On paper, Sable is the kind of game I've been dreaming about for years: a vast desert world, littered with monuments and secrets to discover along with gameplay that focuses almost entirely on exploration and discovery. I'm all about that noise! Unfortunately, it's currently plagued by issues that bring down what is an otherwise a beautiful, moving, and possibly even magical experience.
To put it somewhat glibly, Sable is a kind of Breath-of-the-Wild-'em-up; the big differenc is that it takes place in a Moebius-inspired, cell-shaded techno desert world without any combat. Personally, I fell in love with this concept immediately, as by far my favorite parts of the Breath of the Wild were the times when I stumbled across some sort of structure, animal, or event in Hyrule that felt mysterious and unknown and helped build up the world and making it seem all the more wonderous. Sable is the same way, making every ancient temple and abandoned spaceship feel like a place of magic, and major discover as if it were something that only you experienced (of course, this being a video game, you know that's not true (although, judging by the rarity and percentage rate of all the achievements I got, I may have actually experienced some things no one else did)).
It's not all great, the bike that you use in the beginning of the game never went as fast as I wanted it to, even when it was upgraded to the max. Perhaps it's to make the world feel much bigger than it is, but it was definitely a source of minor frustration. Getting to where you want to go can often be a hassle. Like Breath of the Wild, there is a whole lot of climbing going on. In fact, it would be almost accurate to say that most of the quests and major discovery entirely involve climbing up stuff, and it's not always clear where the footholds, rest spots or other platforms are. And that's not even getting into the camera issues (more on that later).
It also feels like the amount of unique discoveries were much more rare than in something like BotW: I mentioned spaceships and temples, and that sums up everything you can discover (with some major exceptions, of course). Also, while there are some nice variances in the biomes of the game, it's all still desert, and you might find yourself getting sick of it after a while. The reduction in scale is understandable and I can't knock this too much; this is a game made by far fewer people, with a smaller budget, and lower price point than BotW.
All of this is built around the central quest in Sable. You, as the titular Sable are a girl who, as a coming-of-age ceremony, must go out into the world, and find out who she wants to be, finding the right mask that will determine her future. It's perfect for this type of game, giving you have all the time in the world, and encouraging you to explore as much of the world as you can. It's something that is always hovering over the game, but I never felt pressured to speed to the end of my journey, or cut an interesting quest short. Along the way, you find all sorts of characters who all well-rounded and with some great writing that builds up the world, and helps guide you to the choice you'll make at the end of the game. And when you finally make that choice, it all feels worth it and builds to a genuinely moving ending. It's not, like, tear-inducing, but it's still solid.
All this praise is for when the game is working properly, however.
There a few minor bugs, like geometry freaking out, UI elements staying up when they were supposed to disappear, and button prompts above certain plants that don't actually do anything (at least I don't think they do? I'm willing to admit that I might not have encountered some sort of botanist quest that would let me interact with the plants, but I never saw anything like that). And then there's bigger bugs, sub-menus not popping up when customizing your hoverbike or merchant's inventories not loading right and preventing the purchase of quest items. There's was also a curious habit where I would load a game and the clothing that Sable was wearing would be completely different than the outfit she was wearing before.
And while that sort of thing is annoying, it is at least mildly amusing. It wasn't as bad as having to fight the camera. I understand that there's a certain need for a predictive camera in a game that focuses so much on platforming, but I often found myself having to correct the angle when climbing up large cliff faces to just see what I was doing and where to go next. It also popped it's head up when I was speeding through the desert and it sank to a weird angle, focusing on the exhaust/light trail of my hoverbike.
Then there'sthe graphical weirdness. Often the when the color would refuse to load properly, and everything would be colored blue or gray or beige, leaving only the outlines around objects, making it a little harder to navigate and taking some of the majesty out of these big moments. I'd go through a lot of trouble to unlock some temple door, revealing some sort of secret and it was it was just… bland. It happened so often, that I knew the exact moments when to expect it: when the day cycle turned to night; when entering or exiting a building; or when travelling to a new area. Having to brace for this error took the fun out of exploration somewhat. I found this was usually remedied by fast travelling to new location or restarting the game, but constantly having to deal with this was inconvenient and took me out of the game.
But somehow, this problem was even worse on the Xbox Series X, where I played the majority of the game while dogsitting my brother's horrible dogs. I don't know why, but it often just went completely white: all the textures just stopped loading, there was a thick fog, and all the black outlines were completely white, blending into the environment. There were long stretches of the game where I literally couldn't see anything I was doing, and navigating the world was almost impossible. I didn't want to save and reset, as I was usually deep into something and I didn't want to risk having to do it over again. I couldn't even fix this issue by fast travelling as I usually would, instead the problem would just sort of follow mearound. I honestly don't know why this was such a problem on the X but not the S, but I'm just going to shrug my shoulders and say "ray-tracing?"
I wish I could rate this higher, I really do. I love the world of Sable and when it's working correctly, it is one of the best games I've played this year. Unfortunately just kept encountering too many bugs that hindered gameplay, at times making it nearly unplayable. I'm hopeful that Shedworks will release some patches to fix these things, but until they do, I can only give a partial recommendation.