Another Sight is a 2.5D platformer featuring Kit, a young girl at the end of the Victorian era. She falls through the London underground and befriends a peculiar feline named Hodge. The fall robs her of her eyesight, but Hodge grants her with the gift of another type of sight, hence game’s title. From then on she can see only through the sounds of things around her, sort of like Marvel’s Daredevil, only less fun. The whole game feels like a mixture of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” and Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline”, only boring.

Throughout Another Sight, players will have the ability to take control of both Kit and Hodge. They must work together to get past obstacles and navigate their way through a surrealistic world hidden far below the depths of London. As a cat, Hodge is small and agile and can climb up certain parts of the environment, making new areas accessible that Kit can’t reach. On the other hand, Kit is much stronger and can activate machines and manipulate the areas around them by pulling levers, pushing blocks, and climbing stairs. The idea of a dual character controlled platforming game is a good one, but it wasn’t implemented very well in Another Sight.

One of my biggest issues with Another Sight is its pacing. It takes forever for the story to finally become interesting. Not only that, but given the nature of controlling two different characters through the same stretches of environment, you’ll often find yourself repeating some areas with both Kit and Hodge and it’s a bit boring. It would have been a better idea to have Hodge journey through an entirely separate section of the level to help Kit get through certain doors or obstructions. As it stands, trudging along back and forth from one end of a level to the other several times is largely unappealing and downright tedious.

The gameplay in Another Sight had interesting ideas, but poor execution. Constantly switching back and forth between Kit and Hodge quickly becomes tiresome. Kit moves at an agonizingly slow pace when Hodge isn’t near her, which is more often than not. Thank goodness Hodge moves at a normal speed. There’s also the fact that both characters have absolutely dreadful jumping mechanics. I died countless times just trying to cross some of the simplest platforming sections.

Near the end of the game, stealth sections get introduced. This was hands down the worst part of the game. It almost seemed like they decided last minute to add in stealth elements and then couldn’t develop it properly. Another Sight has a hard time registering when Kit is trying to hide in small spot and she’ll often times stand still or continue walking as normal. They also supposedly gave Hodge the ability to meow and distract the guards, but his meowing seems to have little to no effect on them. I spent an obscene amount of time running back and forth meowing in an attempt to lure the guards away from Kit, only to have them comment on a crazy cat while remaining stationary.

The story also leaves much to be desired. It takes far too long to build up to anything somewhat interesting. They do feature interactions with various famous people like Claude Monet, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Helena Blavatsky, and Jules Verne, but their roles in the storyline are both vague and convoluted. It seemed like it was building up to something creepy with some sort of huge moral dilemma, but instead it all ends suddenly and unclearly. I’m okay with ambiguous endings that leave it up to the person to imagine the finer details, but Another Sight couldn’t manage that. Instead it just makes a bizarre left turn and then simply ends. It was a pretty big let down, since it seemed like there was something pretty great on the horizon.

The graphics and sound were the highlight of Another Sight. Visually, this game is gorgeous. In the more colorful sections, the color palette is very vibrant and vivacious. There are also great textures in almost everything from the metal pipes to the stones in the ancient ruins. The only texturing issue was with the hair. Both Kit’s long locks and Hodge’s fur coat looked like they were molded from clay. The cutscenes were done with hand drawn illustrations which added a nice charm to the game. The voice acting was surprisingly well done for almost all of the characters. The music fit each section perfectly and had well done sound effects throughout it.

Another Sight is an adventure platformer by Lunar Great Wall Studios that had some good ideas, but didn’t manage to accomplish entirely what they set out to do. Its unique traits are unfortunately what are holding back this mediocre game from being something truly great. Its heart is in the right place, but it has too many gameplay issues to overlook. If they could find a way to fix those problems, maybe I’d give Another Sight another look.

 

Graphics: 8.0 The colors are rich and the graphics and textures are well done, except for the texturing of any hair.	Gameplay: 3.5 A simple side scrolling platformer with some frustrating jumping mechanics. The main feature of switching back and forth between the two main characters wears out its welcome quickly.
Sound: 8.5 Effective sound effects with surprisingly decent voice acting. The music is appropriate for every stage.	Fun Factor: 3.5 The story is a slow burner with an abrupt ending. The gameplay mechanics manage to suck the fun out of almost every section.
Final Verdict: 5.0

Another Sight is available now on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
Reviewed on PC.
A copy of Another Sight was provided by the publisher.