A Short Hike is a wholesome, semi-open world RPG that is sure to fill your heart with joy.
Some games are just made with so much passion and love. The game that we are going to talk about right now, A Short Hike, proves itself to be one of those games. With its color scheme, graphics, mini-games, exploration, and collectibles, it makes itself favorably noticeable to the eyes of every gamer.
Made by only one person, A Short Hike is an exploration game at its core. The developer Adam Robinson-Yu states that he made A Short Hike as a short break from a longer RPG that he had been working on, and he was greatly inspired by the “short hikes” that he went on as a kid made him feel like. Indeed, you can very easily feel a sense of wonder and innocent excitement while playing this game.
In A Short Hike, the player controls Claire, who is a bird on vacation. Claire awaits an important phone call from her mother, but there is no phone service on the island where she is camping. The only place where she can talk on her phone is Hawk Peak, which is the peak of the highest mountain on the island. We, the players, help Claire with her mission.
The game is a semi-open world, meaning that although it functions as an open world, it is not that big of a game. The setting is a very small island, so it is not that hard to explore every inch of it. The main storyline can be reached in around one and a half hours. But if you want to see everything that the game offers, you might stick around for about four hours longer than that.
The world of the game is very small, but it does not let this become a problem. Instead, A Short Hike makes the best of its tiny world. There are a lot of fun mini-games in it, from games that are as simple as racing to something that can take longer to master, like Beachstickball, which is a tennis mini-game, except you use sticks instead of rackets and a beach ball instead of a tennis ball. As small as it is, the world feels alive, and this is something that most triple-A games lack nowadays.
This liveliness of the world partly stems from the NPCs. Though Claire does help change their lives a little bit, it is still clear that they all have their personalities and lives outside of the game’s boundaries. Some are mean, some are innocent, some are just keeping up with their lives- They are all characters that you happily get to know. Their lives do not revolve around the main character or her storyline.
A Short Hike is a happy game for the most part, and every aspect of the game design is made to respond to that. From the simplistic art style with the rounded edges and smooth camera movements to the bright and warm colors that are present ninety percent of the time, every inch of the game is made to support its general feel. It mostly works, and what you get is a cozy game that brings tranquility.
Although there is not much more that can be said about this game story-wise, we should still mention that Hawk Peak is a crucial moment in this game. As you get closer to the main goal, there’s a shift in emotions, but this shift does not badly impact the game. It impacts the optimistic and idealistic approach that is prevalent overall, but this is very much needed for a game to make an impact on the player.
What about the mechanics? Well, the mechanics and the controls are simple; the players are only expected to go from one place to another, pick up an object, sometimes dig the ground, and so on. There is one thing worth mentioning, though. There is a flying mechanic in this game, and it is more than satisfying.
The game expects you to find a certain number of golden feathers that act as your stamina bar throughout the gameplay. This means the more feathers you find, the greater your stamina will be. Stamina is needed not only to climb but also to soar through the sky. The stamina refills pretty quickly, though, so there’s no need to worry about that. But the golden feathers make it very interesting to play. At some points, the game requires the players to find more feathers to reach places that they cannot reach with what they have. Surprisingly enough, this is not at all stressful. This mechanic creates a tension that is fun to play with.
And this is exactly where the criticism comes in. For a game that proves itself to be capable of many things, A Short Hike is too short an experience. Yes, you can play Beachstickball for hours or talk to everyone repeatedly to relive the fun dialogues. But ultimately, there is nothing that binds the player to the game after reaching the main goal. The replayability aspect is not quite there. Furthermore, the game leaves the player asking so many questions regarding the story. What happens next? We don’t know. What happens the day after? We don’t know.
A Short Hike leaves you wanting so much more from it, and it would have been a lot more impactful had it been a bit longer.
In a lot of ways, it can be said that A Short Hike borrows from Animal Crossing and Breath of the Wild. However, it should also be mentioned that this does not mean A Short Hike is a rip-off of those cozy Nintendo games. Instead, A Short Hike is an experience on its own.
In short, if you’re looking for a game like Animal Crossing, you have found it. If you’re looking to spend a few hours on an experience that will stick with you, this is your game. Even though there is almost nothing to return to after you finish it, A Short Hike is a great experience that is well worth the four hours of your life.
A Short Hike is just one of the great games that we review at GamesCreed. You can check our game reviews section for more.
