There is just one thing I'd like to get out of the way before I get started:
Please, don't be fooled or offended by my score of 5/10, I'mThere is just one thing I'd like to get out of the way before I get started:
Please, don't be fooled or offended by my score of 5/10, I'm glad that I bought The First Tree (twice), and I recommend you do too. I think David Wehle is very talented, I hope he makes more games, and I want to keep seeing emotionally driven games like this made by creators like this, so I will support them as often as I can.
I found out about The First Tree around a year and a half ago, when I saw Wehle had posted about his first game he was in the middle of creating on Reddit, which he had taught himself how to code over the course of two years in order to make. I was intrigued by that story and I love supporting new creators, so I bought it on Steam. At that point, it was still in the middle of development, meaning it was still very buggy and unfinished, so I stopped playing after about twenty minutes, and never really got back to it. A few months ago, that same creator posted again on Reddit, announcing his game had made it to the Switch, and I was happy for him, so I put it on my wishlist, and finally bought it a second time, just yesterday, when it was on sale, and I've finally gotten to experience the finished product, and, as I said earlier, I'm glad I did, and I recommend it, even though there's plenty of issues.
I'm a fan of walking simulators, and I've played all kinds of them. I thought The Beginners Guide was absolutely brilliant, I thought the characters in Night in the Woods were amazingly conceived, amazingly written, and I loved how three dimensional every one of them were, and the dialogue was incredible, I loved how much personality you could glean from the people you never even directly see, just by going through their things in Gone Home, I thought the Stanley Parable was an amazing addition to the pantheon of existential art, etc. I've only played around six or seven walking simulators, but I've enjoyed a few of them immensely, and I want to keep seeing them develop as a form, and I want to support creators working on them.
So, where does the First Tree fit into my impressions of walking simulators as a genre? Well, it's certainly not the best I've ever played, but it's not the worst, either.
I'll get my negative thoughts out of the way first, starting with my main issue, which is the fact that this game just doesn't feel good to control, at all. I get that this is a first time project from a single guy who taught himself how to code in two years, but I don't like to simply give games a pass just because they're made by smaller, inexperienced teams. Running around the terrain, jumping onto things, collecting things, it all "feels" unnatural in this game, which is especially problem because the majority of this game is spent running across long stretches of terrain for literal minutes at a time to collect some light orbs, while doing mild platforming, and for what little platforming there is, it's an absolute dreck. Controlling this fox is far more frustrating than it should be, whether you're jumping on things, collecting things, or even just running across grass, and nothing about the way it handles feels good or satisfying.
Additionally, way too much of this game is spent running across empty terrain, or simply pushing forward forever just to get to the next thing that's clearly in front of you, or wandering around trying to figure out what you're supposed to do next. And none of these things are bad on their own necessarily. You spend most of your time in Beginners Guide pushing forward, but along the way, you're given fascinating narration to listen to, and most of Gone Home is wandering aimlessly, but the house is so packed with personality and things to look at that it never feels tedious, empty, or boring, but in the First Tree, the narrations are not long enough to get you from one location to the next before you're forced to run the rest of the way through empty terrain with nothing engaging to listen to. On top of the times where you won't know where you're supposed to go, there are also times where you'll have figured out exactly what you're supposed to do, but it will take literal minutes to actually do it, because of how long the stretches of terrain are.
There are a lot of other smaller things I could criticize, but I don't want to diminish just how talented and creative I believe David Wehle to be, judging by this piece of work alone. The artwork is beautiful, and the story, while it does need quite a bit of work, is also moving and beautiful, and it contains a wonderful finale that I feel was definitely worth it, it's just a shame that experiencing that story only accounts for approximately 30-45mins of a 100min game that is spent mostly on tedious platforming and running around. That being said, I still ask anybody who appreciates this kind of game to support, it if they can spare ten dollars (or less, if they spot it on sale).… Expand
