Haven - Love Transcends Space Lag (Game Review)

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Publisher: The Game Bakers
Developer: The Game Bakers
Platform: PC, PS4, XB1, Switch, PS5, XS
Genre: Action-Adventure

So there's not many games that combines a blossoming relationship between two star-crossed lovers who ran away from the very society that makes their life decisions, literally. So here's Haven. A lighthearted game is based around one simple concept; love conquers all. I mean again, it takes these aspects quite literally. Not that it's conceited, but as weak as the core gameplay is, the strength of these characters' relationship does hold up a lot against the somewhat-tedious gameplay.

It's a stylized cell-shaded, flashy planet escapist journey that deals with well young-adult rebellion against a totalitarian system. This aspect, however mostly manages to overshadow some problems with the gameplay. Lovey-doveys here journey through strange floating bits of craters with land, foliage and wild life on it. There's exploration to deal with mostly and then there's combat.

Combat and exploration while conceptually seems intriguing, it leaves a lot to be desired. Issues with it stems from maybe tediousness to losing interest from long playthroughs. There are also issues with camera and most probably the part where it was difficult to grasp the mechanics around combat. Though overall, it is a fun game. Just hampered by these issues quite a bit.

You play as both Yu and Kay, switching between both characters. Of course, if you have someone to play with, there's also two player co-op. These two ran away from the proverbial matchmaker system that decides whom to match them up with respectively as marital partners. Unfortunately for these two, they were able to escape with the authorities at their back. And, crashing onto a torn planet with bits of it floating connected by this ethereal thing called flow.

As both Yu and Kay stranded on floating craters, stuck with a broken ship, they've decided to scavenge for parts throughout this planet called Source. As the game progresses, so does their relationship, which eventually leads to them journeying across various areas finding all sorts of wild life and remnants of older settlements.

Now, the adventure is where most of the experience counts. You hover from place to place, finding areas to free from rust that has negative effects on the environment and wildlife, and then you free them all from the contagious element. Kay is a biologist who is well versed into both the ecosystem and biology of this planet. While Yu is a mechanical enthusiast who knows how the ship works and also is the repairing it with parts found.

Both of them, has their charms and some semblance of being intelligent and multi-faceted individuals. Hence, the conversations between them are pretty endearing. Though I'd say a little passe on the romantic advances they make but this is essential to their relationship itself so to that I have no problem with. Of course, this relationship has a lot of things going that are sexually suggestive. Nothing exploitive but the suggestions pretty much go far.

The story itself works, thanks to good writing overall and how deep the characters are. Even if you are alone in this place, so many ways to interact with the wild life does help out that isolation sore. Not only that but these beings also help in exploration and puzzle solving. In a way, the two lovers find themselves in a titular paradise of sorts where they have to explore to find parts and help clean out rust.

As for how the gameplay does, this is part gathering, survival and, turn-based combat in exploration. You basically hover from place to place, follow these lights from one point to the next which fills up your flow and lets you use that for extermination of rust. Flow vs rust, that's about it.

You collect resources as food ingredients, others for medical patches and using the rust you've collected. You can make certain grenades or medicaid. Getting these requiring scavenging and it's pretty easy to find them thanks to the radar and maps that point out which of stuff to find that you'll need.

Another aspect is the bond bar, which is based on your interactions and the food you eat. This is the primary mechanic that coalesce with the character developments of both Yu and Kay. Once it's filled, you celebrate and you level up, increasing your overall stats.

Combat has you powering up a move before initiated, one configured for Kay with d-pad while Yu has hers on face buttons. One person shielding protects another and their own selves. Using either impact or blasts to take out before purifying them of the rust infection. Of course, there are different enemies and each of them are resilient to one of the two attack moves. Other enemies, like Hornets, need to be brought down and overloaded for neutralizing.

It's challenging and that it requires you to be aware and find ways to sustain while taking down their health down before finishing them with purification.

Here are the issues, hovering and roaming is great and all, but there's the tedium of doing it with little time since if you stay out for too long without a break, you will get hungry and be less effective in combat. That's fine but the hunger meter drains out pretty faster than you could say "where am I going?". There's a lot of menial tasks involved with the resource collecting and the constant backtracking even though there's a fast travel option. The camera issues don't help when you're hovering, it stretches far when you're being chased by an enemy.

Combat while it's fun only for awhile, it isn't exactly perfect but it does well and seems to be intriguing conceptually for the most part. I had a good time but I was hoping the game would end soon and it takes over 20hrs in order to do that. Again, there's a lot to like, for example the creatures that roam, they're all harmless unless infected by the rust. Interacting with them, you get these cutesy moments that makes it endearing.

This is graphical wise, not a good-looking game. I mean there are some visual highlights like the wavy foliage or the animal designs. They look pretty amazing. But apart from that, even the main characters don't look that good and most of the details on cliffs or mountains aren't that impressive. For a game like this in 2015, it would have been amazing to look at thanks to the complementary artstyle. Now, it just looks barely acceptable in some sense.

Sound design is good, although less impressive just like the visuals. They work in tandem with the overall presentation but not much else. The music on the other hand, there's quite a noticeable amount of leitmotifs, and they aren't bad. They take me back to simpler times to electronic mood music.

Music and visuals pull off the sci-fi adventure vibe pretty well, the sound design is kind of all over the place however.

While it falls short on several areas, the gameplay is serviceable and works well most of the time. The main enjoyable aspect are the characters, how they develop, their daily routines and conversations with each other. They're inseparable. This game was alright, if not just a little underwhelming.