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The first thing you notice about the new PlayStation 4 game Bound is just how mesmerizing and intriguing the animation is.
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Most of the game takes place in a constantly shifting psychological landscape which you navigate as a young dancer.
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It’s clear that the developers captured and studied the motions of a real dancer,
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and at times, the character’s movement might seem overly elaborate and even distracting.
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It can be easy to interpret her flourishes of movement as suggesting a very gendered, traditionally feminine kind of delicacy or weakness.
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But it soon becomes clear that there’s nothing weak or delicate about the way this character moves.
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As she goes on a quest to confront memories from her own childhood, dancing is a way of finding the strength within herself that she needs in order to face her difficult past.
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She needs that core of strength and stability because the universe around her seems so unstable.
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The game’s whole world appears to be in a constant state of flux,
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platforms materializing and disappearing, the ground shifting and undulating like the surface of the ocean.
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It’s a wonderful visual effect that lends the experience of playing Bound a feeling of venturing into uncertainty.
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Unfortunately, this effect also contributes to times when you’re unclear about whether the game is even functioning as intended.
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You might make a jump, for instance, only to see the platform disappear from under your feet and send you plummeting to your death.
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Although these moments are rare, they were kinda frustrating
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and occasionally I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not.
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Interestingly, there is no combat in the game, only defense.
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As you move through the environments, you encounter hazards that try to bind you and restrict your movement.
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You protect and liberate yourself from these dangers by dancing.
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Like the environmental instability, this works well on a metaphorical level,
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suggesting that the character is finding the strength within herself to persevere on her quest.
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It’s rare to come across a game in which the mechanics and the narrative complement each other as naturally as they do in Bound.
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The gameplay feels as if it was designed specifically to support the themes of the story, and as a result, it pulls you deeper into the main character’s journey.
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But despite serving the story well, these mechanics aren’t robust enough to make for a satisfying experience.
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You can just sort of randomly press buttons to dance and shield yourself from dangers,
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and while the freedom of movement and creative expression that this suggests is great,
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the fact that you can always fumble your way through these encounters also makes them a bit unfulfilling.
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At the end of each area, you encounter a memory from the main character’s past.
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At first, these memories are in a million little pieces and can’t be clearly seen,
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but as you move the camera and explore the space, the image comes together.
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Like many aspects of Bound, there’s a powerful symbolism here that may strongly resonate with players
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who have had to confront painful or traumatic memories from their own past.
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It reflects the ways in which those memories are often fractured,
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and how sometimes all that remains are images of moments that left some lingering imprint on us.
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With its focus on painful childhood memories, Bound is reminiscent of Minority Media’s excellent game Papo & Yo.
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But where that game had a clear narrative with a strong resolution,
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Bound leaves things more open to interpretation.
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Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, and oftentimes in life there aren’t clear resolutions and easy answers.
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But still, Bound’s ending feels like it arrives prematurely,
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as if you haven’t really gotten to the heart of what you’ve been exploring and investigating all along.
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Still, even if Bound feels incomplete in the end,
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the journey is striking and memorable thanks to the game’s mesmerizing visuals and animations.
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Its psychological explorations are missing that bit of soul they needed to leave you feeling fulfilled,
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but there’s something beautiful and inspiring in its images of a woman confronting her own memories
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and liberating herself from the painful restrictions of her past.