Road Not Taken Reviews

Road Not Taken is ranked in the 56th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
ZTGD
Top Critic
8.5 / 10.0
Aug 6, 2014

The combination of the small decisions and details that go into tackling each level, alongside the grander themes of opportunities gained and lost, is a quality that makes Road Not Taken a cut above most puzzle games.

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8.3 / 10.0
Aug 4, 2014

Road Not Taken has all the enjoyable staples of a Roguelike game and presents them well. The built-in replay value is high, and the variables of villagers, charms, banned obstacles, and the woods themselves ensure a different game every time you play. More than once I found myself stuck without the energy to go on, and even knowing that I could start again, I was annoyed to be losing my progress so often. A checkpoint system in the form of an altar helps this problem, for which I was very grateful.

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Aug 10, 2014

Despite its often infuriating difficulty, Road Not Taken is a fascinating journey where how you play it makes all the difference.

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8 / 10.0
Aug 10, 2014

Road Not Taken proved to be a very unique game for its genre, or genres actually. The interesting marriage of what could feel like a mobile title, with the punishing difficulty and creative narrative of a console indie makes Road Not Taken a great game to have in your PS4 library. Also, in the Book of Secrets, this is the note under goat says "Goats eat flowers and then poop. Why? Because they are goats. Stop trying to change the world," and how can you go wrong with that?  

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Aug 14, 2014

Road Not Taken is an insidiously clever randomly generated puzzle game that stumbles sometimes around awkward design.

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Aug 10, 2014

Although punishingly difficult, Road Not Taken's charming graphics, engaging story and unique gameplay make it more than worth the pain.

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8 / 10
Aug 5, 2014

Road Not Taken is a game that you should not take lightly. It is a challenging puzzle game with big cuddly scary teddy bears, little white rabbits and scary Witches. It is hours of fun and frustration. Thanks to the shrines, you are able to stop at any point and come back later to pick up where you left off.

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CGMagazine
Jason D’Aprile
Top Critic
8 / 10.0
Aug 12, 2014

The game's underlying dialogue and storyline is engagingly downbeat and adult.

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8 / 10.0
Aug 7, 2014

Road Not Taken might not have too much in common with the Frost-written poem with which it shares a name, but it does manage to deliver a meditation on the value of choices and the importance of making the right ones, while also offering the player a complex layer of actual game mechanics to explore.

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77 / 100
Aug 5, 2014

So in the end, Road Not Taken is a very charming and entertaining puzzler, with a deeper mystery behind it yet to be solved. I will definitely be traveling this road more than once, and you should too!

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7.6 / 10.0
Aug 8, 2014

Road Not Taken is an interesting little game. It's tough and sometimes even unforgiving, and I should add that it's not entirely stable. I came across several bugs in the game and it crashed on me twice, so that should be mentioned.

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7.3 / 10.0
Aug 5, 2014

Rogue-like puzzling is a brave experiment, but the results can be frustrating

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7 / 10
Aug 6, 2014

These reservations aside, Road Not Taken is fresh, interesting, beautifully presented and demonstrates an intricacy of design that will obsess a certain type of player. It's an acquired taste, though, despite its popular ingredients.

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7 / 10
Aug 4, 2014

Road Not Taken treads an unconventional trail, and is mostly better for it.

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7 / 10.0
Aug 11, 2014

When I first started playing Road Not Taken, I was completely enamored by its premise, style, and world. Slowly, bit by bit, I started having a little less fun as the levels progressed, as the game's initial intrigue wore off a little more. That's not to say it eventually becomes unplayable as I did enjoy the majority of the game, but make sure to bring extra patience along with you on this trip through the beaten path.

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7 / 10
Aug 4, 2014

As this is an indie title closely aligned with Sony's PlayStation Plus programme, Road Not Taken has its work cut out right from the very start of its arduous journey. Taken on its own merits, however, it offers an enjoyable ride for the five to ten hours that it lasts. Niggling performance issues aside, it's hard not to enjoy being the star of your very own fairy tale world – even if that fictional realm has a particularly odd approach to infant safety.

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7 / 10
Aug 15, 2014

But that isn't the problem with the puzzler, however; difficulty in and of itself is not criticism. Though the beasties change – and the increased difficulty with each round will definitely get you thinking – the game itself never does. Its art style, tone and unique gameplay all make for a fascinating experience that you should certainly give a try, but it's hard to ignore the sense of repetition you'll encounter as you play. Randomly generated puzzles results in increased replayability, but it also means a lack of variety – and that forms the ultimate demise of Road Not Taken when it is so clear there is a direction, an end goal, a climax. Original and novel it is, but there just simply isn't enough reward to keep you going against the odds.

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7 / 10.0
Aug 11, 2014

Road Not Taken might not always be successful in making players feel remorseful for paths avoided, but the game itself stands as one journey that at least everyone should attempt; if only to expose themselves to the game's frustrating, yet undeniably fresh idiosyncrasies.

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7 / 10.0
Aug 12, 2014

It's amazing how sometimes the simplest of puzzle ideas can turn chaotically complex. Road Not Taken is definitely one of these games; don't let its cutesy art style fool you in the slightest. Or the raccoons. Pro tip: you see a raccoon, find a way to build a fire and make raccoon soup as fast as you can.

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IGN
Top Critic
6.7 / 10.0
Aug 5, 2014

Road Not Taken is an fun mix of puzzling and roguelike, but it doesn't have much staying power.

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