Similar to other indie titles released nowadays such as Little Nightmares, Abzu, Bluefire and ofcourse Hollow Knight the game uses little to non dialogue in order to tell it's story. In other words
it's another one of these Wordless Games. During the game, the player get's to control of Sali a small red hooded wizard. The oppening cutscene shows the player small mages playing around. When Sali approached
the other two kids got scared and run away from him. Sali had a weird ability that allowed him to open portals to other interconnected worlds. He accidentaly opens a portal and a weird creatured spawn and run away.
Sali's village consisted of plenty of magicians who were preparing to make their annual Celebration of the guardian where they reinforce a crystal to keep their world safe from any outsiders. While Sali was looking for
monster he distant himself from the village. Back in the village, while the festival was on, the crystal that protected them shatters and breaks allowing Demons to come towards their world. By the time Sali returns he finds
nothing but fire. A dying wizards requests Sali to go to a forest and seek shelter under the Wizard Brom to protect him. On it's way Sali finds the shatered crystal which he gets which allow him to control his portal power.
To sum the adventure afterwards, the player moves around the map in order to find Brom's location. In his adventure he meets the creature again and the two form a bond. The creature introduces itself as Leyrah who was the inhabitant of
a world far away from Vaiya (Sali's home world). He tells Sali that the demon who is currently destroying Sali's world attack it's prior and there was nothing left that even resembles what it's planet was. It itself was about to
die but Sali's portal rescued it. The two eventually reach Brom's hideout which was in the deep forest. A few survivors also made their way there but the majority of the survivors are either too exhausted to fight back or use their remainning
powers guarding the area so that no demon would come in uninvited. Brom Request that Sali would go on an adventure to collect certain orbs in order to seal the demons away. Nevertheless, doing so it's half the job as Sali would also have
to go to the desert and find another powerful wizard called Zarana in order to collect the rest of the shards located in the dessert.
Thus Sali's quest is on.
Generally speaking the game's story is very straight forward. But very similar to Hollow Knight, if the players wish to learn more about the world and Sali they ll have to search around and interact with various NPCs, pillars and others.
The story is far more deep and grim with alot of unexpected plots. Most of the mages will majorily speak about their world, or even their lives prior to the demon invansion. Leyrah also appears alot in the game and explains the player how it's
life was, how the demons came to it's world and how amazed it is by the determination of Sali. Other Npcs are character that knew Sali as they were in the same village and they will interact based on how they feared of Sali for various reasons
and how different he was among them all. The game also has two different endings based on how many collectables the players collect prior to last boss fight. Both a bad and a good ending. More about the story and world of Sali can be found
if the player collects all the collectables and visit's a stone tablet that holds an entire story about them. Two cutscenes that reveal more about Sali can be seen if the player's tackle the Challenge portals.
It is also worth mentionning that all the cutscenes in the game and the background are all hand drawn and they re all well designed. There is no dialogue spoken with words but there is alot of text.
The game is a 2D side scrolling metroidvania that combines puzzles and platforming. Drawn by it's inspirations the player's character Sali, does not start with much other than manuvering around and jumping. The more the player proceeds in the story the
'stronger and richer' Sali's abilities become. To elaborate, Sali is capable of double Jumping, wall bouncing and dash and double dash through, once again similar to the first abilities the knight gets in Hollow knight. However here is where the similarities
between the knight and Sali ends as Hollow knight proceeds with it's charms and nails. Sali doesn't need them as he is a mage and the game on it's own does not have main combat mechanics. Instead, Unbound worlds apart main gameplay comes in the form of Portals.
Earlier in the story, there was a mention about Sali oppenning gates to another dimension and with the help of the crystal he gets to control it. The game uses the portal mechanic as it's main gameplay core.
Every time Sali ventures outside of the seal gates placed by mages, he gains a certain magical ability based on the portal he entered. The portals are all to another world and all of them have different abilities. These abilities cannot chain combo
among them as each time the players goes through a gate their abilities swap with each other. The game has plenty of portal's and map sections that make good use of all of them.
These are:
The game has two types of collectables:
Overall Unbound: Worlds Apart is fun and interesting game that has a decent ammount of Challenge. The story of the game is deep, and the main adventure is given through some amazing hand drawn animation which honestly looks clean and smooth. In fact the entire game is hand drawn which is really beautifull. Sali as a character has a nice look to it that make him stand out from other characters. The music escorting the game is really relaxing but also have some dynamic OST for more intense battles. The platforming of the game is very challengefull as they rely on the players reflexes to not only use their basic abilities but also control their portals. Each area is hard when it is first introduced, but when the player gains more abilities, comming back to them is an easy task that also opens new areas within the maps that have collectables. The game has a massive ammount of collectables(50) that are honeslty very well hidden. It is also worth mentionning how the games collectables reward the player not only with trophies, but also with 2 cutscenes about the hero's past and the lore of the Unbound universe. Pretty much the player will have to open their maps and check each square corner to see where there might be a mystic path. For a game without main combat mechanics, it has some Clever Boss battles that require the player to use both the environment and the portal power ups to find a way to hit them, while avoiding projectiles. The main Issue of the game is it's generosity when it comes to checkpoints. Some are very close to each other and each time a player dies, they can instantly begin to where they were. An Example is the fact that the final boss battle itself has atleast 4 checkpoints that literally remove the entire challenge of the boss.
This is a video showcasing and reviewing the Game