ATONE: Heart of the Elder Tree Reviews

I enjoyed my time with ATONE quite a bit. The general aesthetics (visuals, audio) is very unique and sets an off-kilter tone that serves very well the engaging story. Story is where the game shone for me. Heavily inspired by Norse mythology, it is served by a cast of interesting and relatable characters, with interesting arcs and some surprising development. The story is branching and has several endings. I'll definitely want to play some more to explore different branches and their consequences. Gameplay-wise, the game alternates between puzzle-exploration and rhythm game-style battles. The puzzles are the weakest part of the game in my opinion. The difficulty is a bit all over the place, with some being obvious alongside some very cryptic. Some mechanics are repeated in several puzzles, but they don't come with an interesting twist. Once you figured it out, the subsequent ones are a lot less interesting. Some puzzles give you only a fixed amounts of attempts (sometimes only one!). I liked the idea of it, because it forced me to really think instead of going by trial-and-error. However, in practice it felt a bit perplexing when after a good long hard thought I try a solution, and the game just tells me I got it wrong and moves on without a hint at what was wrong about my solution. The rhythm game battles are super fun. I enjoyed the music a lot - an obvious requirement for such gameplay! The difficulty is quite permissive, even in hard mode. But that allowed me to stay focused on the flow of the music rather than a punishing die-and-retry loop. There is a mode where you can replay the songs you found in the story mode, and I spent quite a bit of time there. Overall, it reminded my a bit of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, in the best way. If you're looking for a beautiful, moody narrative experience and/or enjoy rhythm games, you might like this one. If you're after good puzzles, this might not be the game for you.

Atone is a short and sweet little narrative adventure, and the rhythm game combat is a joy. Seeing the tales from Norse legend told by short animations throughout the game is fascinating, and the rhythm game combat is both fun and challenging, made even better by the fun animations in the background as the combat actually occurs. The story itself is good, telling Estra's tale well, and involving a few choices throughout the game that can change the player's course and the voice acting adds so much to the already engaging story.