Peregrin Review

A couple of weeks back I mentioned that I’d been playing Peregrin in our Geekly Review. My initial impressions of the game were positive, but now that I’ve finished the game, do I still hold the same opinion?

Developed my Domino Digital and published by Green Man Gaming Peregrin is a puzzle game telling the story of a lone traveller, Abi, as she undertakes a perilous journey through the ruins of a lost civilisation ravaged by the Gods anger. Most of humanity has been wiped out, but a few have survived to scavenge their way to survival, Abi and her tribe is one of them. But now she must journey to The Divide to understand what happened to the world and why it happened.

The story is told through a mixture of conversations between Abi and her tribe’s people via radio communications and from the narrator as she explores the wasteland, both of which are delivered to an excellent standard and offer a compelling if not original story.

Peregrin is mostly made up of point and click movements. As Abi, you have access to arcane abilities that let you take control on various creatures you’ll encounter throughout the world. You’ll need to make use of these creatures in order to be able to complete puzzles. Scattered around the world are large stones, that when interacted with will allow you to posses creatures within an area, this area usually increases as you move forward and you interact with more of these stones. Each creature will let you carry out different tasks like the orge like animal that will let you pick up and move around heavy objects and the bull that will bash down gates and doorways. Combining the use of them will get you through the various stages. Each puzzle is usually completed in some specific and logical order, you’ll just have to figure it out. I didn’t ever find the puzzles too challenging and never really felt stuck on any of them. There were a couple where I would either just not notice what it was that was needed, or was probably over thinking things.

Combat in the game is also handled in a similar style, you’ll posses your enemies and use them against each other. When fighting you will enter the ‘combat zone’ – which is like a glowing smokey area around the enemies, once in here you’ll either be able to attack or use the possession mechanic. In most cases possessing enemies will be the only way to progress as one hit from them and Abi will be killed and defeating them in  specific order will generally be required. The combat isn’t quite real time or turn based, instead it’s more akin to Super Hot, where when you move the enemies will also move.

I found in a few instances that the fighting would be more a case of trial and error – figuring out which enemies to take out first – again, it’s all very logical and not to difficult.

There are 5 chapters to complete and it only took me just over 3 hours to get through the whole game, so some may think it’s a little on the short side, but they were 3 enjoyable hours. At no point did it feel like the gameplay went stagnant or that the story dragged on. Nothing felt like it was added in as a filler to pad out the play time at all. The game moved along at a casual pace both with the story and the gameplay and it all felt nicely wrapped up in those few hours, nothing felt as if it were rushed.

My only real negative with the game was that sometimes the creatures felt a little unresponsive and the ‘transfer’ mechanic from Abi to the creatures is a little drawn out and eventually becomes a bit tiring when having to keep switching. But honestly, it’s a very minor thing and for most people they probably wouldn’t even notice.

Overall I really enjoyed Peregrin, it tells a good story about a Gods wrath in an interesting sci-fi world and it has some enjoyable gameplay with a good dose of puzzle solving. Peregrin is out now and available from Green Man Gaming for £10.99

-Will