Pandora : Wild Origins Reviews

First looks, I just started playing Pandora: Wild Origins today. The game is both relaxing and involving, I find myself getting absorbed in the simple act of moving about the world and discovery. The animation is smooth and I am so far enjoying the overall feel of the game, and I look forward to what comes next.

So at the moment I would probably wait until this game is WAY more fleshed out, it's very barebones. I wanted to try it because I saw no footage of it, so I wouldn't recommend it right now at it's current state. (I would normally play a few hours longer but you'll see by the footage why) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggAqkZgPN24

Hi, It is my very first game on Steam and I must admit I love it ! I get so much fun going on hunt and growing up, I definitively recommend it ! ;)

It's half finished and abandoned, key remapping doesn't work, trying to remap moving right freezes the whole game until I force quit. The game feels very misleading on how playable it is for something that hasn't been updated in over a year. Waiting on steam support for a refund :(

I won't lie, the game needs some work. But really not even anything major. Maybe just some polishing of movements (making the turn/running animations smoother being one I think could be refreshing), adding more content, etc. But overall, this game is very cute and enjoyable. I can tell that the person/persons who made this have passion for it, and if they continue to work on this it really has some potential to be a fantastic game. I have yet to complete it, but from what I have played, it is a great game. Though, I *do* think the price may be a bit steep for the content as it is at the moment. Maybe wait for a sale unless you really want an animal survivor pretty bad at the moment. Pros: - Interesting questline with fairly good voice acting - Cute, good looking graphics - Hunting, sniffing (could be improved by adding a directional marker for scents), and mate/family mechanics - Skills to level up to your choosing (speed, stamina, hunger/thirst, etc) - Not to say it doesn't have any, but I myself have not experienced any bugs thus far - Some may not agree that this is a pro, but as far as adding realism to a game like this; you have an exhaustion bar in addition to your stamina bar. Your character has three speeds: walk, trot, run. You can walk and trot forever. But not running. The exhaustion bar does not run out nearly as fast as your stamina, but I like the fact that this is a thing, considering animals irl cannot run indefinitely. The exhaustion bar can be refilled by reducing your speed, or simply just resting/sleeping. Cons: - Even though you do get to level up your stats, you run out of stamina quickly. As I said, I have yet to finish leveling, so there could be a possibility that I will be able to manage that better through leveling up - Some animations are a little clunky. As mentioned previously, the turning and running animations could be improved. I truly don't have any complaints other than those. I think this is a very sweet game, and definitely worth a try if you're on the fence about it. I hope to see more development of this game in the future. I will update my review if I feel the need as far as encountering bugs, or other issues.

I highly recommend Pandora Wild Origins to anyone who enjoys animal simulators with beautiful graphics ! I really love playing a mountain lion with all its well-made animations The quests at the beginning explain well how to control our animal (I recommend following them until, at least, the one giving you level 2) Then we're ready to explore with plenty of activities (hunting, surviving, meeting a partner, raising our babies...) I particularly enjoy having skill points to either specialize in hunting fast preys or killing agressiv ones and, yes, there's kind of 2 categories of preys, which is pretty interesting There's always something to do, which will help you to evolve and make your story, which I think is very entertaining, unlike what I've seen in other games of this type which was a bit frustrating As an early access, I think it's pretty well done, with already good content, and I personnally didn't experience any bug while playing it. We also may see a lot more content added to the game in the future and I can't wait to see it. For all of these reasons, and to encourage a bit the dev team, yes, I definitely recommend it !

This game has a LOT of potential, but it's not quite ready. With some more work and polish, then I'd feel comfortable recommending this to other people. For now, however, not so much- and that's okay! Nothing starts out perfect, after all. I've put together a list of issues I found, along with some suggestions: 1) One of the first things that bothered me was the 'press alt to unlock cursor' thing. As a mechanic, this is fine, but the fact that you can only interact with your quests and the map by doing this gets VERY tedious after a while. My suggestion would be to set hotkeys for the map and quest log that automatically ALSO unlock the cursor, so that the player doesn't have to constantly switch back and forth. 2) On the topic of the map, there is no compass, or even a cursor telling you which way your character is facing, which makes it difficult to navigate the game world easily. It can be done, but these little tweaks would help immensely. 3) You can't interact with your parents at all- they're pretty much irrelevant. I'd say either have the character start the game as an adult while removing the parents entirely, or keep the age progression and give us a way to actually interact with them. 4) Hunting is quick, but it feels clunky, and there's no indication of when you've actually landed a hit successfully. Some kind of visual cue would be very helpful. 5) Ran into a gamebreaking glitch that I'm not sure how I brought about. but basically, some time after I got a mate, they straight up disappeared, and after that point I wasn't able to hunt anymore, for some reason- even after I sent them home. I restarted my game and was able to attack again, but only once or twice and then I couldn't attack anymore. I initially thought it was because my thirst was low or something, but even after my stats were all filled I still couldn't attack. Not sure what happened, but I literally can't play the game anymore because I can't hunt, hence why I'm only at 2 hours right now. 6) Lots of grammatical errors, which I believe is due to a language barrier. I'm guessing by the language choices in the game that the designers are French. Also of note, when I went to 'seduce' potential mates, the failure message would always be in French despite that not being my language of choice. 7) The music starts and ends abruptly. Honestly this makes for pretty hilarious gameplay when you're chasing a deer and the music stops suddenly as they turn, then starts back up. Maybe a fade in/fade out would help with this? 8) For some reason, the stamina bar doesn't deplete entirely. There's still a significant amount left even when you're forced to stop sprinting. To me, this is mainly just a small, but slightly aggravating GUI design choice. If your stamina is empty, the bar should be empty. 9) Walk-run-sprint is controlled by pressing 1 to slow down, or 2 to speed up. Personally I think it would be easier to just have a single button that cycles through all three of them. frees up a potential hotkey and wouldn't make much of a difference gameplay-wise, IMO 10) Sitting and lying down are controlled by two buttons as well, and could be changed to just one that switches back-and-forth between them, much like with the previous point. 11) Sprinting feels pointless a lot of the time- it's only barely faster than a regular run, and even with higher speed stats it doesn't seem to make a huge difference. Also, I usually have to press the shift key two or three times to start actually sprinting, and I'm not sure why that is. 12) The exploration stones are kind of pointless, as well. If I've physically explored an area with my character, then that spot on the map should clear up. The stones' only purpose seems to be for clearing the map, but I think they could be put to better use as, say, teleportation points or something. The game world already has what seems to be magic, so I don't think this would be too farfetched. 13) Prey AI is very simple, and at one point a buck straight up ran through a huge rock and I couldn't get him, so it looks like there are some pretty apparent collision issues with them that need addressing. okay now on to some REALLY MINOR nitpicks I have that wouldn't really change the gameplay at all, but are just small things that kind of bothered me. 1) No matter which cat you choose to play as, they all make a generic tiger stock roar when attacking. It would be cool if the roar sound actually matched the species, but obvs this is just a superficial thing. 2) The drinking animation is a bit off. Cats (both big and small) don't open their mouths super wide when they drink. They use their tongues to scoop up water and only open their mouths enough to facilitate that. Again, just a small, cosmetic thing I think would be worth changing. Overall, Pandora: Wild Origins has a long way to go before it's ready for a full release, but I do think there's a lot of potential here. Despite my complaints, I still played for 2 hours straight, and I did have fun hunting and exploring the game world. But that's not really enough for me to confidently recommend it to someone else.