Humanity review: solutions more triumphant than puzzles

Human raceThe biggest attraction of the is not mechanical. Almost all of the game’s dozens of puzzles work the same way if the player directs the flow of liquids or colorful marbles or some mundane automaton.but Human raceThe featured puzzle gear consists of thousands of humans and serves a purpose beyond simple gameplay novelty. The beauty of graphics is Human race It doubles as a path into a profound world, and its sheer visual scale elevates the traditional challenges.

There is a scene like this in the 1963 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. high and low In the detective’s room, you will be briefed on the ongoing crime. Nothing narratively significant happens in this sequence.But the scene Built to hold almost 40 people, reflecting all reactions to new information in the scene, amplified by a factor of 40. This composition turns a simple script into a dense, sweaty cinematic masterpiece. The sheer number of people brings a compelling level of visual engagement to the scene.

Human raceCollaboration between Japanese creative company tha and Enhance (tetris effect, Lumines) began as a technology experiment with similar goals. How many people can you have on screen at the same time? The same fact that Mr. Kurosawa knew even before the game existed was recognized. Humans are inherently visually interesting.

This scale is the key Human race. In many cases, a level can only be completed if hundreds of people walk the same path to the finish line. On the stage selection screen, you choose what you want to play and thousands of corpses move around. Even the digitized choir soundtrack reinforces the feeling of being flooded with the sights and sounds of humanity. But despite this overwhelming human presence, the tone of the game is deftly aloof. The player controls a dog and only talks to featureless spheres. No one speaks in the crowd. Despite all of humanity’s visual and auditory presence, what the player should judge about the infinite collective is left to interpretation.

Example: The first few puzzles are Human race It starts with a white door, from which humans flow endlessly. Adults and children alike form an orderly line out of the door and continue walking forward until instructed by the player. Shortly after encountering this procession, I made a mistake. I accidentally gave people the wrong direction. Instead of walking towards their target, they turned and jumped off the cliff without hesitation.This kind of casual massacre will continue to happen Human racethe game says that over 478,000 participants died while I was playing. It is unclear whether this figure should be taken as a player accusation or just a statistic.

For this, Human race feel like tetris effector katamari soulboth of which are closely related to humans and Somewhat alien, it takes up the trappings of society and abstracts them almost unrecognizably. And like both those games, Human race It is through this abstraction that we gain a sense of depth and can play an infinitely complex Rorschach-like role for society. Read this game as a grand statement about enlightenment, conflict and technology. Human raceThemes are something you control, like an endless stream of people on each level.

Image: tha/enhance

The puzzles themselves are as diverse as the possible interpretations, but fortunately aren’t all that complicated. Each stage of the game revolves around an idea, although the basic structure of the game is always the same: lead people to the goal. Fate-themed stages may require all instructions to be presented in advance. On a “war” themed stage, all parade participants are handed guns and instructed to wipe out the opposition (seriously!). Each level has a bonus objective and, if you like, a video explaining exactly how to complete it.

Early levels are consistently fun to finish, Human race It stumbles later on with the introduction of more unpredictable and time-sensitive elements. During and after “War,” the game occasionally leans toward RTS-style levels that require quick commands and direct weapon control to complete. The elements of these puzzles are still visually impressive, but very difficult to predict. Even after a solution is known, a mistimed initial operation can result in a number of satisfactory restarts. It also never reaches the genius-level design of games like: baba is you again witness, or it requires a way of thinking that is too out-of-the-box. Thankfully, though, it doesn’t require the player to be as genius as either of these titles. 100% achieved Human race Even though I’m not very good at puzzle games.

After all, if you focus too much on solving puzzles, you’ll miss what’s special. Human race. In the days I’ve been playing, I’ve found myself most often not thinking about specific mechanics, but about what each level will look like once it’s completed. By removing my ability to affect the stage, the completion screen shows the beautiful aesthetics of the game in its purest form, a constant river of people hopping, swimming and climbing. Orderly yet overwhelming. We move forward unitedly towards one goal.

Human race was released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows PC on May 16th. This game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code provided by Enhance. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, but Vox Media may earn a commission on products purchased via affiliate links.discoverable Additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy can be found here.