Sanabi is a game in which you play as a retired veteran, swinging from building to building with your prosthetic metal arm, to find Sanabi. You defeat strong enemies and make your way through different cities to get justice but as you progress through the levels and get closer to Sanabi, you start to realize something is wrong…
This is a game I finished recently after a couple sleepless nights and it has become one of my favorite games. With a unique narrative, beautiful map design, and smooth mechanics for battle and travel with the prosthetic arm, I think Sanabi is a game that combines the best elements of platformers and story-telling games. This game appeals to the aesthetics of sense, narrative, and challenge through a variety of mechanics. First, the game has an amazing soundtrack which changes based on the boss and levels and has really nice pixel art for the backgrounds. The story told itself is well written and executed and the user gets to decide what interpretation they prefer at the end of the story. Specifically, because of the encounters and cutscenes involved in the game, the player becomes very invested in the characters and is led through a series of emotions throughout the game. Finally, the game has some tough platforming and boss battles with no mid-fight checkpoints meaning that if you fail at the last moments of a big boss battle, you have to start over from the beginning (Resulting in me replaying the same boss dozens of times before finally memorizing their movements). Due to the story-driven aspect of the game, there is little exploration involved, but the player is rewarded for paying attention to details as they can start to amass clues as to what is going on in the world.
I firmly believe that no one goes into this game and comes out the same person. With a fair share of plot-twists involved, you never truly know where the story will end up until the final moments of the game. Although the game is filled with frustrating boss encounters and tricky platform levels, you stay motivated due to the engaging cutscenes, and reaching the very end of the game to finally fill in the entire puzzle of the story is super rewarding.
