mind-bending finesse”: IGN

IGN makes a solid comparison with some of the best puzzle and platform games out there. According to them, they’ve spent roughly 20 hours leading millions of these strange little guys through countless innovative riddles, and as a result, they feel a sense of youthful excitement and, at the very least, a slight increase in their confidence in their ability to solve puzzles. 

Each stage is easy enough to complete in 10 to 20 minutes, but it never stops experimenting with platforming mechanics, occasionally delving into real-time strategy, stealth action, and even arcade shooting.

Because of its comprehensive yet incredibly user-friendly Stage Creator, it approaches Little Big Planet levels of open-endedness that will unavoidably keep you going back for months. Its intriguing possibilities are as unlimited as its endless swarms of human minions.

When messing up is this interesting, trial and error feels incredible. Watching early strategies and methods fail before they mysteriously got things out each time they advanced to the next level is a lot of fun. It’s excellent that you may restart a map at any time without losing your current commands; this allows you to make iterative changes to your strategy without losing all of your progress.

Being a Shiba Inu in this situation works quite well, especially given that your small stature and swift movement allow you to sneakily maneuver between human groups, leaping and running through the crowd with the help of your own minions.

“Humanity is an incredibly alluring piece of work”: GamesHub

GameHub’s experience with the game made them feel powerful and stupid, considering how creatively complex the puzzles can get. According to them, Humanity has a wide range of puzzle difficulty, depending on the complexity of the design or your current mental state. 

With some stages, they could figure out the solution right away. Others were much more challenging, including numerous switches, uneven terrain, and moving pieces, necessitating that they first perform a dry run of the level to get a feel for it before attempting it again in light of what they had just learned.

There are a few optional ‘Goldy’ people to find on each stage; these tall giants can be absorbed by the crowd of players and transported to the destination in the perfect scenario. However, the number of Goldys you’ve managed to collect determines how far in Humanity’s chapters you can advance, so early on it feels crucial to make every effort to collect them all.

The game’s beautiful, unsettling aesthetic was always a peculiar pull prodding them to try it, even during those occasionally challenging puzzles. Loops of contemplative, ambient electronica that tickle your head go together with the simple austerity of the stages. Like viewing a lava lamp for the first time, the fascinating sight of literally hundreds of humans walking, falling, and bumping into one another is hypnotizing.

“Humanity is the kind of experimental breath of fresh air we rarely see being released nowadays”: WayTooManyGames

WayTooManyGames praises the developers’ effort in making the game charmingly challenging and unique. Based on their review, the mysterious title gives away what will happen.

In the odd puzzle game Humanity, you play as a spirit of the afterlife in the form of a shiny Shiba Inu who has been given the mission by a higher power to lead doomed souls to the light. Sadly, these souls are incapable of independent thought. They are limited to following instructions and walking straight. As a result, the adorable spirit doggy must place signs along their route to direct them on when to turn, jump, etc.- anything that will lead them to the level’s end marker.

Humanity teaches you its peculiar gameplay loop in a slow-moving and incredibly intuitive manner. It takes its time teaching you how to use each new power-up as it is given to you. Once you get acquainted to how your doge abilities create markings on the map, the controls are rather simple to use.

When Humanity gets underway, the first few puzzles more or less serve as tutorials. After that, the game becomes hard but never unduly annoying. It strikes a fairly amazing mix between being thought-provoking and fair. You have the option to stop the game and view the full map, allowing you to plan the best course of action before actually taking it. You won’t be punished either if you let the lost souls fall from a platform.

The game is a rare experimental breath of fresh air, which is infrequent in today’s world. It has a crazy premise and a meaningless plot, but it also has superb controls, a wonderfully intuitive gameplay loop, and of course, as anticipated from a game published by Enhance, trippy visuals and great music.

It evokes the spirit of the most odd and experimental games from the Dreamcast era. If you’re looking for the next strange game to play on your PC or PS5, even while it isn’t the publisher’s most enjoyable release in recent memory, this one is certainly worth your money.

“Humanity is a brilliant puzzle game that never runs out of ideas”: The Verge

The Verge’s review admires Humanity’s brilliantly innovative ideas. According to them, some individuals will be persuaded to buy Humanity just based on its fundamental concept. In a game created in part by the designers behind titles like Rez and Tetris Effect, you take on the role of an supernatural Shiba Inu and assist humans as they navigate a world of challenges. Humanity is one of the most clever and kindhearted puzzle games they’ve played in a very long time. 

The patience with which Humanity has accepted new ideas and thoughts is what they find most astounding. As you go through the game, new commands become available. To help the streams of people avoid barriers, you can direct them to turn or jump. Each stage is essentially a 3D grid, thus, to accomplish this, you must sprint to a square and bark the command. Once a human touches that square, it will follow them. Without the proper instructions, they risk perishing by blindly obeying like the Lemmings characters in the movie. But if you make the correct decisions, you can bring them there without incident.

You’ll learn new commands and concepts that fundamentally alter the types of puzzles and obstacles you’ll encounter over the course of several thematic sections (they go by titles like choice, fate, and conflict).

Common objects, such as pushable blocks, blowing fans, and switches operate when you step on them. However, as time goes on, things start to get a lot more challenging as you have to contend with rival humans, also known as the others, and even tools like light clubs and laser cannons.

Humanity starts off as a simple puzzle game; by the time it reaches its conclusion, it is all-out war. There are even boss battles, in hell.

The 90-level Humanity campaign feels like it always introduces you to fresh thoughts and notions. The experience is enhanced further by a level editor that enables you to create and distribute your own puzzles. 

It’s also important to note that the reviewers could not test the game’s functionality for virtual reality on PS4, PS5, or Steam. (Despite this, Enhance has a solid VR track record with Rez Infinite and Tetris Effect.)

The Good and the Bad: What does the game deliver?

Humanity review roundup: Luminous puzzle game led by an adorable Shiba Inu - - News | humanity review,puzzle game | GamesHorizon

Positives:

  • Innovative puzzles that can challenge your imagination
  • Mechanics that are unique and clever
  • Infinite gameplay loop that can have you come back years later.

Negatives:

  • The story and challenges may confuse you at times.
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Tanay is a writer at GamesHorizon. He wears many hats - musician, gamer and interactive storyteller to name a few. He's pursuing a Master's in Behavioural Sciences and holds a Bachelor's in Human Centred Design. You'll often find him taking tough life decisions in unreal worlds. Some of his favourite game studios include Quantic Dream, Rockstar Games and Telltale Games.