Animal Gods
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Animal Gods
Basically, this game has its heart in the right place, but could not realize its potential. Still Games seemed to be more concerned about telling a story and incorporated gameplay as an afterthought, but ended up failing to deliver at both. It's a tedious game that this title may have been served best as a cheaper iOS game for those boring bus rides to and from work.
While Animal Gods is beautiful and charming to look at, the gameplay is simple and feels extremely generic.
Easy on the eyes and the ears, this game is fun to see and listen to. It could have had more gameplay content though - the journey just ended too soon.
Animal Gods makes me feel empty after completing it in slightly over two hours. The gameplay is completely vacant of anything fun and the story tries to create a world through techniques that just don't work. The art is nice and the music even has a zen-like quality to it but they cannot redeem the frustration that this game provides.
Animal Gods is highly representative of a major flaw in the crowd-funding model: namedropping a classic series is practically a shortcut to financial success. Still Games sold its product almost exclusively on its superficial similarity to The Legend of Zelda and the works of Team Ico, so it's not much of a surprise that it doesn't follow through with its ambitions. However, even the most cynical observer would expect more from it than this. This is a vacuous mockery of the titles that inspired it, a boring art project at best, and a $10 insult to the customer's intelligence at worst.
Animal Gods feels incomplete in many ways, an experience that showcases some intriguing gameplay and a unique world but fails to flesh out either of them.
Comprised of only two people, Still Games reached for the stars to replicate a Legend of Zelda-inspired experience and simultaneously establish a unique identity. Ambition alone, however, was not enough to achieve this game's potential for greatness.
