Aporia: Beyond The Valley Review

Aporia: Beyond The Valley Review

- Owen Chan

Aporia: Beyond the Valley is a first-person exploration narrative game with lite puzzle mechanics thrown in Legend of Zelda dungeons. Being a narrative-first game, this review won’t delve into those elements to avoid spoilers. For those expecting some really ingenious puzzles, this isn’t a game for you. To compare, the puzzles are more escape room in nature. Which is a positive for a game like this.

Containing environmental storytelling, being more akin to a walking sim, this game walks a fine line of being too open and vague for a player to appreciate at a steady pace. Luckily, this game manages to maintain a level of consistency, making it easy to appreciate what the developers’ have done for set designs, and the general theming. Where it begins to falter is potentially the game’s scope being a bit beyond what the player will likely experience, or enjoy. The blank canvas nature of the narrative makes this a niche game somewhat.

Being more akin to book you’d study for your English exams, it straddles the line of being more of an interpretive story than an experience - as well as having a marmite-like effect.