I fiddled with the graphics options and with the game on medium at 1080P with motion blur, AA and sun shafts turned off I was able to get 65-100 FPS the majority of the time but I would still get the odd drop to the 40’s. With the game maxed out at 1080P and motion blur turned off the game could drop as low as 15 FPS when outside and in daylight. It really was better than most platformers. It may seem like I am trashing the story but i’m not trying to. There were characters that were not well explained, a “boss battle” that consisted of pressing three buttons to win and just felt generally rushed for the last hour of the game. The issues I had were that the story felt rushed near the end. It wasn’t award worthy but it was nice to have something propelling the game forward from area to area rather than just going to the next level like many platformers. You are a slave working in a mine who is finally freed and is given an opportunity with the grappling hook to get off the island and back to the mainland to your family farm. The story itself was better than most platformers and was more fleshed out as well. It didn’t happen often but it wass annoying when it did.
There is a change to the crosshair when you are able to use the hook and there were times where I should have been able to use it but the game didn’t respond to the button press. I found that once in a while the controls weren’t as responsive as I would have liked. Other challenges are when to jump when using the hook because in some cases you will get too much air and overshoot your landing and other times come up short.
There will be many options on the landscape to use the hook on but if you choose the wrong one you may be out of uses before you can get to the next patch of solid ground. You can only use it so many times before hitting the ground so choosing when to use it is key. You use the grappling hook to traverse the landscape by timing your uses of it. There were some warts on it but overall if you enjoyed games such as Valley and A Story About My Uncle then you will probably enjoy The Free Ones. It didn’t go overboard with the difficulty while having a decent story to go with it. The Free Ones was pretty enjoyable overall.
The Free Ones was I generally enjoy first person platformers so long as they don’t try to go all masochistic with the difficulty curve. I generally enjoy first person platformers so long as they don’t try to go all masochistic with the difficulty curve.