Peaks of Yore

Peaks of Yore is a game that… I have… some feelings with.

To clarify, I really liked this game. Loved it in fact. I picked it up initially because honestly? I liked the idea of climbing. I was actually a bit disappointed with what Peak was because it was too… free form? Peaks of Yore was what I wanted in a climbing game, where you had to climb based on holds and steadily progress through a level.

It was relaxing and soothing! I enjoyed climbing the little hills as they steadily got bigger and bigger. The NPCs were fun and enjoyable and the little interactions were always great!

That is… at first. What was a relaxing game slowly turned into a very challenging game. At times I was definitely frustrated. But as a testament to the game’s design, none of my frustrations were ever about buggy mechanics (with one slight exception) or things that felt designed to “haha got you!” in a malicious way. Every jump, hold, and peak always felt doable.

To me the greatest part of this game was how each time I conquered a difficult mountain, there was always another one after it that challenged me. And as a result, I never felt bored with the game. Of course to confess though I did drop the game after one particularly bad failure but I knew I’d come back, and come back I did. Finishing the game and especially the last climb was exhilarating. It is up there on one of the most satisfying feelings I’ve had when gaming, up there with my XCOM iron man runs.

Movement also feels great! Once you get a hang of the movement systems it feels like you can fly through maps. Learning how to conquer new peaks then coming back to old peaks and applying new movement tricks that you learned feels great. It’s funny how easy every early climb feels once you climbed the later ones.

Again though, I would be lying if I didn’t curse the game or cursed the developers with each fall. Every time though it was something I did wrong. And each time I climbed back up and tried it again, it humbled me. When I failed at a jump multiple times I learned that sometimes I had to come at it in a different way.

Would I climb that last climb again? …No. At least not now. My poor hands and mind need the break. For reference, it took me somewhere between 3-4 hours to finish it in one sitting (of course including numerous falls).