Game EXP: Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale (NS)

 Disclaimer:  I received a review copy of Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale from developer and publisher GrimTalin before the May 28th release of their game on the Nintendo Switch.  The game was given and received without expectation or promise of a positive review, only that the game be played and reviewed honestly through our site.  At the time the game code was given, there was a no review embargo mentioned so that the game could be openly reviewed and elements of the game shared through social media channels before the May 28th release of the game.  All words and pictures used in this article, unless otherwise noted, are from my own experience playing the game.

Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale
Platform: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Steam
Release Date: May 28, 2021
Publisher: GrimTalin
Developer: GrimTalin

Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale from GrimTalin (The Adventures of Elena Temple: Definitive Edition) is a low-key puzzle game played on an isometric board with a fantasy story told in the background that plays an ancillary role to the actual gameplay.  The game is broken up into two modes that function in nearly identical ways where you direct a stone ball that rolls in a single direction until it is stopped or the direction is modified by an obstacle while collecting either feathers (quill pens since the story unfolds as each feather is collected?) or coins that are scattered throughout the stage.  Feathers progress the story while gems unlock chapters.

The first game mode progresses the story, told in a fully voiced rhyming fairytale storybook style, telling the tale of a Princess longing for a different life than what awaits her and the adventure the follows.  In these stages, you have to collect all of the feathers that are scattered throughout the playing field, and failing to collect all of the feathers within a set number of moves forces you to replay the stage.  So far (60% of the way through the game as of this paragraph) I have found that the number of moves you have is just enough moves needed to finish one of the story stages (with exception of the first stage as pictured above here); meaning if you have 10 moves, you will not be able to complete the stage in 8 moves.  As you progress through the story stages, the complexity of the puzzles increases as new mechanics are introduced, but the learning curve seems pretty just.

Like this:

There are six story stages in each chapter with there being a total of five chapters, each with its own visual aesthetic.  Once you complete the six story stages, an additional 10 stages are opened up along with the six storybook stages where you now collect coins, and based on the number of moves you used to complete the stage, you are given a three gem rating.  Coins are used to purchase different skins for the stone ball and have no other effects outside of being a cosmetic option.  The gems on the other hand are used to unlock additional chapters.  It is interesting that in the achievements menu (here called Feats of Wisdom) these coin/gem stages are referred to as "optional stages," even though you are required to complete at least enough to earn enough gems to open the next chapter.  

On the counter in the upper-left, there are a series of colored bars ranging from gold to bronze, with each bar counting as a move and showing the number of coins remaining as there are some puzzles where the coins are hidden or must be unlocked before they can be collected.  If you can complete the puzzle while still in the gold range, you will earn three gems, two for silver, one for bronze, and an automatic failure if you are unable to complete the stage in the number of moves given.  For me, the coin/gem stages were where the real challenge lay because, in the storybook stages, the game told you how many moves you had to solve the puzzle, but in the coin/gem stages, using the above stage, for example, you had between 13-18 moves, depending on how many gems you wanted to score.

One of the key mechanics in Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale is the hint system.  In both types of stages, there is a meter on the left side of the screen that slowly fills up over time.  For the storybook stages, once the meter fills up completely, you can press the Y button to receive a hint as to which way to direct the ball in the puzzle.  However, you must use the hint from the start and once you move on your own without a hint, then the hints stop.  You can undo moves at will to take yourself back to a moment before you moved on your own to get additional hints.  In the coin/gem stages, your meter is broken up into thirds by bronze/silver/gold with the hints directing you to complete the puzzle in the color that the meter has filled up to.  So if the meter is only filled through the silver, the game will only give you hints to solve the puzzle to earn two gems.  I am not sure if the meter fills an additional color when you started with just one filled if the hints compensate, or if you have to wait until another attempt.  Once the meters are full, you can use as many or as few hints to get you the solution, which is actually nice to have in the back of your mind.  One other thing I wanted to note about these meters is that they do not reset, so if you leave a puzzle with a meter half full, if you come back 15 puzzles later, the meter will be at the same level as when you left, which is a nice touch.  

The amount of time it takes for the meters to fill up is well-paced as in both modes (Bronze: 3m; Silver: +4m; Gold +5m).  In both modes I found a lot of the puzzles required multiple attempts as new mechanics were introduced allowing enough time to discover how they functioned individually and in tandem.  Oftentimes, by the time the meter reached the silver level, I might have been able to figure out what I needed to do to reach a gold/ three gems.  I would say that more than half of the time, I could figure out the silver/two gem solution on my own and before the meter filled.  On rare occasions, I would let the meter fill while doing some other daily life activity if I became too frustrated with a stage, or I would just leave the stage to come back later.  The one problem I had with coming back to stages later, especially stages in previous chapters was that I would be out of my rhythm in terms of the mechanics used as they did not always compound across chapters.

Now, I feel like the mechanics for the hint system and the hint system are really what make this game approachable and fun, at least for someone like me who can have trouble with puzzle games like this that require items (in this case gems) to unlock additional chapters.  Had I been thinking beforehand, I could have not used the hint system at all to see how far I would be able to make it in the game before being locked out of chapters due to not having enough gems.  I think it is a great touch that works well in this game and possible others (looking at you Chess Knights: Viking Lands), but I recognize that it may not be suitable, warranted, or wanted for all puzzle games.  I could even imagine people harking on the existence of the hint system as cheapening the game and somehow invalidating their own accomplishment in being able to gold/three gem each puzzle stage in under a minute.  But for me, whose brain does not work in the same way by figuring out how the ball will interact with obstacles five or 10 moves ahead, it is a welcome addition.

As for features of the game that I did not use too often, there are different control and input methods as well as being able to slightly rotate the camera.  For control schemes, the default felt the best, which has you point the joystick in the direction you want to roll the ball and then activate the ball by pressing A.  Others have you holding the joystick in the direction and it moves automatically and another one that has its own meter that moves the ball after a few seconds.  There is also touchscreen functionality, but I found that my sausage fingers obscured too much of the playable area.  Rotating the screen is not really so much rotating as it is slightly angling the screen a few degrees to the right or left, presumably to get a better angle on the ball and feathers/coins, but I never ran into an issue of not being able to figure out where the ball was or that a feather/coin was intentionally obscured and only visible by moving the camera; this is different than the feathers/coins that are hidden inside logs that you roll through.

Lastly, I want to briefly touch on the music which is suiting for this type of game.  There are no grandiose orchestras reminiscent of a ring going south, just calming background music while you try to solve an ever-developing puzzle.  One thing that seemed a bit out of place was when you complete a chapter, a song plays that is drastically different than the rest of the in-game music.  And by song, I mean a song with lyrics being sung.  At first, I was afraid that this was going to be the new in-game music at all times as it seemed to continue playing through the various menus and into the rest of the game, but once the song finished, the game went back to the regular background fantasy music.

Long Ago: A Puzzle Tale is in definition, a relaxing puzzle game that you can make as easy or as difficult as you like. It is a fun game to have in the back of your mind, to pop in and go through a couple of puzzles or even power through (if you find you are on roll) and complete an entire chapter.  You are under no obligation to use the hint system but it is there in case you need to.  The story seems like it is there to give a bit of narrative through the puzzles but it is not integral to being able to solve any of the puzzles nor does the existence of puzzles explains anything that happens in the story.  With 110 puzzles to complete (30 story levels & 80 coin/gem stages) to varying levels of completeness, there is a fair amount of content here that will take you longer if you rely on the hint system, or you may find that you use it less and less as you slowly become more proficient at recognizing GrimTalin's thought process in developing the game and then using the environment to your advantage.  

There is probably a life lesson somewhere in that.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
I'm Not Ashamed to Reveal