3.5/5 ★ – PaperSpock's review of ANIMAL WELL.

Note: this is a spoiler light, but not spoiler free review. Animal Well has been a game that I've been rather intrigued by, being mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Tunic, in that there is a game, but there are layers to it. The first layer is a fantastic, mysterious, atmospheric Metroidvania. The game is well worth playing for this experience, though it's not the reason I was interested in the game. The second layer asked something of me that I'm generally uninterested in within videogames, which is akin to finding all the health and missile upgrades in Super Metroid. This sort of thing is generally uninteresting to me because once I get to 80%-90% complete or so, there's long long stretches of wandering around the map, checking and rechecking areas over and over again. And that inevitably happened here too. It was admittedly fun while I was still finding things! But once I hit a wall I started to look certain things up because this isn't the sort of thing I generally find satisfying in games. In doing so I discovered something that I imagine would have taken me personally dozens of hours to try doing. Because of things like that, I lost trust in the game's deeper layers, that the challenges it presented me would be things I'd be able to figure out on my own in a way I'd find enjoyable. This led to me looking things up more than I other wise would, and more quickly than I otherwise would. If I'd have been more patient, I think there's some of these I might have discovered on my own in a fun way, but I think there's also some that I'd have had a massively frustrating experience with that even if I'd figured out, I'd have mostly been disappointed with the solution. The saddest thing is there were some genuniely cool moments in the second layer and beyond that I stumbled into, things that were cool enough that I'll probably always remember them, but when I don't really know going into a puzzle if it's going to be feasibly doable, and if it's going to be worth the struggle, it's really demotivating. To put this all very short, I like good puzzles in games, but when attempting to solve a puzzle, I have to trust the game that the solution will feel worth it when I get there, and this game lost that trust as I entered its deeper layers, making me hesitant to engage with its secrets on my own. There's still some remaining puzzles I can and may go back to attempt when I feel like I'm in the mood for that. But I really wish this was the sort of game where I didn't feel alright leaving them on the table for a while, where I felt excited to dive into them. Overall, there's still a lot to love in the base experience of this game. The problem is that I came to this game for what was beyond the base experience, and for me, that part was wildly inconsistent. Still, I have to wonder if I'd played this game when I was in a more patient mood, might I have gotten more out of the game? Maybe, at least a little, but *probably* not enough to outweigh the frustration I would have also had to have endured.