I must confess that I get a special kick when I find a physical copy of a videogame in a physical shop whose title I had no idea about before…and then I truly enjoy it when I start playing it.
My favorite genres are shoot em ups, beat em ups, platforms and adventure, so anything new that was not under my radar and that I find sitting on a shelf with a reasonable price catches my eye to investigate more online about it and see if worthy to purchase.
That was the case last weekend when I was exploring some CEX videogame shops on the other side of the Tagus river in Lisbon (sadly the offer for videogame shops in the Portuguese capital is quite limited compared to my hometown Madrid, but still, something can be found here and there with effort and patience).
The last particular CEX I visited was by far the more interesting one, specially about Ps4 catalogue there, my favorite desktop console to play nowadays (I have a wide array of retro and portable consoles in my collection, but desktop consoles were always my favorite from my teenage years with Atari 2600, Megadrive, etc and besides, I can connect my Ps4 to a projector that gives me almost a home cinema at home to play, so I always prefer purchasing Ps4 more than Switch).
As said, the Ps4 offer was surprisingly nice, I have the feeling that some Ps4 collector had sold them a few titles recently, and you could find a few unusual games among the typical Battlefields, Assasins Creeds etc that populate most of the shelves in most of the videogame shops around the world.
Unbound: Worlds Apart caught my eye due to its beautiful cover and well looking screenshots. Initially I did not plan purchasing it, but after I exited the shop to use my electronic vaper and I saw some gameplay and more information about it, decided to go for it, as seems like a title quite scarce to find physically nowadays.
I started playing it at home 1 week ago, and I must have logged around 8-9 hours of gameplay. I must say that I am really liking it. The game art is super beautiful, colorful and with great taste in all the areas I explore so far. The music is fantastic, and the game mechanic is really refreshing: in a nutshell it mixes platforms with puzzles, as it adds a button to the main character (a cute kid magician whose village has been attacked) that opens a parallel universe with different elements on screen than the main universe he is passing through. In that way, you need to combine and think about what actions to take in both universes to go through the obstacles.
It does feel a bit like a boss rush game, but instead of having to kill hard enemies often, you need to pass through mini puzzles and challenges in the landscape using your brains and measuring your actions about how and when effectively open the parallel dimension and use its elements in the UI to your benefit.
This might sound complicated, but once you start playing, it gets very naturally adapted and learnt as the main game mechanic. And the difficulty balance is so far quite well measured. A few puzzles and areas might feel a bit frustrating, but after a few trials you will be able to advance and go on. It feels challenging but not to the point of feeling like you are going to be stuck for long without discovering more areas in the map. Besides, the game also includes fast travelling among checkpoints, which helps to keep the pace without the feeling to be repetitive. And every area has a distinctive art and change in skills in the parallel universe you open, so it adds variety and I have not felt bored at all while playing it.
I would say that Unbound: Worlds Apart might be considered like an unrated hidden gem, as has not got so much mainstream attention as might deserve. But give it a try online, or if you happen to cross paths with a physical copy, go for it, as I have the feeling that might be a title that is gonna increase its value in the next years as a true hidden gem of platform marvel.