Every robot has a distinct personality that reflects their worldview. Horatio (voiced by the always-brilliant Logan Cunningham) is a compelling character, and the sardonic Crispin makes for a worthy sidekick. That said, the writing in Primordia is uniformly good. It is easy to lose plot threads when minutes at a time can be spent trying to finagle the exact right order to combine items and use them on objects to move a plot beat forward. While esoteric solutions to seemingly simple puzzles are hardly news for anyone who has played one of these before, it can be frustrating to feel the momentum of the story slow to a crawl as players force themselves to “use” every item in their inventory on a given NPC in the hopes of some kind of reaction. The solutions to any given puzzle are always nearby, even if the player has to make some logistical leaps to arrive there. To Primordia’s credit, it is impossible to become soft-locked. But in true adventure game fashion, solutions are rarely obvious, and hints are few and far between. There are several different NPCs that can be mined for information, and if the player is careful in how they answer, they may be able to glean additional facts about the world or clues on how to solve specific puzzles. Some items can be combined, broken down, and used in multiple situations others have only one, specific use before they disappear, never to be thought about again. The player has an inventory, where they’ll place items of significance that they find. Players are given a map to explore, with several different screens full of points of interaction. This is, at its core, the very essence of a point-and-click game. Primordia draws from its inspirations even as it seeks to modernize its tropes. But for the uninitiated, some solutions may be mind-numbingly difficult. For fans of the genre, they’ll find a number of complicated yet satisfying inventory-based puzzles and exceedingly clever writing. Primordia, for better and worse, is very much in the mold of its adventure game predecessors. Primordia also looks amazing on a large screen, and being able to take in the expansive landscapes feels beneficial to the mechanics.Ī point-and-click adventure ultimately lives or dies by two factors: aesthetics, and puzzles. Being able to use the touch screen is a blessing for this kind of game. The Switch version of Primordia is essentially an optimized mobile port, but that’s hardly a knock against it. Though this is the game’s debut on the Nintendo Switch, it has existed on other platforms. One minor complaint is Primordia’s pallet in certain sections- the browns of the Underworks can feel very drab, especially when trying to walk from one side of the screen to the other. to argumentative robots standing in line outside of a courthouse. The world is packed full of details, from the sparking wires of Horatio’s ship the U.N.N.I.I.C. Seeing the glowing city of Metropol up close or entering the mouth of a stories-tall goliath, there is always something incredible to discover. Every background looks gorgeously hand-painted, and the pixel art is frequently astounding. Primordia‘s lush art direction is a definite point in its favor. Players must want to spend time in the world, to be drawn in by the aesthetic even as they encounter difficult puzzles with increasingly brow-furrowing solutions. When the ship’s power core is forcefully taken by another robot, Horatio and the ever-sarcastic Crispin must track down the thief, or risk powering down for good.Īdventure games must ride a fine line. He lives out in the desert aboard a crashed spaceship with a floating robot companion, a gigantic telescope, and a dwindling power supply. But Horatio, the avatar the player controls, does things a little differently. They have built their own society, with rules and culture. In the future, humans are a distant memory, and the world is populated by several different varieties of robots.
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