Video Game / Unsighted

After a long war with the humans, the few androids that remain in Arcadia are running out of Anima, the energy that gives all robots consciousness. It's up to you, Alma, to find a way to recover your memories and save your friends from becoming UNSIGHTED. Explore the vast ruins of Arcadia, using every tool you can find. Time is ticking. They need you, Alma.

UNSIGHTED is a top-down Metroidvania Action-Adventure game developed by Brazilian independent video game studio Studio Pixel Punk and published by Humble Games. Explore the interconnected paths of Arcadia, finding its shortcuts and secrets. Time is always ticking, don't let your (and anyone else's) Anima run out. Solve puzzles and gather new abilities and tools to get past obstacles. Many different weapons, from melee to ranged, to suit your play style. Need more stamina? Upgrade yourself with a wide variety of chips. Highly replayable and non-linear, try to find the fastest route to your objectives. Cooperative gameplay is also available. The game was released on PC (via Steam) and consoles on September 30, 2021.

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General Tropes

• Action Girl: Alma is a highly-skilled android who is very agile and quick in her move and during combat. Raquel, her mentor and lover, is no slouch either.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Clara can extract Meteor Dust from bolts, but it costs 2000 more every time. Unless you're abusing greed chips the cost will rapidly balloon to more than you could ever afford.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: Alma is chased by a large and intimidating Dark Spawn after learning the password for the elevator in the abandoned laboratory. Once the player is familiar with the parrying mechanics, though, it can be easily defeated with critical hits.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The player takes no damage from falling into holes/water/lava, making platforming challenges less frustrating.
  • Iris reminds the player of any pass codes they have discovered once they reach a relevant area, as well as puzzle hints, warnings about dangerous enemies and reminders when her or Alma's time is running low.
  • Time doesn't pass while fishing, and is paused for the player and Iris in the final dungeon meaning they can't run out just as they're reaching the end.
  • Map markers make it easy to locate clues for the Aquarium puzzle, Dark Spawn to kill to empower the Infinity +1 Sword and after the game is completed a treasure chest count can be viewed for each area too.
  • Additional shopkeeper NPCs can be found in the event that the ones in the village go unsighted, though some of them have more limited stock and won't offer the four-heart friendship rewards the villagers have.
  • An option to disable the time limit exists for people who would rather take their time exploring.
  • Once they assemble the plot coupons the player is given a choice whether to forge a sword or an axe, ensuring that they get an ultimate weapon that fits their playstyle.
• The Big Damn Kiss: If Alma manages to escape from the collapsing Meteor Tower with Raquel, the two share a kiss once they reach safety.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: The large Dark Spawns can kill Alma in two hits with their long-ranged slashes and the prologue discourages players from facing them head-on, hiding that they are as vulnerable to counters as any other enemy. When one appears at the end of the prologue, Alma has just enough time to get a counter hit in before another hops in the arena, all but ensuring players still inexperienced with the combat mechanics get the Fission Mailed outcome for the fight.
• Broken Bridge: Early on the way to the Crater Tower there is a gap Alma supposedly can't cross because she has no firearm to shoot the nearby platform trigger with. Boxes can be tossed at such triggers, but for the whole prologue the game omits the fact that boxes can be picked and thrown to lure players into the standard path.
• Charged Attack: Hold down the attack button to charge a Spin Attack.
• Canine Companion: Alma can bring one of several dogs or a cat along with her which will attack enemies on her behalf. While useful in combat they need to be fed and rested (costing precious time) regularly or they'll eventually leave her.
• Choice of Two Weapons: Alma can equip two weapons at a time, including Guns Akimbo, Dual Wielding melee weapons, or a Sword and Gun combo.
• The Corruption: Anima is perfectly safe for Automatons and grants them sentience. When humans try to imbue themselves with Anima, conversely, they mutate into Dark Spawns.
• Counter-Attack: Parried enemies are stunned for a while and become very vulnerable to attacks even if Alma could only deal Scratch Damage otherwise. Large enemies must be perfectly parried several times in a row to stun them.
• Deal with the Devil: The player can ask a grim reaper-styled android to kill an NPC and take their time for themselves.
• Death of Personality: If an Automaton runs out of Anima, they will lose their sentience and devolve into a crazed, murderous UNSIGHTED. Even if their body is still functioning, the person they were is effectively lost forever.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If the player skips acquiring a sword in the prologue then Iris will give Alma a War Axe instead once she's recruited.
  • If the player skips acquiring the Blaster in the prologue by using thrown boxes then it can be purchased in Gear Village to prevent any puzzles from becoming unsolvable.
  • If the player has already met Elisa then Alma will tell Vana as much when she comes to advise her to speak to her about an additional syringe.
  • Several of the player's actions will be acknowledged by the ending:
    • If Raquel and Iris both survive then Iris will interrupt Alma and Raquel's reunion to introduce herself.
    • If the player found Raquel's axe then she'll remark on it.
    • If the player has an animal companion they'll sit on the player's motorcycle while credits roll.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The Anima Essence lashes out at Alma and fully intends to abandon the androids to their fate of going unsighted despite giving life to them, all because of the misdeeds of the humans who at this point are pretty much all corrupted Dark Spawn.
• Dual Boss: During the second portion of the Anima Nightmare battle, Raquel summons clones of the area bosses, two at a time.
• Early Game Hell: The game is very challenging early on but becomes a lot easier once the player masters the parry system, unlocks more chip slots and acquires some good chips.
• Exposition Fairy: Iris the fairy bot takes this role, providing advice and pointing out powerful enemies. Once you max out her friendship bar she'll gain the confidence to fight and act as an Attack Drone, stunning and dealing minor damage to enemies. She's not mandatory though, the player can opt not to recruit her or allow her time to run out like any other android.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Alma's weapons may have one of these elements, which have different effects on enemies: fire causes Damage Over Time, ice freezes enemies in place, and electricity reduces the target's defense. The Elemental Blade available from Ariel combines all three effects in a single weapon.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Hookshot lets Alma zip around the environment, as well as close the distance between herself and enemies. Upgrading it to the Double Hookshot lets Alma dart between walls in succession to cross large gaps.
• Greed: A most likely reason why the humans want Anima and fought a war over it.
• Golden Ending: Assembling the Ancient Clock allows you to rewind time, restoring any unsighted NPCs to life and resetting their timers, giving you the opportunity to save everyone as long as you can defeat an enhanced version of the final boss.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The game doesn't explain that you can skim on water with the Spinner, the only in-game hint at this being possible being an achievement.
  • The game omits to mention you can pick up and throw random boxes in addition to the puzzle-critical orbs. Knowing this allows you to sequence break parts of the prologue that would otherwise require a gun.
  • To trigger the fight with ??? (the grim reaper android) it's not enough to refuse her offer to kill an android for their time, the player has to say yes then choose ??? from the list of contacts, when the inclination of a pacifist player would likely be never to even try that option.
  • There is a tutorial explaining how to wall jump and running jump with the High Jump Boots, but it's in an area the player may not reach until late into the game if they follow the recommended path.
• Guns Are Useless: Guns tend to deal low damage and are better at interrupting enemy attacks. Item descriptions indicate firearms were effective against humans but less so against androids, hence the emphasis on melee combat.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: While there are clearly exceptions like Doctor Zepherina the majority of humans in the story are monsters trying to exterminate or regain control of fully-sentient androids. Cutting off the androids from the meteor granting their sentience was just the beginning. The crater tower group captured and mindwiped Morgana, turning her into a weapon to steal anima from her fellow androids, and it's implied they may have been sustaining themselves through cannibalism until their Anima serum turned them into literal monsters, the Dark Spawn.
• Improbably Female Cast: The only named human character is Doctor Zepherina and the majority of the humanoid androids the player meets have female appearances and names (Samuel being one of the few exceptions), which becomes slightly disturbing when you recall that the humans created them as a Slave Race.
• Infinity -1 Sword: When you forge the Meteor Blade, it is corrupted. The only way to purify it and return it to its full strength is to slay Dark Spawns and collect materials from their corpses. Played with in that even the incomplete version is still stronger than most weapons.
• Jerkass Gods: The Anima Essence within the meteor gave life to the androids but now it fully intends to abandon them and seed life elsewhere, condemning them all to going unsighted just because humans abused its gifts. It is eventually persuaded to stay but only after attacking Alma.
• "Just Frame" Bonus: Two of them, actually; both have a fairly lenient timing window:
  • Perfect parry where deflecting an enemy attack with the right timing stuns them and allows you to do increased damage. The stun is long enough to charge a spin attack; with the right upgrades the damage is simply obscene.
  • Gears of War-style reload which instantly refills your gun's magazine. This one has a handy visual cue.
• Load-Bearing Boss: In classic Metroid fashion the tower starts to collapse once you defeat the final boss and you have to escape before a timer runs out with the additional wrinkle that you need to carry Raquel out too, and that M will teleport you out if you befriended her.
• Mercy Rewarded: Refusing M's offer to kill friendly NPCs for their time and instead defeating her in combat grants you 10 Meteor Dust, a key card that points the way to the golden ending as well as her help escaping the collapsing tower during the ending sequence.
• No Hero Discount:
  • Despite Alma working to save android-kind Elisa still won't part with an extra healing syringe for less than three Meteor Dust.
  • While some items being denied unless you max a villager's friendship makes sense (the game implies they need time to finish building them) there's no reason for Vana not to let you have the Doctor's Gun which is just sitting behind glass.
  • Upgrading weapons multiple times gets exceedingly expensive, and doing it yourself doubles the cost again.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Pits respawn Alma at a nearby ledge without dealing damage.
• Open-Ended Boss Battle: If Alma is defeated by the two Dark Spawns at the end of the prologue, her torn body is found and saved afterwards. This actually increases the game's death counter, so get good at parrying if you want it clean.
• Optional Boss:
  • The prologue has an optional fight with Ancient Guardian Luna if you can find the Ice Grenade beforehand, which also requires finding the normal grenades and killing (or evading) a Dark Spawn which is otherwise discouraged in this part of the story.
  • M, the grim reaper android should you refuse her offer of others' time.
  • Corrupted Sanctum Guardian, an enhanced version of Arthropod King Claudius that guards one of the clock pieces.
  • Raging Anima Essence, an enhanced version of the final boss that the player faces if they've used the Ancient Clock to turn back time.
• Player Death Is Dramatic: Upon death, Alma is blown away while everything but her corpse and blood fades to black. Key items collected before reaching a save point will comically pop out of her as it happens.
• Posthumous Character: Dr. Zeferina is already dead by the time the game begins, having been fatally wounded during a skirmish with the human invaders. She is buried somewhere within Arcadia.
• Powers as Programs: Alma can find chips she can equip at repair stations that are worth stat buffs and perks. She can also spend money to raise her inventory space for them.
• Power at a Price: Several powerful upgrades are available if the player is willing to part with Meteor Dust that could otherwise be used to keep shorter-lived NPCs alive.
  • Elisa will sell you a second or third healing syringe at a cost of three Meteor Dust each.
  • Giving Ariel three Meteor Dust (despite her being unlikely to come close to running out on a standard playthrough) grants you the Elemental Blade, which can apply fire, ice and lightning effects to enemies.
  • Giving three to Clara (who is also unlikely to run out) grants you the Anima Chip, which doubles the effectiveness of Meteor Dust on Alma's timer (but not anyone else's).
• Purposely Overpowered: The Corrupted Sword/Axe starts out stronger than most fully-upgraded weapons and gets stronger for every Dark Spawn you kill, and you'll need it for several of the bonus bosses.
• Sequence Breaking:
  • The prologue can be finished in under 4 minutes by collecting the first key and then throwing boxes at platform triggers to head straight to the Arachnid Queen Spinarach fight.
  • The game literally has an achievement called "Sequence Breaker" that involves collecting the high-jump boots by using a hidden pathway to reach a mini-boss early during the prologue. It also has a more advanced version, Sequence Shatterer which requires you to collect a meteor piece during the prologue, but this requires information you won't have on your first playthrough.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Spinner and Dual Hookshot both appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and look and operate pretty much exactly the same way.
  • Wall jumps being available early on but not tutorialized until later brings to mind Super Metroid, where Samus could wall-jump natively but the only hint this was possible was some friendly creatures demonstrating the technique.
• Simple, yet Awesome:
  • The Spinner is useful for puzzles but it also lets you rapidly move across terrain without consuming stamina, even skimming across water, allowing you to rapidly traverse areas you've already visited and easily evade enemies.
  • The Double Hookshot likewise is incredible useful for navigation and allows you to simply bypass huge numbers of platforming challenges and puzzles once it's unlocked.
• Terminally Dependent Society: The androids of Arcadia rely on Anima to replenish their consciousness. However, Anima has run dry recently, and if robots are empty of Anima, they turned into the mindless, unstable UNSIGHTED.
• The Unfought: One of the Meteor Shard guardians, Prometeu, Rider of the Wind, is already gone by the time Alma arrives at what would've been their boss arena. The Meteor Shard is instead found high in the sky with Mechanical Eagle Sol, and due to this only the other four guardians are fought as part of the Anima Nightmare Boss Rush.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Once your time runs low an android resembling the Grim Reaper will offer to kill friendly NPCs for you and give you their time.
  • You can also kill the animals that appear in the forest and Gear Village.
  • Denying your dog food or sleep will result in it whining and eventually running away.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • Meteor Dust is needed to keep the player and their Exposition Fairy alive and can be used to buy a number of very useful items, but many players instead use it to keep friendly NPCs alive long after they've exhausted any rewards they may receive for doing so.
  • The player can rescue multiple dogs and a cat who will then follow the player and assist them in combat and can be petted and fed by the player. If the player wants to keep them around they'll need to let them sleep on a semi-regular basis, which costs three hours of time in a game with very tight timelines.
• Wall Jump: The High Jump Boots give you the ability to wall jump, though the game doesn't explain this until you reach the Outpost.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Every android on Arcadia has a limited amount of time until their Anima is completely exhausted and they transform into an UNSIGHTED, including Alma. These time limits can be extended Meteor Dust, a special item that is rare and limited in quantity. If push comes to shove, the player can enlist a certain android's aid in stealing Anima cores from other androids, extending her life at the expense of another's. Upon reaching the Crater Tower, Alma (and Iris, if she hasn't gone UNSIGHTED) will stop losing Anima, due to their proximity to the Meteor.

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