Hob PlayStation 4 Pro Review

Hob tosses you into a lush beautiful world that has been infested with a plague. Taking references from The Legend of Zelda the world feels like a combination of Bastion and The Last Guardian, with ancient relics and shifting landscapes. Combat can feel tedious and unfair at times but the constant allure of discovering a new land was too enticing to give up. For a game with no dialogue, Hob impresses by delivering a meaningful story through actions and gameplay. Even after finishing, I found myself returning in search of every hidden treasure.

Hob pushes out into the world with very little supplies and no explanation, nothing but you and a robot who looks like Bastion from Overwatch. You quickly learn that the land is plagued with a purple insect-like ooze that is toxic to anyone who touches it. This substance has infected the land and transformed most of the creatures into deadly monsters. It's up to you to locate and kill the Hive Minds responsible for this havoc before its poisons everything. 

You'll start with a sword and a robotic fist. Eventually, you'll gain access to various tools over the course of the adventure. This includes a short-range teleporter and grappling hook. Most of these tools can be used for combat but mostly you'll utilize the Robot Arm and Sword for fighting and everything else for exploration and puzzle-solving.

Optional items litter the open world that upgrades your character's health, power meter, weapons, optional outfits that grant unique bonuses, and more. However, don't expect anything tremendous. Most of the voluntary content involves collecting items and upgrading your character. As an RPG and Legend of Zelda fan, I found finding everything a challenge worth taking.

Puzzles make up a bulk of Hob's gameplay. Each area is ridden with challenges and branching paths that involve platforming and minimum puzzle-solving skills. I never felt overwhelmed but completely each area imbued me with a sense of accomplishment. 

Getting lost isn't much of an issue, even in the later portions. The developers have provided an updating marker to keep the player aware of the primary objective. Hob is generally linear despite being an open world. Most of the objectives require a specific set of steps such as turning on a series of water channels or requiring a specific tool to explore. 

Environments are colorful and distinct, each offering new atmospheric locations to explore. Lands pop into place like giant machines, mixing together artificial and organic life into one biodome. I wanted to see everything right from the start.

It's clear the developers took a lot of time to ensure the environments were easier to traverse and took full advantage of the player's tools. Hidden ledges, marked with Arm Buttons, can be punched for stone ladders, stone walls create useful shortcuts, and hidden grappling points provide avenues to explore unreachable locations. I did wish I can more control of the camera since it's at a fixed location you'll have to move to change its perspective. 

While exploration in Hob is amazing, thanks to the rich color palette and detailed environments, combat is less thrilling. Enemies are diverse and plentiful, with Hob giving you different ways to defeat enemies such as luring them to attack one another. Tactics are also distinct fighting patterns and weaknesses to exploit. However, most of the enemies act like bullet sponges that can lead to frustrating fights and vexing deaths that feel cheap. You can upgrade for more powerful fighting skills and new abilities but unless you fully commit to harvesting resources and collecting Sword parts most enemies will feel like a tedious grind.

While Hob is a truly amazing game full of exciting locations to explore and a gratifying story it does have problematic issues. For example, I experienced several crashes during my 2 playthroughs and frequent slowdowns in specific areas. These weren't truly annoying, thanks to the plentiful checkpoints, which are frequent, and lenient death systems, where you die and come back to the last checkpoint with everything completed upon your death.

From start to finish Hob kept me surprised. Each new area was full of new challenges to undertake and protected treasures. Combat was my least favorite and thankfully, for most of the game, it's arbitrary. Once you enter the world of Hob you'll want to see and find everything.

Also check our Hob PC Review by Senior Editor, Bogdan Robert.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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