As a whole, the indie game space on the Switch has some incredible variety, and in particular experiences with more of a storytelling focus can be worthwhile. While traditionally gameplay has tended to always be the emphasis, in this generation between visual novels and other types of titles, there have been plenty of cases where the story has been the best selling point, with play bringing up the rear. The Tale of Bistun, with its story being pulled from Persian legend, in my mind falls into that mold.

One of the things I appreciated is how both the environment and style of gameplay would shift as it would move between the real world and what’s called the Revelations Realm. While you’ll be tackling a variety of foes, and fighting them with a mix of attacks from your axes and magic in the real world, once you’re in the otherworldly realm the emphasis is on puzzle-solving, even if they’re often a bit rudimentary. At almost every step of the way the narrator will continue to explain what is happening and its significance, doing a fair job of giving everything you’re doing some sense of meaning in relation to the greater story.

The problem is that in terms of the variety, intensity, and level of engagement the gameplay inspires, the experience is middling at best. While the combat isn’t necessarily easy, when contrasted with other action-oriented games out there it simply struggles to be satisfying. The lack of variety in your attack options will force you to come up with strategies for how best to dispatch your enemies, but once you’ve gotten into the groove they won’t often prove to be a challenge. The puzzles you’ll encounter are similar in that they’re relatively basic overall, and don’t end up being terribly satisfying as a result. Also, taking into account that the game is tied to a narrated story, it only lasts for a few hours.

All of this together ends up making the game’s unfamiliar story from another culture its best selling point. In that regard, I appreciate the effort to expose people to folklore from the rest of the world, and the narrator does a fairly good job of telling it. Just if you were hoping for exciting or fresh gameplay to be a part of the package, you may be left disappointed. The overall action and puzzle-solving beats aren’t terrible, on the whole they’re just quite generic and unrefined. That makes it a tough call on the game’s overall value, as it will be very dependent on what you’re looking for.