★☆☆☆☆
Since
Tengami is such a short game, this will be a rather short review.
The game is like a lovely picture book that has you pulling at tabs to move back and forth between areas, uncovering pieces and solving puzzles to recover the cherry blossoms that fell off the tree your player is kneeling under at the start. It takes place in Ancient Japan with an art style I assume is similar to those of that period.
The only thing Tengami has going for it is it's beauty. The rest is a total flop.
There was no narrative to the game, the character you play has no backstory and it got boring. The number of times I was screaming at my laptop because the movement of the character was so slow is astounding, and one mistake has you starting all over again in the same slow pace.
Oh, and those random haikus you get after obtaining a flower? To me, they are the kind of random poetry you find on Tumblr that sounds like lovely words strung together but in actuality, are as shallow as the end of a swimming pool where the kids splash. I don't know, maybe I'm just annoyed that I tried memorising the lines because I thought it would be needed for a final challenge...
However,
Tengami has actually received quite high ratings and the combination of imagery and music is so beautiful it kind of kills the want to rage quit the game completely.
I found the areas where you sailed across water particularly soothing and enjoyable. Like, just look at the freaking mastery of that water art!
I suppose maybe turtles with fingers or gamers with a hell lot of patience could enjoy this.
Would I recommend this to friends? Probably not. And that is why it's a 1/5 from me, sorry!
Over and out
xx Cece
