NODE: The Last Favor of the Antarii is one of the most innovative platformers I’ve ever experienced. First impressions may suggest this is another super stylised Inside-inspired tale, but apart from the rather stunning visuals, albeit bleak at that, it couldn’t be more different. For starters, we have a robotic protagonist in an alternate Cold War, and secondly, the controls are not what you might expect.
Here’s the pitch: NODE is Inside meets Chernobylite meets Not For Broadcast. What in Hell does that mean? A dark side-scrolling comedy about radiation? Not quite. The side scrolling aspect exists, as does the radioactivity, but the Not For Broadcast comes to the scrubbing aspects of the controls. The platforming here isn’t in real time and therefore does not require the player to be a seasoned pro with the reflexes of a cat. Instead, that prowess comes from timing and planning. More on that in just a moment, as we need to set the scene.
You control a Pixar-like character that is more of an evolution of the lamp than Wall-E, sent to a Soviet nuclear complex after someone left the proverbial oven on. What happened, and what happens next, is predominantly down to you, alas, despite being a complex AI unit that is unaffected by the Hulk gammas, you essentially have to re-learn your protocols, a.k.a. the commands to play the game. A central AI unit named Control is the intermediary and companion that drip-feeds the narrative as well as how to play the game. This is a good setup for the latter, as this platformer is all about trial and error and being methodical, but the story is something to be desired. I love ambiguity, though this leaves far too many gaps.
As for the controls in NODE, let’s look at that. You don’t take direct control, as in, move left and right and press X to jump. Instead, for each section, there’s a timeline where you select commands in sequence for the bot to follow. This includes taking them to shift forward, jumping, backing up to perform a jump and interacting with switches, among others. You’re effectively training AI. Everything happens in sequence, so you select your series of commands, without any concerns for time restrictions, then execute this and hope for the best. The trial and error aspect often means you’re sending the bot to its death and reverse engineering how to get that sequence to work. It might mean moving a bit, jumping, then turning, backing up, then using some equipment. You further manipulate this by adjusting the command’s timing.
I played exclusively on the Steam Deck as always, and while the controls worked well, there were issues. Visually, this is a great-looking game, reminding me of the aforementioned dystopian sidescroller, but also of the more recent REPLACED, with its dark, complex surroundings. The difference on a smaller screen made this challenging with seeing the timing calculations, but also the action, because at the end of the day, you want to see the outcome of your planning, right? Often, you will be watching the scene ahead to calculate your next move, monitor the seconds and perhaps count the timings separately. One thing I did note was frame skipping. If this were a precision platformer where you manually controlled the character, this would be frustrating, but when you actually move, it’s almost like a cutscene in that gameplay is unaffected, though it is mildly distracting when the frames jump a little.
NODE is meticulous in almost every way, and the initial slow pacing is in its favour as it allows you to become accustomed to the controls and note the nuances. Eventually, the timeline resembles an edit of sorts with some complicated-looking steps, yet when it all comes together, it’s poetry in motion. Again, as a narrative-driven simp, I’d have liked a bit more from the story, as the premise is interesting, but the dialogue is not so engaging or revealing.
The multiple paths may provide more closure, but due to the pace, this isn’t a game I’m likely to play to death to unlock everything. On the flip side, the gameplay is very original, and I have to say it’s refreshing to play a platformer in this way without blaming the thumbs and instead putting the pressure on the grey matter. This isn’t Inside, nor does it claim to be, but if you like that sort of side-scrolling that’s a feast for the eyeballs and would rather be restricted by your brainwaves than whether you can time a jump with your thumbs, then I suggest you give this one a look-see.
