Who it Caters to (Use Hob #1)
Have you grown tired of adventure games that guide your hand every step of the way? Want a truly unique world filled with secrets to be discovered and puzzles to solve? Then why not try developer Runic Games action adventure title known as Hob? Get ready to explore a world that feels alive and survive against various enemies and hazards in the beautiful but mysterious world of Hob.

Hob is an adventure game where players won’t find a tutorial awaiting at every turn. Everything from fighting to activating switches needs to be learned as the player grows accustomed to playing Hob. Players of Hob should be prepared to have to use their minds as puzzles and objectives aren’t always easy to solve and typically will need a little thinking outside the box. If you’re a fan of older adventure games like The Legend of Zelda but want a more modern look and gameplay design than you’re probably going to like Hob. Just be prepared for an adventure game where the goals aren’t pointed out to you with a giant arrow and or a linear design, Hob is a world that begs the player to explore and learn from death and patience.

Hob’s story is a very mysterious one. Players assume the role of a young human-like creature and end up meeting a large robotic life form. As they venture past what could have been their potential prison, the player will find a world that melds sci-fi with fantasy. Quickly, a series of events will cause the player to gain a new slew of upgrades in the form of a powered-up arm and a sword and must use these new tools to venture forward. However, Hob’s world is filled with dangerous creatures and beings around every turn and one mistake will result in a untimely death. Why are you here and what is your goal? Find out as you enter the alien-like world of Hob and begin an adventure that will test your gaming prowess.

Back in the older days of gaming, adventure games required players to rely on exploring the game’s world to learn everything from combat—if there was any—to solving puzzles. As games have progressed many developers have removed this element in their titles and while the world may still be large to explore, often it feels like you’re being told where to go and how to accomplish the tasks at hand. Here at Honey’s Anime while we love these newer titles, we still reminisce about the older games like The Legend of Zelda and wished more games took this approach. That’s why when developer Runic Games presented Hob to us and others in the gaming world we had some hope it might be the title to bring us back to those yesteryears of gaming greatness. Does Hob accomplish this? Well, find out in our review of Hob for the PS4 and PC.

When players hit new game to start Hob they will notice what we noticed quickly, a complete lack of a tutorial. Unlike most modern adventure titles, Hob doesn’t tell the player a single thing when you begin the game and even as you go further through. Exploration in Hob is truly a mirror of older adventure titles and that will turn some gamers off possibly but for most it will feel like a truly new experience. There are some context clues in Hob such as how to open treasures and how to accomplish simple tasks like hitting buttons but never expect Hob to tell you what to do and that applies to how to solve puzzles and even the combat that exists in Hob.

Now you might be wondering how does the exploration and combat work in Hob? Well, the simple answer is: incredibly well. Hob is truly a fun game to just get lost in—though being lost does tend to get annoying sometimes in Hob—where exploring various items and places usually leads the player to making progress. There are times Hob will tell you where to go but it won’t tell you how to get there and even with a map this means players will need to look around and not be afraid of trying out new things. Case in point, we here at Honey’s Anime are so use to adventure games telling us that we can swing over to ledges from ladders and such that when Hob failed to mention that early on we actually got lost for several minutes till we realized this was a possibility. It just goes to show you that as gamers we have become so use to games telling us how to attack or how to move that when they aren’t explained you almost forget those actions existed in the first place.

Combat as we mentioned in Hob is incredibly fun and also just as tutorial-less as the exploration. Players will find that once they get to a certain point in game—without spoiling it when a certain event happens to our main character—they will get a powerful arm and sword to use in combat. In Hob, players can dodge, use light and heavy attacks, and even gain more powers as they find the game’s various upgrades known as Armaments and upgrade their character with currency that drops from enemies and upgrades found in the world. While Hob won’t ever go and explain what a new power does, you can usually learn from seeing what various items exist in front of you. As we said Hob is an exploration game that would rather you learn from trying out things and not just go here do this.

Graphically, Hob is truly wowed up in so many ways. Everything in Hob feels like a giant puzzle piece. When you solve a puzzle and a platform moves it connects with the landscape and looks truly amazing to behold. Trust us folks we could try to paint a picture all day on how beautiful Hob is but it’s one of those games that seeing will go a long way. The same can be said of the truly beautiful OST used that keeps players engaged with the world of Hob as they hear various creatures in the distance roar or hear the electricity of a circuit near them.

Alright, from what we’ve described about Hob, it almost seems as if this is a perfect adventure game that does no wrong, but there are a few issues that keep Hob from being truly perfect. The first major complaint we have comes in the form of the horrid framerate issues that plague Hob. At times Hob will come to a crawl if too much is occurring on screen. While this doesn’t destroy the game or cause death—at least during most of the game some later fights this does cause some issues—Hob really runs pretty badly and that will cause some frustration when exploring an area becomes an almost slide show performance. Our other issue with Hob is that while we do enjoy the lack of tutorials in game, sometimes this also causes an unnecessary level of frustration—especially early on—when it becomes a trial by fire to figure out where to go and what can be explored without penalty. Folks expect to die a lot in Hob as you try different things, it will happen but at least Hob has a kind amount of respawn areas and nothing is lost upon death.

Adventure games like Hob don’t come around as often as they should in the gaming landscape. Hob takes older days of gaming like The Legend of Zelda’s freedom of exploration and blends that with more modern themes to create a truly stunning action adventure title. While Hob has some issues with framerate quality dropping when too much action occurs on screen and a complete lack of tutorial that makes solving puzzles a bit frustrating, Hob still is an excellent game through and through. If you’re like us here at Honey’s Anime and you’ve always wished for a game to go back to the roots of making players learn without annoying pop up tutorials every ten seconds, then you’re going to find Hob a godsend. For the low price of $19.99 Hob is a decent length game that will give players plenty of incentive to explore everything they can just to see what else the world of Hob is hiding.

Many of us here at Honey’s Anime grew up on the days of Nintendo games and remember when adventure games weren’t go here and do this affairs. That’s why Hob is such a breath of fresh air in the current gaming landscape. Hob doesn’t hold your hand and players will either enjoy learning as they go or will find Hob to be maybe too old-school in nature. Though for us here at Honey’s Anime Hob is an easy game to recommend to anyone who wants a truly wonderful action adventure title that makes the player truly feel like exploration and learning matters. What are your thoughts on Hob? Have you played it or are you thinking of buying it now after reading our review? Comment down below and for all your video game and anime article needs keep with our hive here at Honey’s Anime!