The curse of the early game demo

Ever since the very first trailer for Tunic appeared all the way back in 2017, my Zelda senses have been a-tingling. I'm always up for a good Zelda-like, and everything I saw of Tunic back then seemed to confirm that this was 100% a game I would like and enjoy.

You can probably imagine my excitement, then, when Microsoft announced there would finally be a playable demo to people download during last year's E3. However, as I briefly mentioned in my post about Tunic's brilliant in-game instruction manual yesterday, I actually came away from that demo a bit disheartened. With just a single (and quite unforgiving) dungeon to explore, I was left thinking it hewed a bit too close to the Soulsian school of combat difficulty than I'd like. Upon playing the final game, however... Delight! Magic! Joy! I actually can't get enough of it. To think I almost dismissed what's now one of my early game of the year contenders on the basis of that one 20 minute demo now seems incredibly hasty on my part, but with so many games now being shoved down our throats on a daily basis, those first impressions can be devastatingly powerful.