Below

🎮 Steam ⏳ 25 hours ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)

Lonely Mystical Descent #

This title is a hauntingly atmospheric top-down adventure that drops you onto a mysterious island to explore its dark, labyrinthine depths. The game’s minimalist storytelling and lack of guidance create a powerful sense of mystery and discovery, rewarding people who are patient and curious. Its visual style is striking, combining sharp geometric design with moody lighting that perfectly complements the amazing OST. Together, they craft an atmosphere that feels both lonely and mesmerizing.

Beautiful Yet Punishing #

However, Below is as punishing as it is beautiful. Its survival elements, hunger, thirst, temperature, and permadeath, can make progress feel grueling, especially when exploration demands repetition after each death. The sparse explanations of its mechanics often leave you confused, turning intrigue into frustration. While later updates added an “Explore Mode” that softens the difficulty, the game still maintains its slow, deliberate pacing, which won’t appeal to everyone.

Meditative Mystery Appeal #

For those who value mystery, solitude, and the satisfaction of figuring things out on their own, Below is an absorbing and meditative experience. But for people seeking momentum or clear goals, its beauty may feel trapped behind layers of tedium and trial. This title was patched a lot since it’s first release, and this is what made me want to come back to it, because as much as I love difficult games, this one was a very unbalanced one, especially on later sections of the game.

Frustrating but Rewarding #

I admit that I used cheat codes in order to finish this, since the first time I played it was insanely frustrating, and this time around, even though it was heavily patched for balancing reasons, it still has some frustrating sections by the end of the journey. Despite all this, this is a very valuable experience to go through if you like titles such as Zelda, even though they don’t have a lot of similarities, they achieve the same goal: making the player curious enough to explore on it’s own and find it’s secrets. I just advise a heavy dose of patience because you’ll lose some hairs playing this.