4.5/5 ★ – conmanwilson's review of Sable.

In short, this is Breath of the Wild without the combat. The climbing is there, the exploration… you even whistle to call your mount (in this case a rad hoverbike.) It isn’t a total copy of Breath of the Wild, it just uses that game’s framework to create something incredible in its own right. Whether that’s you’re into that is totally up to you, but I was totally down for it. But honestly, they had me with the hoverbike. Sable owes its style just as much to Jet Set Radio as Dune or Star Wars, but its color palette, thin outlines, and dropped animation frames also give it the distinct look of hand-drawn anime cells. It looks incredible. Those intentional frame drops should not be confused with low framerates, which unfortunately did happen on occasion. There was also some strange rubber-banding as I rode my sweet hoverbike across Sable’s many dusty plains. The biggest complaint I have about this game is its performance, which isn’t terrible but has a few hiccups even on the Series X. Glitches aside, this is a beautiful aesthetic amalgamation of elements that congeal into something both striking and unique. It might seem like every other indie game out there, but it absolutely isn’t. For example, when night falls, the game doesn’t simply get dark- it loses saturation in its colors, but you can still see all the outlines. That way you can see where you’re going at night, but when the sun rises, color rushes back into the world. In fact, this entire game is full of genius environmental storytelling and is overall more captivating than your usual entry in the hot new (and somewhat tiresome) genre: the painterly, coming of age indie game about an ethnically-ambiguous teen, sometimes dealing with themes of belonging, anxiety, or depression. No combat means no Ganon; no looming, world-ending threat of any kind. The game ends when you want and when you feel you’ve gotten everything you can from it. You may find one mask or find them all. Solve a crime in a big city or never visit a city at all. Collect beetle dung, climb cliffs to find cartographers’ balloons, or go through the game’s many puzzle dungeons. Or do basically none of those things. “Ooh what’s that?!” Is the name of the game. Discovery breeds discovery, and emotional attachment is internal to the player instead of spelled-out by the game. The clothing is all aesthetic, even the all-important masks. You find them by completing tasks, but wear them based on the type of person you are, what you like, who you want Sable to be. It’s a liberating gameplay experience that definitely isn’t for everyone, but it was aimed squarely at me. A surprise favorite of the year.