Go North Review – As the Name Says

The premise of Go North is given away pretty immediately. Did you not think that the goal of protagonist Dara in Go North wasn’t, in fact, to go north? Well, you would be correct. When we get a short narrative point to explain that Dara is what this universe refers to as a littler. These people are on a long and challenging pilgrimage to find the Mystical Maze God at the northernmost point of a series of mazes that make up the world. Her goal in all this is to use the singular wish that she gets for completing the task to save her dying mother.

This is a simple enough aim as the player travels along a main map, participating in many tiny mazes that make up the pilgrimage. This is not hyperbolic either; each level, when viewed from above, is a little series of corridors that, when you piece together their maps, you will learn that they are indeed full-blown, traditional mazes. The kind you might find on the back of a placemat. Now, that is a simplification of how you actually find your way through, but this is our starting point.

On these maps, you find yourself in beautiful and tranquil locations where you are encouraged to take your time. While navigating these mazes, you will also be accompanied by well-composed scores that play into this idea. That it’s not about racing the maze but instead savoring each line and location. You might also be surprised that there are countless narratives to intersect with as merchants sell goods and other littlers wander the map, in the midst of their quests.

Unfortunately, textural issues are abundant in these interactions that hold back what are otherwise welcome breaks in the exploration. NPC characters will often clip into walls, and I once had to talk to a stone wall after a man jumped out of a bush and rolled straight into it. The character portraits are regularly inconsistent as well, with some having chalky pixelations across them, while others will be perfectly fine depending on the person you talk to.

You enter the maze on one side and need to navigate to an exit that will typically be on the complete other side, but there are variations to this. The biggest benefit to actually completing this task is finding pieces of a map that fully flesh out the full area for view, giving you a solid look at the clear gap. You can also find a ton of items to aid, with the best (at least in my mind) being a bird that just flies out and outlines the ending. For you, even without the map. Other items allow for fast movement, though they are never as useful as I want since they are on a timer and you can get lost, which wastes them. There are useful items like coins and ore that can be found, since there are many places to buy gear and help yourself.

This is where the game gets interesting because even knowing where to go, you will still run into dead ends. An early trial to overcome involved convincing a barrier of sheep to move and let me through. This means that even the dead ends in the maze are useful, with the player often needing to navigate back for the next tool for forward progression. Other times you think there are barricades only to take a wrong turn and find out you made it through. These side-stepping moments usually have some back-end narrative attached and make exploring peaceful labyrinths more appealing, though they can occasionally extend escaping past the point of actually having fun.

What’s more, you will be absolutely amazed at how much content they stuff into these locations. One maze might have multiple chests, some hiding people, and several side quests that can all be solved in this one area. People might need your help with lost chickens or because they lost their partner, so you end up on an entirely new quest inside the existing one that needs your full attention if you want to solve it. These can range in difficulty, though, and while I love a good puzzle, there are times the solution is confusingly unclear, which becomes painful given the player’s ways of interacting with the world.

Later on, there are additional tasks that are added, such as a set number of animals that are poisoned and require the player to find medication to save them by mixing berries on the map. There are plenty of functional things that are on each map if you care to look, which is crazy. The shame of these things is that it is a very bland type of grinding to find the fruit and save the animals. Each stage is ranked with several important items you can find along the way, so if you are a completionist, there is a high chance you will not have a good time.

There are numerous items you will collect along the way that add to the layers of exploration as well. Finding the camera, for instance, unlocks the ability to take photos of hidden symbols that can be used as codes for hidden areas or chests. Navigating the menus, both to grab items or check photos or your journal, can be highly disruptive to exploration, and you constantly have to do this to a near-painful amount. I wish there was a lot less of it.

Verdict

Go North is a cute and charming puzzle game that has its flaws. The puzzles are engaging, and the maze structure of stages is honestly pretty unique. The fact that you need to navigate forward to understand what you need to search for before going back is also, for the most part, a cool idea. That they stuff these mazes with tons to do, especially as a stage-based game, is incredibly impressive as well. The biggest issue is that the game can get in its own way with bloat and grind. Even at its worst, though, it makes an ample case for why you should go north, even if you don’t grind through it all.

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