UNSIGHTED Critic Reviews

Unsighted is this year’s best Metroidvania/Zelda-like game by a long shot. It’s creative, gripping, and accessible with a ton of stuff to do and see. There are a few small issues, like some awkward writing or too much menuing, but those are well worth it for such a fun, polished experience.

For Brazilian developer Studio Pixel Punk, Unsighted is an accessible and content-rich debut with a compelling sci-fi drama at its core, and certainly in the argument for one of the best metroidvanias of the year.

With couch co-op and the addition of Steam’s Remote Play Together, you can play with another person with just a single copy, provided you have a solid internet connection. Unsighted is an utterly amazing title for a debuting indie team that is well worth your money and attention.

Unsighted is awesome. More people should know about it and play it, especially considering that the game goes out of its way to be accessible even to people who usually find Souls-like titles too hard, or people who dislike the timer mechanic but still want to experience the game, or even people looking for a harder ride. This is a good game and you should go play it. It’s not quite for everyone… but it’s as close as any title I’ve reviewed comes to being a must-play.

UNSIGHTED deserves recognition and exposure not only for the crisp design, beautiful world, hypnotic tunes, and abundant secrets, but for the unique concepts it introduces to great effect, namely the NPC death timers. The stakes in games often lie in winning or losing a fight and having to expend more personal time on a fight that bruised our egos. Here, we have the added layer of humble automaton friends’ lives hanging by a thread. Even though I found several secrets throughout my initial trek, I am absolutely certain more can be uncovered; I just might take a rare plunge into New Game+.

Unsighted arrives like a bomb in the metroidvania genre that has been delighting fans over the years. Presented and released quietly, the work of Pixel Punk is an excellent reflection on our planet in a mix of situations that works splendidly and surprise for balance and the ability to mix everything.

Unsighted is hard enough to be a challenge, but just fair enough to hook you in for one more go. Well worth checking out.

Unsighted is a fun, quick little game, lasting me around ten hours on my first playthrough. Its combat and exploration are rewarding, the presentation is stylishly retro, and the narrative is good enough to round out the package. Some of the systems in place come across a little bit more tedious than they feel they should be, and the time-restriction mechanics don't do anything for me, but nitpicks aside, Unsighted is a solid pixel-art indie worth checking out.

Unsighted delivers engaging top-down action combat and a heartwarming narrative about connection, sacrifice, and love. The gameplay is fast and victory tastes sweet. Not everyone will enjoy the journey's burdens, and getting lost can frustrate you immensely, but the destination is worth the journey.

Had it been stripped away of some of its convoluted system, and instead focused on one or two features and story beats to go alongside its high level of polish and presentation, Unsighted would be a GOTY contender. But in trying desperately to be everything, Unsighted loses sight of the aspects that make it unique in an ever-expanding marketplace of retro-inspired Mentroidvanias. As a result, it’s an enjoyable, but ultimately forgettable experience.

These many, anxiety-inducing time limits elevate a lot of the backtracking and exploration to something really interesting. Learning the fastest routes through each area isn’t just for your personal convenience; it’s a matter of life or death for the many automatons under your care.

Unsighted is at its best when its mechanics line up with its style and ethos, which is all about survival and spirited defiance. Its breezy story, much of it told through flashbacks, rarely overloads you with info — like everything here, it all ticks along relentlessly. It’s hard not to appreciate Unsighted’s scrappy, melodramatic nature, as well as its interest in the differing perspective of automatons. Here you play not as a human hero, but as the specimen; the experimental robot. Things are tough and you’ll be tested, but change doesn’t happen overnight.