Unsteady Foundation | Toren Review

Toren drew my attention almost immediately with its parallels to Ico. A mysterious girl in cryptic world climbing a strange tower. There was too much intrigue and mystery for me to pass up this title. I didn’t expect it to hold up to Ico, but I wanted an enigmatic interesting story. What I got was clunky gameplay, simplistic annoying puzzles, and although a neat idea, an overall boring story. I was letdown to say the least.

Toren starts with you controlling a little toddler walking towards a bird. Next thing you know you’re a small child moving about the tower. Throughout the game you learn what is going on…kind of. The arrogance of man shines through once again as the people of this world decided they wanted to build a tower to reach the sky. Then something went wrong, and now a dragon guards it. You are the only living person besides an old man who I’m not entirely sure is actually alive or a haunting spirit.

The name of your character is Moonchild. She’s looking for her purpose and is in some kind of spell. Whenever she dies, she is reborn, locked in a never-ending battle with the dragon. It’s an interesting premise that left me with some haunting thoughts as I saw numerous Moonchild statues spread throughout the tower. It tells of how many previous lives she has lived in the forsaken place.

You need to read into the game to get anything out of it. The surface story won’t hold your attention, but thinking about this child growing old in the tower trying to survive provokes some feelings. It’s hard to miss admittedly, especially when all the blatant symmetry and imagery is throw in your face every second. It isn’t hard to get the references to the Tower of Babel, cycle of rebirth, Yggdrasil, and whatever else is shoved down your throat.

Reading into Toren’s world is the saving grace since everything else only annoys. Toren is clunky and cumbersome in all regards. Technically there is combat, but there are only three enemies in the game. One jumps on you and you shake it off in a second. One instantly kills you (they’re easy to avoid), and the last is the Dragon. You don’t really fight anything. The battles are about getting to the other side of a level, then hitting one button to swing the sword and end the fight. The battles with the Dragon were never intense. Every battle involved the same strategy and the only time I died was due to the clunky controls.

Moving Moonchild around is a headache to say the least. The controls are far from precise and many times I walked off a ledge when I was trying to turn. When you step too far and need to take one step back, good chance you’ll be fumbling around trying to get in the exact position. Needless to say, this doesn’t make the platforming element of Toren all that fun. Luckily, it’s only 90% of the game…

The only reason the platforming wasn’t too big of a headache was due to the generosity Toren will give you. Did you miss that ledge by a little? Close enough, you’ll levitate up to it. Jump for a ledge but something was blocking you? Don’t worry, you can just phase through it. Moonchild grabs almost any ledge as long as you’re near it, and honestly, if it was any other way Toren may be unplayable. So even if watching her grab a ledge she was a foot away from is ridiculous, I’m grateful.

The puzzles aren’t difficult to figure out once you know what you have to do. I was actually a little surprised by how well Toren guides you. I was never stuck for more than a few minutes, and a majority of the time was spent moving Moonchild into the proper position to complete the puzzle. They are simplistic and none of them challenged me. Essentially meaning, don’t think of Toren as a good puzzler either.

Many of the puzzles take place in a dream world that is best described as Far Cry 4’s Shangri-la missions. They are weird, colorful, and definitely trippy. They’re interesting to experience, but that’s about it. It’s more bad platforming, just in a new environment. At the very least, they look cool.

Toren’s graphics are not amazing, but it is what they accomplished with them that is pretty impressive. There was no intricate detailing or faraway landscape that showed the power behind them. It was really all the set design and creative use out of them. The characters were cool to look at, and I enjoyed thinking about trying to live in the Tower as I climbed it. Maybe I’m weird, but that’s really what made Toren somewhat enjoyable for me.

The story is still not the greatest, and it didn’t really ever draw me in. Thinking about the world in my own head entertained me more than what the game was trying to present. It was always the gameplay that kept dragging me back down and I could never fully focus on the setting. I was too annoyed with the mechanics and all the game breaking issues. I had to restart my file numerous times due to freezing and Moonchild getting stuck in the environment. Sometimes I couldn’t solve a puzzle, because the game was actually broken, and it wasn’t until I came back another day that my original solution worked.

I did not enjoy Toren, which surprised me because I usually love short games that have an interesting concept like this. If you don’t care about how long a game is or the clunky, boring gameplay, but love cryptic interesting stories. You may find some joy in Toren…maybe. It’s only a couple hours with virtually no replay value. Understanding what you’re getting out of Toren will make it a better experience, but chances are you will be letdown.

This review is based off a review code of the PC version of Toren developed by Swordtales and provided by Versus Evil.