Selfloss Review

Selfloss is a melancholic experience; slow, thoughtful, and leaving us with something to think about by the end. It’s also a somewhat frustrating title at times, with glitches, bugs, and camera work that seem set on getting in the way at all the wrong moments.

We play as an old healer named Kazimir, who we join in the midst of a soul crushing time in his life. We’ll avoid spoilers as much as possible, but the dour set up for the Selfloss sets the tone for the bleak, miserable happenings across the next 8 or so hours. Gifted a magical staff that allws him to use light to solves puzzles and fight enemies, he sets off in search of the items needed to perform the Selfloss ritual – a method of helping people with harrowing grief. It’s not a cheery game, but it is one that delivers its story and character moments with heart.  

We meet a host of people who are in need of the ritual too, and Kazimir helps them out in return for travel to his final destination; an open ocean where Orca’s roam, as these are what he requires to perform the ritual for himself.

Each character we meet requires their own items, and so we engage in some light combat, puzzle-solving, and exploration in order to find these. 

Puzzles are the highlight here, smart but not too taxing, and just the right amount of length without over-egging it for the sake of padding. All revolve around using the lightstaff we have, be it lighting up symbols in order, destroying pustules blocking routes, or activating equipment. I’m reminded of some elements of Inside, and the muted palette along with the somber feeling helps reinforce this comparison. Selfloss isn’t going to top Playdead’s best, but if you’ve enjoyed Inside or Limbo, Selfloss will certainly be something you’d be wise to check out. 

Combat fairs less well, though it is kept to a minimum. Enemies are tackled in one of a few ways with the staff (energy beam, energy blast, or simply hitting them with our sickle), but all but the weakest of foes are too tricky to avoid damage from by virtue of needing to be close enough for the staff to do its thing, with their range of attack far greater. It’s not awkward enough to entirely ruin the experience, but I did find myself sighing later in the game when the encounters became more frequent and with more enemies at once, just because it’s a slow process beating even a single enemy, let alone a handful while they move and attack faster than we can.

Exploration fits somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed finding all the nooks and crannies of an area, looking for the way forward as well as the various optional puzzles and secrets to find. A large portion sees us moving about on a rowboat – which in itself is a mixed bag, one moment handling fine, the next bouncing and bobbing all over the place – and while the areas aren’t large, there is enough to find to make it worth hunting around a bit. There’s no map here though, and a few times I found myself rowing in circles looking for the next area to progress in a little longer than I’d have liked. Kazimir also moves incredibly slowly on foot, and while it fits the gentile pace at times, on occasion things move a bit too glacially for my liking, especially the times we’re back tracking an area. 

However.

Along the way, I experienced a few design frustrations as well as technical ones. Much like the rest of the game, the camera moves at a snails pace as it follows the action. Fine for the most part, there were multiple times where foreground scenery blocked the entire view of play, leaving me guessing as to where I was going or – in one late game, tricky boat scene – simply blind hoping I wasn’t about to be killed because I couldn’t see anything. Other times, it wouldn’t follow Kazimir properly, and I’d be stuck trying to navigate from an awkward angle. 

Worse still were the bugs that caused me to think I was going mad a few times. Several puzzles glitched out on me, including one that refused to work across both Series S and X. Luckily there was a YouTube playthrough that allowed me to see the solution (which is what I had been doing), and on my fourth or fifth load I managed to get it to trigger properly. The penultimate boss fight too caused me headaches, with random deaths and the gate failing to open when I did manage to beat them, meaning I had to kill Kazimir off to reload. I’d be more forgiving of these issues if it wasn’t for the slow pace and checkpointing that usually meant replaying a chunk before the bug. Of course, I could have just been unlucky, and chances are these issues will be fixed, but it put a dampener on things all the same for me. 
But the foibles above were not enough to put me off Selfloss. For all the slow pace and awkward combat, the atmosphere, story and puzzles kept me plugging away in search of unraveling the overall mystery. It has some truly touching moments, and the finale…well, no spoilers here but it was worth the journey.

Conclusion

Selfloss wraps a touching, impactful tale in some clever puzzles, a gripping atmosphere, and some well designed areas. Bugs and a inconsistent camera let it down, but those willing to push through will find an experience that will not soon be forgotten.