Simple Pleasures in Echo Isle

It's probably reflective of both the blogger and reader of blogger audience ageing up, but so many pieces out there on games talk about respecting your time and I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less and I'm not kidding. And, well... yeah. I'm mid 30s. I can sympathize with the bone creakers. 

These days I'm looking for variety out of games. I've spent the last month rotating between Octopath Traveler 0, Death Stranding 2 and Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones. All big chunkers right there. Weeks or months of dedication depending on free time to finish, which, yeah. Not easy to come by.

Echo Isle pitches itself as an antidote to the sprawl of triple or quadruple hour experiences "the discourse" wants you to be all about these days. A single session 2D Zelda game measuring no more than 90 minutes, complete with 4 dungeons to conquer, multiple items to play with and secrets to find amongst it's overworld. 

It's nice, you know. Something that simply is what it is says on the tin. A couple bucks for an hour and a bit of a good time. There's nothing fancy here, but there doesn't need to be. It's clean and sharp, lovely on the eyes and ears with just the right amount of challenge. It pulls from the greats, but has no required reading to get. 

6 months of the year are nearly gone, and I can just about count the games I've finished on my fingers alone, plus a toe or two depending on what counts as finished. And here comes this excellently made little experience that just makes you feel satisfied. What more could you want, really?