Welcome to my review of A Short Hike which is brought to us by Adam Robinson-Yu. It is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. Of course, you can also play the game to its full potential on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. For the purpose of this review, I played the game via Game Pass on the Xbox Series X.
This is a bite sized adventure game that works with many different platforms and plays just as well as the other can do. It is also Steam Deck verified!
Take A Walk, Pal!
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The Game
So as the title rightly tells us, the game is about a short hike up. This hike is a trek to the top of a nearby mountain and our protagonist, Claire, must reach the top to get signal on her mobile phone to be able to contact her mother.
As part of the journey, we must find golden feathers. These help Claire double, triple, and quadruple jump as well as give her more stamina for climbing. The more you have, the more you can jump and the further you can climb. Golden feathers are hidden around the land, you can also unlock them by completing tasks for some of the locals. Such tasks are finding a lost watch, finding a lost sweat band, completing a boat race, and more.
The controls of the game work very well even though they are basic, and you don’t need to worry about too many buttons to be pressed in combinations. For me, the best part was exploring the land to find coins and the aforementioned golden feathers. There is also a load of tools for Claire to find around the game. Such tools are a shovel, a pickaxe, a fishing rod, a bucket, and more. Most of the tools are self-explanatory, but the best one is the bucket. This allows players to water plant sprouts that are dotted around. This blooms a bouncy flower that helps you get higher up, a lot faster than climbing.
One thing I Will add, is that this game an absolute joy from start to finish. Adam has done an incredible job with this game, and I cannot fault it in any way, shape, or form.
There are various mini games in A Short Hike, one of which you must use a stick to hit a ball back to an NPC to reach a high score. It’s quite fun!
Look & Sound
A Short Hike has very beautiful graphics. From the high up vistas overlooking the land below, to the beaches at sea level, it all looks very nice. I love the character design in-game too.
Below is not the default look of the game. The default look of the game is a very pixellated design, but I preferred it to show me it’s glorious 3D design like my below screenshot. That’s not to say it looked rubbish with the pixelation, I just think it looked way better without this.
The audio in-game is quite limited, but this does not take away from the charm of this adorable adventure game. I actually feel like it helps keep the game as adorable as possible.
Conclusions
Whilst the main story is very short, it tells you that in the title. It took me less than 6 hours complete the game 100%, including the 12 achievements. However, for me, it was worth every second. Everything about A Short Hike has had a lot of passion put into it.
Even the pricing is fair. On Steam, it costs £5.79. I played it via Game Pass on the Xbox, so I didn’t (in a way) pay for the game. However, if I had come across this on Steam, I would have bought it in a heartbeat at that price.
I give A Short Hike a 10/10!
