LIMBO Review (PSVita)

LIMBO is a game that tells you everything it can by not ever saying a word. In the game you’ll play as a little boy lost in the woods who has no idea who he is, where he’s from, or even where he’s headed. The magical thing about it is that that’s exactly how the game makes you, the player feel as you traverse it's depressing tale.

Gameplay in LIMBO consists of brutal platforming coupled with puzzles that will sometimes truly test your intelligence.  Since most of the puzzles force you to complete them as something is in a dead sprint to rip you to pieces, easy ones instantly become a heart-pounding challenge.

The world in LIMBO is full of things that want to kill you. Giant spiders, a ragtag band of kids and a bunch of other things that’ll make you queasy are all out to get you throughout the vast majority of the game. It’s a creepy atmosphere that, if played in the right setting, will keep you disturbed for some time after you complete the five-ish hour experience.

Despite the fact that LIMBO was originally released almost three years ago, it still has one of the most unique and visually striking graphical styles to date. Additionally, the game has never looked better than it does the PlayStation Vita’s OLED screen.  The game is entirely drawn in black and white, but that doesn’t make watching the young boy you play as being dismembered any less jarring. Watching a child ripped apart is something that, hopefully, you don’t want to see, so it ups the tension even further during the more intense puzzles.

Adding to the horrors that the visuals and gameplay provide is the astonishingly chilling sound department. The soundtrack is mainly comprised of ambient sounds that connect the game to the real world. Many of the puzzles also require you to listen closely as they provide cues to lurking danger and even the solution to some of the trickier puzzles.

Problems with LIMBO are few and far between, and the only ones I personally had were with the latter half of the game’s pacing, and that sometimes the puzzles can be a tad obtuse. It wasn’t as frustrating as say, the last few puzzles in The Swapper, but it kind of pulled me out of the experience when I would get stuck one for a long time.  

If somehow, you’ve managed to not play LIMBO in its three-year lifespan even though it’s on every system known to man (like myself), the PlayStation Vita version should be a no-brainer. It also supports Cross-Buy with the PlayStation 3, so if you buy one or the other for $14.99, you’ll get them both regardless of which one you choose. If you’ve played the game before, there isn’t much here that’ll make you want to purchase the game again. That’s okay though, because LIMBO is a game that doesn’t need to be changed. It’s a modern classic, and yet another incredible addition to the PlayStation Vita’s growing indie library.

9.5/10