Way of the Turtle Review

"This is the Way"

Campaign

December 14, 2019 at 4:20am
By Jason Stettner

This is more of a calming gaming experience, you’re guiding these auto-moving turtles as they attempt to find one another. It shows two perspectives, of these turtles that seem to have gotten split up and are trying to find one another. The split style of having two different critters, offers something slightly unique depending on which role you’re working on within the story.

This is presented in a 2.5D environment which features some basic puzzles to solve as you play, and some hidden secrets as well. There’s a decent length to the story with an alright narrative layered over top of this to provide some context into what the situation is here. It’s nothing too wild, but at times a fun and chill type of atmosphere.

Gameplay

Keeping on that relaxed theme there’s a lot of animation with the turtles as they go along their way. You’ll be lightly interacting with them to use special power abilities in order to solve problems, and to adjust how you’re traversing. I did find it hard at times to hit certain spots, or just handle the auto-moving. It works well for touch controls, but plugging in a controller it can be frustrating as the mapping of inputs is somewhat off and the auto movement is strange in that regard.

The environments are minimal, yet present some wonder as they provided varying perspectives. It’s a neat sense of a 3D world and they do a good job with using that within the environments you explore. There are a variety of locations, and things to deal with as well. You’ll get great checkpoints to take advantage of, but it’s quite a casual time overall. You might find some spots tricky, but it’s more than fair.

The Conclusion

Way of the Turtle is an alright game, it presents split perspectives and a casual easy going 2.5D type of experience. It’s definitely different, and not something I had anticipated playing within the Apple Arcade. There’s a fair bit of gameplay and an effort towards presenting a narrative here. You’ll get a sense of progression, with some minimal RPG elements integrated into this.

It’s largely about platforming though as the turtles waddle around in an attempt to meet up with one another. There are some fun store aspects as well, and as mentioned hidden things that you might find if you move the right way. I found this to be charming at times, and fun to play. It’s a different sort of experience, and the turtle focus is a really different sort of style for what’s a very saturated genre.

Read our Sayonara Wild Hearts Review
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Way of the Turtle Review on iPhone XS Apple Arcade

Rating Overall: 6.7