An adventure game that leaves the player to their own devices, Crow seems destined to be a bit of a divisive gaming experience. It lacks the immediacy and urgency of the more popular arcade style iPhone games, and its truly fantastic visuals make it easy to dismiss it as a pretty face with no real gameplay behind it. But writing-off Crow like that would do it a huge disservice.
It might seem simple, but Crow packs a great mix of adventure and RPG elements alongside some unique takes on boss battles. It has a lot of this creativity because of how unorthodox its main character is. There aren’t many games I can think of where the player controls an actual crow. Players can waste a lot of time just soaring through the skies without ever actually dealing with the game at hand. But the game itself is rewarding as well, as players fly around collecting items that allow them to upgrade various attributes to make their crow a lean, mean battling machine.
All of this goes on over terrific looking scenery. The game world looks like a real place. Videos and screenshots I had seen of Crow before playing it didn’t do it justice at all. There are plenty of games that succeed regardless of their graphical quality, but Crow’s mood is greatly enhanced by how well the world interacts with the characters in it.
Crow might not be immediately satisfying, but give it a little time to get going and you’ll find a very unique and enjoyable adventure game. Sure, it’s a bonus that it looks great, but it plays great, too.
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