Herdling - Switch Review

Herdling is the latest in the particular genre of ‘animal-companion adventure’ games, where the player character embarks on a journey with a friendly creature, relying on one another along the way. In Herdling, from Okomotive, you get not just one but a whole herd of mysterious creatures to guide through a vast landscape, hoping to return them to their mountain home.

The Good

Outside of on-screen button prompts, Herdling is entirely wordless; your character has no voice and all storytelling is environmental, with wall paintings and landscapes doing all the narrative legwork. The premise is simple but effective, and the world of the game has a faintly unsettling edge to it, all of which lines up with the animation and design of you and your herd.

The creatures you must care for are called Calicorns: woolly, cattle-like animals with a faintly magical aura. You meet your first companion within moments of waking up, pulling some trash off his snout and befriending him. He is a huge creature, but before long you'll have a herd of all shapes and sizes to literally shepherd through the game. You can tell your Calicorns which direction to head and to speed up and slow down, and they in return will help you solve basic puzzles, moving obstacles and helping you reach high ledges. The relationship you form with your herd is one of the game's major highlights—you name each one, can decorate their horns, and when they were in danger I was genuinely worried (shockingly, herdling has perma-death). Yes, it is distressing.

The best moments in the game are at the quiet checkpoint campfires, where you cosy up with your herd and drift off to sleep. Not only do you get to enjoy the calicorns, but you also appreciate the vast landscape you're in. This is all further enhanced by the truly excellent soundtrack, which evokes the spirit of the land and its inhabitants alike.

TL;DR

• Effective characterisation and storytelling
• Gorgeous soundtrack

The Bad

For as much as Herdling’s soundtrack hits every beat in capturing the epic landscape and the roaming calicorns, the graphics cannot quite keep up. It looks only a little ropey when the Switch is docked, but in handheld mode you will notice the basic textures, variable draw distance, the slightly janky animation, and occasional framerate stutter. Ultimately, the art direction is writing cheques the graphics can't cash.

Herdling is not a long experience—lasting about 6 hours. Nor is it a particularly challenging game—the puzzles are trivial, and the threat of some evil birds or treacherous cliffs is pretty easily avoided. In fact, most of the difficulty is down to the vagaries of controlling your herd (understandably, moving a dozen Calicorns isn’t easy). All that is to say that herdling can be a pretty shallow and short game, and one that is lacking in replay value.

TL;DR

• Graphically lacking
• Shallow gameplay and challenge

Final Score: 7/10

A delightful, if short and simple, adventure, you will not regret your time with the calicorns. Unfortunately, the graphics on the Switch can't quite match the majesty of the soundtrack, so you may be better placed playing Herdling elsewhere.

Thank you for checking out our Herdling Switch review, thank you to Panic (via Popagenda PR) for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support:

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