Game #1353: Haven

 Just what I wanted, clean up duty!

 So, I've been meaning to write about Haven for about a month, but I couldn't bring myself to because... I kinda hated it.

 The game has two main elements: Exploring/Cleaning and Fighting. Exploration  is probably the most fun, because gliding around planets is sorta fun... for about an hour. After your fifth island, gliding around trying to clean it of Rust, by gliding over it, and gathering ingredients... you'll realize that this is all there is to the game. What makes it annoying is that after clearing some rust your 'energy' runs out, so you have to move around searching for an energy path to glide over to restore some of your rust-cleaning energy. Beyond an automatic little flip you unlock, and the ability to push your partner forward, there's no fun stuff to do, no grinds, no fun aerial grinds, nothing, it's very repetitive. Exploration isn't rewarded with costumes or new abilities, but, at most, some useless collectibles that may trigger conversations between both characters back at the camp.

 Combat is similar to Mario & Luigi. Each character has four options tied to the digital pad for one of them and the four face buttons for the other one. You have a physical attack, an energy attack, defense and purify, which is the only way to truly defeat an enemy and can only be done when an enemy is out of HP, failure to purify them in a short while has them getting back up. Because that's always so much fun. If both characters use the same type of attack at the same time you can synchronize a more powerful attack.

 But combat is just boring. If you want to 100% clean every Island you have to defeat every enemy in them. Each enemy has a specific strategy needed to be defeated. Maybe you have to attack them in a specific order, maybe during one of their attacks, maybe you have to block first... but it's all very boring. Your characters automatically decide which enemy they will attack, because that worked so well for Lunar Dragon Song. And there are no truly fast ways to deal with enemy groups, plus, there are, what, 10 enemy types at most? I dragged down the difficulty all the way down after a few hours because I just wanted to get done with it. Not that it helped, combat still took more time than it should.

 Apparently, the focus is on the story and on the romantic relationship between both characters. I found it boring. Dialogue at the homebase grants more experience than fights, and whenever the XP gauge is full, the only way to level up is to have special conversations at the homebase. Meh. Honestly, I just found the plot boring. There's a free patch that lets you change the gender of the couple, so that you can be a pair of gay or lesbian lovers... but you can't play with a straight version of the opposite version of each character. The excuse they gave is avoiding gender roles... by enforcing 'opposite' roles of a head-strong female and a passive male. Kinda dumb if you ask me, but it's OK, because the gender-swapped version of each character just looks off.

 Overall? Boring. I know Game Journalism has been at an all time low this past decade or so, but the fact that 'professionals' scored this game in the high 9s is beyond me. But then again, they probably enjoy a game in which reading is the focus and gameplay is so laid back, just check out IGN's Doom gameplay.

3.5