Sony Humanity (PS+/PS5/PS4/PSVR/PSVR 2) - reviews from OpenCritic posted

[Brian]

Humanity available Day 1 as a PlayStation Plus Game Catalog title, out May 16

BLOG.PLAYSTATION.COM

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Try your paw – er, hand – at the unique Japanese action-puzzle game starting on “Humani-Tuesday.”

 

[stepee]

Wait psvr2? Fuck ya.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Game Information

Game Title: Humanity

 

Platforms:

• PC (May 16, 2023)
• PlayStation 4 (May 16, 2023)
• PlayStation 5 (May 16, 2023)
• PlayStation VR (May 16, 2023)

 

Developer:  tha ltd.

Publisher: Enhance

 

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 85 average - 92% recommended

 

Critic Reviews

GamePitt - 9.5 / 10

As with every other game I’ve played from Enhance, I was in love with Humanity as soon as I started playing it. The puzzles are challenging yet very satisfying when you work out the solution on your own, watching as hundreds or thousands of tiny humans shuffle around the floating stage following your commands religiously, even if it means they’ll end up jumping off the edge into oblivion. The incredible soundtrack enhances the experience and VR adds another level of immersion to this truly unique and mesmerising puzzle game.

Checkpoint Gaming - 9 / 10

Humanity greatly succeeds across audio, visuals, puzzle design and more. It's an unusual game at heart but one that uses its abnormalities to its benefit. Practically unforgettable, this experience will test you as much as it inspires awe through delightful sensory stimulation. This beautifully complete and polished game may lose a touch of its precision in its later stages, though it still captivates through a wild ride of absurdist depictions and satisfying design.

GameBlast - Portuguese - 9 / 10

Humanity offers a quality and creative challenge, without inventing too much fashion or complex gimmicks. It is based purely on the insight of those in control and still brings a background that manages to be engaging and consistent with the proposal. The icing on the cake is the endless replay factor with community projects that can be shared freely, making it an almost mandatory game for anyone who likes to spend a good time solving puzzles

GameSpew - 9 / 10

Humanity joins the stable of games published by Enhance that are weird and wonderful in all the right ways. Its abstract visual style, strange premise and trippy soundtrack all sit on top of its unique brain-teasing challenges, creating a game that quickly gets its hooks in you and doesn’t let go. For puzzle fans, or those who simply like their games out of the ordinary, this is a must-play.

IGN - 9 / 10

Humanity is a beautiful, modern reimagining of Lemmings that blends many different genres into its clever puzzles, and its powerful level editor has dizzying potential.

Metro GameCentral - 9 / 10

A fantastically clever puzzler that would be perfectly welcome if it was just a 3D Lemmings clone, but it soon evolves into something far more imaginative and unpredictable.

Nexus Hub - 9 / 10

You don’t have to be a puzzle game god to enjoy Humanity. The folks over at Enhance and THA Limited have imbued this game with the power to attract and convince even the most uninterested party to grab a controller and just give it a try. Humanity is, quite simply, a damn good time.

PlayStation Universe - 9 / 10

What begins as a charming, simple puzzler grows and evolves into something special. Humanity is one of the best puzzle games I've played in quite some time.

SECTOR.sk - Slovak - 9 / 10

Humanity is such a well-suited metaphor and a precise representation of an intriguing title, condensed into one single word. This game bends around established rules and genres, introduces creative mechanics and provides you with enormous amounts of food for thought. My best attempt at brief description would be something like this: Everything, everywhere, all at once and for everyone! Because this title has a little something for everyone, so you better get to playing'

Screen Rant - 4.5 / 5

Humanity builds on the theme of collective humanity in a number of other ways. The first is with its cross-platform Stage Creator that, like the building system in Meet Your Maker or Halo's forge mode, is a versatile and polished system that allows players to create and share custom stages to challenge other players. The second way is through the game's score, which uses human voices as a choir and as other instruments through clever sound design and modulation. In the end, Humanity is a phenomenal debut title that finds new and creative ways to shake up the puzzle platformer genre, and with it being free on day 1 for PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium subscribers, there's no reason to skip over this must-play title.

Shacknews - 9 / 10

I haven’t felt as challenged or as impressed by a puzzle game like Humanity since Portal 2 and The Talos Principle. Sony likely saw something special about it too (and this time at least, I agree), as it is one of the few games that will be available with a PS Extra or Premium subscription on day one. While Humanity does become less of a puzzler near the endgame, that’s a minor quibble in light of the risks it takes, its inventive range of content, its thought-provoking story, and its curiously peculiar presentation. (The dog is cute too.)

COGconnected - 85 / 100

Humanity is weird and wonderful. Like all great puzzlers, its premise is simple and the challenge steadily grows. THA Limited continues to innovate throughout the entirety of the game and manages to couple each triumph with jubilation. The odd difficulty spike may leave you perplexed, and a hint system rather than a complete solution would have been beneficial, however, this puzzler is one of the best in recent times and is a must for fans of the genre.

Fun Factor - Portuguese - 8.5 / 10

Humanity is a great puzzle adventure that uses different mechanics to keep the experience challenging and fresh, with each chapter being quite varied, but towards the end some of that diversity works against it, becoming a bit uneven.

Game Informer - 8.5 / 10

Humanity strikes a delicate balance between challenging me at every turn and allowing me to feel like the god its narrative props me up to be. It’s an imaginative experience that provides a rush I imagine computer programmers feel when dozens of commands and lines of code finally work together to create a desired outcome. Its puzzles come wrapped in a beautiful package, from its minimalist visuals to its excellent clicky electronic beats. And best of all, these elements work together to emphasize a simple but effective message about what it means to be human and why life’s most intricate puzzles are easiest to solve when we work together.

God is a Geek - 8.5 / 10

Humanity is an expertly crafted puzzler with lots of commands and problems to solve, giving you freedom to reach the goals of each stage.

WayTooManyGames - 8.5 / 10

Humanity is the kind of experimental breath of fresh air we rarely see being released nowadays. Evoking the spirit of the more bizarre and experimental games from the Dreamcast era, it features a bonkers premise and a pointless plot, but also excellent controls, a really intuitive gameplay loop, and of course, as to be expected from a game published by Enhance, trippy visuals and great music.

Atomix - Spanish - 82 / 100

Humanity delivers a vast puzzle game with 90 levels on the main story plus the infinite number of creations the community provides via the robust level maker it includes. Requirements to advance in the story might lead some genre newcomers to quit and even though it looks, hears, and feels beautiful, it lacks the extra-sensorial touch you would expect from this developer.

Eurogamer - 4 / 5

Lead a river of humans through complex levels in this delightful, ingenious and generous puzzler.

GamesHub - 4 / 5

It’s a puzzle game of strong design and concept, evident in how it stretches and bends your method of mental approach in a variety of different ways – sometimes to the point of frustration, often to the point of elation. Visually striking and aurally satisfying, at times it felt like I could watch the endless bodies flow through its levels forever.

Kakuchopurei - 80 / 100

It's honestly a miracle that a title like Humanity is published in the current gaming landscape. It's got enough of a budget not to be classified as an indie title, yet it isn't a triple-A type title. At the end of the day though, we do need titles like Humanity to let us chill and solve its many, MANY puzzles and visual abstractness while the off-kilter croonings of composer Jemapur enthralls you. It's not for everyone, but you will not forget most of what Humanity has to offer.

Push Square - 8 / 10

Humanity is a wonderfully different puzzle game brimming with ideas. It takes a few simple building blocks and combines them to create some surprisingly complex levels and challenges, keeping you on your toes as it constantly throws in new concepts. While the story mode has some inconsistencies in terms of difficulty, it still manages to keep you hooked all the way. And when you're done, there's an intuitive level editor and browser, in theory giving you all the puzzles you could want. If you're after something a little different, give this a shot - they don't often make them like this anymore.

TheSixthAxis - 8 / 10

A pleasantly stress free puzzle game with a weird story and boss battles to boot. The level editor ensures there will always be something new to tax your brain, and it's a good addition to the PSVR 2 library as well.

TheGamer - 3.5 / 5

However, if you don’t care about the story and you just want a really good puzzler, Humanity might be for you. Apart from over 90 story levels, the game has a Stage Creator function that allows users to submit their own levels. This gives you a huge number of levels to access even after you’ve finished the game, giving it a much longer shelf life. You can also play it in VR - I chose not to do this because VR gives me migraines, but the visuals of the game are pretty cool and worth seeing in VR if you already own a headset. I wish Humanity’s marketing had focused more on its puzzles than its story, because it’s fairly clear to me which is stronger and I came away a little disappointed. The game’s mechanics evolve very well with the story’s narrative, and it’s a lot of fun. I’m just not sure its story was worth telling.

Console Creatures - Recommended

Humanity is another successful entry in Enhance's catalogue. It's filled with charm and challenges players to evolve alongside its gameplay.

LadiesGamers.com - Loved

Humanity is amazing. There is a whole lot to do in the story mode, and there’s even more to do in the user-created levels and level maker. Minus a couple of small problems I had, this game was almost perfect. I love it deeply. I would recommend this game 100% if you love the genre!

Polygon - Unscored

Ultimately, focusing too closely on any puzzle solution misses what’s special about Humanity. In the days since playing, I’ve found myself most often thinking not about a specific mechanic, but what each level looks like once completed. By removing my ability to influence the stage, the completion screen presents the purest form of the game’s beautiful aesthetic: an unending river of people jumping, swimming, climbing. Orderly, but overwhelming. Moving, united, toward a singular goal.

Rice Digital - Unscored

Humanity is an absolutely brilliant game that any fans of Mizuguchi or Nakamura’s work should jump right on. It’s the perfect antidote to the bombast of triple-A, a wonderfully contemplative experience if you allow it to be — and simply a well-designed puzzle game with some really interesting mechanics to engage with.

[SaysWho?]

Oooooo, I am intrigued!

[stepee]

Definitely getting this for psvr2!

[Brian]

Played through the prologue and half of sequence 1. It’s a neat little puzzle game. I do feel a bit weird watching people fall to their death.  

[Remarkableriots]

I would try it out but I only have PS+ Essentials. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Gameplay Series Trailers:

 

 

 

 

[stepee]

This is a weird game. I got it for psvr2, just bought it since I don’t have plus and I don’t want to get it just for a $30 game that I wouldn’t get to keep. Game seems sweet though. I’m sure it’s fun flat screen too but man does it seem like it’s meant for VR. Digging the music. Check this out people if you have a psvr2 and need a new game.

[Keyser_Soze]

5 hours ago, stepee said:

This is a weird game. I got it for psvr2, just bought it since I don’t have plus and I don’t want to get it just for a $30 game that I wouldn’t get to keep. Game seems sweet though. I’m sure it’s fun flat screen too but man does it seem like it’s meant for VR. Digging the music. Check this out people if you have a psvr2 and need a new game.

 

Word is it's pretty nice on the deck as well.