Well shit. This had the potential to be something quite nice, but it ended up flatlining.
Let's start with the graphics. This game has got to be one of the laziest looking pixel games I've seen. The characters are simply a single pixel of color, and the silhouettes are nothing amazing. The only silhouette I liked was the giant when it stood, as it looked almost like it had been rotting or had gotten so skinny that you could only really see the bones. Other than that though, very boring.
The gameplay is also just lacking entirely. One of the tags says explore, but this game just really isn't at all an exploration game; it's simple a matter of going left or right until you reach the invisible wall. Also the world is just extremely bland, there's no real amazement to it at all. A big part of that comes from the fact the game is pretty much just black and gray, but also it comes from the fact that there is SO LITTLE TO SEE.
The jumping bit is also annoying, as due to have absolutely tiny your character is, it's very easy to mess jumps up. It also isn't fun when on some jumps, you have to wedge yourself into a single pixel just to get enough height to reach a jump. Making the character bigger would help, I feel.
And when you're playing as the giant, ho BOY does the game get boring. The giant goes so fucking slow, and there really is no fun to just pressing the right arrow until you hit an obstacle, then having to press up for a thousand years for the damn thing to raise its arms to smash shit. I ended up having to read something while I kept the right arrow pressed just so I wouldn't die of boredom.
The story is very generic. I felt like there could have been some potential to it, such as how the boy's name was Haruka; it felt like it could have implied something more -something deeper- like Haruka actually being a girl who wanted to be a boy, which is why the villagers thought he was so weird. But nope, it's really just generic "boy leaves village, villagers get suspicious, finds out about giant, kills the boy because 'oh you're friends with a monster,' giant kills everyone" lather rinse repeat.
Also, what is the point at all with the Japanese text? It doesn't add anything at all to the game, it just feels like it's there for shits and giggles. I just don't see why it had to be added, but it didn't really cause any problem with game play, so whatever.
What I did like about this game was the music though. It was very melancholic and foreboding, giving a sense of impending doom. However, sadly I can't really enjoy it for long as -other than the second track- the music doesn't loop at all. So most of the game is played in silence. Why on earth doesn't it loop?
Overall, a dull game with little redeeming factors. It's a fair try, but it fails.
