I wouldn’t normally take the time to write about a game that I have yet to complete, but then again, Hob isn’t exactly a normal game. Developed by Runic Games (best known for their action role-playing series Torchlight), Hob is best described as an action-adventure game similar to The Legend of Zelda series, with a dash of Metroid thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately for the studio, Hob received a relatively tepid response from both players and critics alike upon its initial release back in late 2017. Shortly thereafter, news broke that Runic Games would be closing their doors for good. Unlike the studio which created it, Hob has been given a second chance at life, thanks to a recent “Definitive Edition” release on the Switch. This is as good of an excuse as any to give it a look.
Hob is a rather quiet affair. Touting a “wordless narrative”, the developers doubled down on the “show, don’t tell” approach to storytelling. Games that make similar promises, such as Hyper Light Drifter, succeed in supplementing dialog by using simplified iconography and detailed cutscenes to get its fiction across. Hob, on the other hand, relies mostly on its environment, and watching non-player characters point and make vague gestures in reference to your next objective. From what I’ve gathered thus far, you’ve been awakened to help rebuild the land and purge it of an evil plague. Hob‘s attempt at delivering on its promise is passable, but certainly nothing to write home about.
Thankfully, Hob‘s use of audio helps fill the void, if only slightly. Background music will fade in and out with no real discernible pattern, which is unfortunate because I quite enjoyed the game’s accompaniment. That said, the transition between peaceful ambiance and the game’s background tracks is less jarring than one might think. I’ve often found myself midway through a play session before realizing anything was playing at all. This evoked memories of my time with games like Shadow of the Colossus or Dark Souls, where players are left to explore an unfamiliar land, with not much more than their own thoughts, briefly interrupted by the sounds of your surroundings.
The world itself is by far Hob‘s greatest strength, the whole of which is greater than the sum of its parts. Environments are vibrant and are pleasing to the eyes. The land’s flora and fauna (both hostile and docile alike) bring life to an otherwise mechanical and desolate landscape, thanks in no small part to simple-yet-effective animations and sound effects. Particle effects help to add a sense of flair to your actions, whether you are being squished to death (as seen above), or making a splash while jumping into a body of water. My favorite of these effects comes from a dash you gain early in your journey, which is extremely reminiscent of a DeLorean making a jump through time in Back to the Future.
Once you begin to interact with the world in which you are exploring, however, things start to break down. Combat, while serviceable, is rather bland. Most fights can be won without employing the handful of purchasable moves and abilities. Once you learn how to dodge roll, you are practically set. It is possible this may come down to a preference in play style, so your mileage may vary. You can also change the game’s difficulty through the pause menu at any time, though I suspect that won’t necessarily fix the issue. There are exceptions to this, which come in the form of your three glove abilities. You are not required to purchase these, as you will acquire these naturally as you progress through the game. These are the only abilities which the game actively encourages the use of, as they have uses both inside battle and out.
I would be remiss if I failed to mention the variety of bugs and technical hiccups I encountered during my roughly five hours of playtime. Numerous seams in the environment, particle effects rendering incorrectly, models popping into place, getting stuck between objects; the list could go on. While most of these issues did not directly inhibit my progress, they did tend to break whatever sense of immersion that the world had so meticulously created.
Speaking of the world, while certainly appealing from a visual standpoint, it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to being easy to navigate. Large objects sometimes obfuscate what may seem to be your path forward, and while foreground scenery (such as large trees) usually render semi-transparent while you are behind them, the effect isn’t applied to structures (such as buildings or raised peaks). This can be frustrating, as it means you aren’t entirely safe from, oh I don’t know, walking off a cliff whose edge was still being obscured. Your only real punishment for death is being spawned back at whichever checkpoint you most recently activated, but that can still prove to be a hassle if you aren’t careful.
Further contributing to my issues with the game’s navigation is Hob‘s in-game map, the sole purpose of which should be to make exploration less of a hassle. The map seemed to hinder my progression nearly as much as it helped. When using a fast travel point, for example, only other fast travel points are revealed on your map, while objectives and other points of interest are hidden. Why they decided to hide important reference points while fast traveling is beyond me. Furthermore, I often noticed icons and objectives displayed on this map that were inexplicably absent from the map’s legend.
I mentioned in the first paragraph that I have yet to finish Hob. Unfortunately, it will probably stay that way, at least for the near future. It’s not that Hob is broken, or even unplayable. If anything, it’s merely under-cooked. It exhibits signs of a game whose creators seemed to have the best intentions at heart, but for reasons we may never fully know, they were unable to fully execute on their vision. None of the issues I’ve mentioned here amount to anything more than just gripes by themselves, but when taken into consideration as a whole, it becomes more difficult for me to look past. With that said, if you find yourself willing to do what I seemingly cannot, you may find a surprisingly palatable experience.
