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Bigger isn’t always better. In the case of Far: Changing Tides, a sequel to 2018’s lovely and underappreciated Far: Lone Sails, bigger certainly means more to do and see, but it doesn’t necessarily mean those things are any more interesting. It’s still an absolutely gorgeous and at times almost meditative roadtrip across a world full of stunning vistas and clever puzzles – but developer Okomotive’s efforts to make it a more mechanically varied journey, while successful, also inadvertently tip the balance of the original’s formula from peaceful to tedious at times.
Far: Changing Tides lets you control a tiny person, or at least one that is smaller than the huge sailing vessel they are managing on their own. It is a visual story, telling a story with few words. Most of the time you may not know exactly what you’re doing in this apparently post-apocalyptic world, but you’ll never feel lost either, and never lose motivation to keep sailing toward the right in search of some salvation or another.
You can either unfurl a sail or manually fuel the engine by moving around in its innards. It’s a fun little dance to do, asking you to scavenge resources to burn from beneath the waves as you travel, make sure the engine doesn’t overheat, and perform other little tasks in order to keep you sailing smoothly – not to mention you’ll occasionally have to hop out entirely in order to address larger obstacles blocking your way, like massive closed gates or abandoned buildings. You can even dive below water and transform your ship into a submarine by acquiring a specific upgrade. This cleverly allows the ship to bypass roadblocks and allow you to pass them instead.
But while that’s a flashy addition, the most impactful change from the original is that raising your sail isn’t quite as simple this time around. You can’t just press a button. To raise your sails at the optimal speed, you must first raise a mast. Next, attach a rope to the bottom. There are also obstacles that can cause damage to your sails and low overhangs that could knock down your mast. These additions do make the process of sailing without your engine more engaging, but unfortunately it’s mostly in the same way that you have to be “engaged” while trying to swat a fly.
While Changing Tides’ scenery is beautiful, the 2D perspective makes it annoyingly difficult to determine whether or not your sail is actually going to hit something. Even zoomed in, it is often difficult to see an overhang from your ship’s roof and be able to make a difference. What that means is that some of my absolute favorite moments in Lone Sails – catching a breeze and simply enjoying its sights and music after a stressful stretch of powering the engine – are essentially gone, with those sections now occupied by the worries of sail management, threat assessment, and running inside to check your radar to make sure you’re not missing items hidden beneath the waves. These added tasks are still entertaining but make for a very different overall vibe, and it’s one I grew tired of more quickly.
The scenery you’re sailing through is still spectacular. The subtle score perfectly fits the terrain around it (even if it’s not as memorable as Lone Sails’ incredible soundtrack), and your path to the right is frequently full of moments you could screenshot, print out, and post on an art gallery wall without them looking out of place. It’s possible to find some stunning underwater scenes, one of which was a cluster fluorescent jellyfish that I saw as I swam under my ship.
There are some cool scripted moments throughout the nearly five hours it took me to complete Changing Tides, too – none of which I would want to spoil. They are large in scale and provide a great deal of adrenaline to a game that is otherwise slow. In fact, they’re also the only real source of tension you’ll find, as it felt like there was very little risk of anything going terribly wrong unless it was explicitly designed to do so this time around – a far cry from memories of my vehicle in Lone Sails constantly catching on fire. That can make it feel like you’re just going through the motions rather than fighting to stay moving at all.
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