Pathway Reviews
Pathway has a lot to offer. It’s got aspects of a tabletop roleplaying/board/resource management/strategy game all in one. And while that may sound like a confusing mash-up, it’s executed quite well. Really, my biggest complaint is the steep difficulty curve, as each mission seems significantly more difficult than the one before it. While there are options to reduce the difficulty, even still it felt needlessly hard at times. The last thing I’d like to mention about this game is something I haven’t encountered before: the ability to turn off the violence against the dogs in the game. Sometimes you will be attacked by dogs, and there is an option that when you defeat them, rather than dying, you can have them simply run away. As a lover of doggos (especially my derpy dog, Link), I found this to be a wonderful addition to the game.
Sure, the idea’s aren’t genre defining and the story itself is a bit of a cheesy romp, but when my biggest complaint is that the port to Nintendo Switch could really have done with narrative and UI text that isn’t minuscule, there’s not a lot wrong. Pathway is a wonderfully upbeat ode to adventure flicks of old. The deliberately arcane pixel art shines though while the tone and setting never make gameplay a second fiddle.