Pine

I was surprised by how much I liked this game. I like exploration and story based games, however I assumed I would not like the political system between the clans. It added a special kind of life to the game as the factions independently gained and lost territory, as well how my actions and the story wove between these alliances. I think anyone who likes slowly exploring every nook and cranny of the world will enjoy this game as you will be well situated to beat the game at the end,, if you rush you won't get far! This game has beautiful music, sound and graphics with a large immersive world, interesting story, combat, puzzles, crafting and geopolitics. Excellent game!

It's a Yes and a No.This review might start off sounding bland, but if you want an in-depth take, stick around until the end.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The game starts like most survival games—you need a new home and venture into an unfamiliar world. It’s not necessarily original, but it avoids being too cliché by adding a unique spin. The story then evolves into a human-hating narrative, which gets repetitive and, at times, hypocritical. Other factions get upset at you for uncovering human history and meddling in their politics, which is annoying but understandable. However, what really grates is the faction leaders getting furious and claiming that humans will take over the island... while constantly fighting and taking over each other’s territories. So, you're mad at humans for doing exactly what y'all are already doing? Basically, the game bullies you into proving you're different from past humans while contradicting itself in the process.
The story also feels incomplete. The hints and lore about the past are ridiculously vague—just single-sentence clues from other factions. We get no real insight into why past humans acted as they did, what their situation was, or what the island's political climate was like. It leaves a lot to be desired. The overall story isn’t bad; it’s interesting, but it feels unfinished.
The Tribe System
I love the concept of the tribe system—it fits the game wonderfully—but the execution is a different story. The tribes constantly shift locations unless you heavily fortify one, so you never know what you’re walking into. One day, a settlement belongs to one faction; the next day, it’s an entirely different one. It gets old being attacked every time you walk down the road. I also wish the game had a colored map showing tribe territories instead of forcing you to search for icons and hope they haven’t changed (or vanished entirely).
The tribe politics feel random. I wish each tribe had natural rivalries—like, say, the gators hate the foxes and are always provoking fights—but instead, their relationships seem arbitrary. That said, I do love how deep you can go with tribes, whether initiating raids or poisoning them. But the resource system? Yeah, that makes no sense. You could drop off a lifetime supply of food, and 30 minutes later, they’re starving to death.
The Biggest Problem: Resources
This is my biggest complaint—the resource system sucks.
Need wood? Should you chop down a tree? Nope. Instead, you wander around looking for a tiny spawn point that gives you three pieces of wood. Then you either keep walking or wait for it to respawn. Oh, and if an NPC grabs it first? Too bad.
I wouldn’t mind resource competition if the resources were actually abundant enough to compete over. Instead, I’m stuck waiting for respawns, hoping an NPC doesn’t snatch them before me. The worst example? Beagile (or whatever it's called). There are only eight spawn points on the whole map, and seven of them drop one at a time. You need 30+ for endgame gear, and yes, NPCs can grab them too.
I’m a grindy player—I love resource gathering—but this isn’t grinding. This is me standing in the same spot, waiting for something to respawn.
Graphics & Combat
Visually, Pine isn’t impressive for a 2019 release. The graphics are average—not bad, but nothing special.
The combat? It’s a mixed bag. Some aspects are great, like the charge attack combo, where you can knock enemies down multiple times in a row. But the enemy AI is faster than your character, and their charges almost always overpower yours. If you don’t anticipate them early, you’re getting stomped. I do appreciate how different factions have unique attack styles, though—it keeps things fresh.
The most annoying enemies? The Moose Men.
These guys are tanks. They walk at you in a defensive stance, take no damage, can’t be knocked back, and then finish you with a charge or a massive hammer swing. The fight itself isn’t hard, just annoying—it takes forever because they just slow-walk at you, refusing to take damage.
That aside, combat is fun. Late-game fights require actual strategy since you’re often outnumbered, and that keeps things engaging.
IF you're a numbers person here is the ratings in my opinion.
Graphics (7/10) Runs smooth but isn't beautiful.
Story (3/10) Interesting but feels like there's no depth.
Combat (6/10) F*ck Moose Men
Resource Grind (2/10) Couldn't get much worse.
Tribes (7/10) Fun to mess around with.
OVERALL (5/10)
THE REASONING BEHIND THE RECOMMENDATION
I got this game for 2 bucks, was it worth the 2 dollars? Yes. I would pay at maximum 12.99 for this game. I played it I had fun. Would I do it again if I could have a fresh restart? Yes. It was a nice chill game to listen to stories or music to.
If you can get this game for cheap (G to the 2 to the A) do it you wont miss the 2 bucks.

The game encourages exploration and offers multiple ways to approach challenges, whether through combat, diplomacy, or clever use of the environment. The art style is vibrant and expressive, and the soundtrack complements the atmosphere beautifully.​
While Pine has some technical issues and the combat can feel a bit clunky at times, the overall experience is engaging and rewarding. If you're looking for an adventure that reacts to your choices and offers a living world to explore, Pine is worth checking out. I'm not regretting the time I spent with this game and I hope they will make a sequel. It's a very unique game.

100%'ed at less than 30hrs, so there's some decent amount of content I suppose, but you spend most of that time running back and forth across a map that is too big imo since most of the game is played around camps/territory; you can fast travel by crafting the gear to do it, but considering you have to run across the map to get the parts, why bother...
Story is practically non-existent outside a few moments here and there where you learn lore; the game is mostly a sandbox to play around in, such as building armor/gear whenever you get the blueprints, collect resources to trade back and forth to tribes to become allies and to boost their tier, and then you can get exclusive gear from them based on their tier.
Combat is Fable-like: dodge/roll + attack/heavy attack + block/parry; there is also a bow and slingshot, with bow having differing arrow types.
The taming system sounds great on paper, but it's literally 'hold a button' to tame, so it sucks, but the idea is there, and can definitely be improved upon; I like the way that each creature has a specialness about it, so maybe more creatures with increased depth to the taming system, such as level trees.
Underwater biomes / treasure hunting would have been great for extra content, let us dive underwater ruins, or whatever - new creatures could even be factored in, such as a dolphin that you can glide around with, and sharks that will attack on sight.
The tribe system seems cool at first, then you find out that it's superficial: the diplomacy is held together by thread and changes constantly, especially since the story does the changes; so unless you have a favorite tribe, then there's no reason to try and be buddies, unless of course, you want the achievements / exclusive gear they have, but it's tier 3, so by the time you get it, it's going to suck compared to what you have.
I love the art-style, probably my favorite thing about Pine other than the idea of it, I just wish there was more depth: be it story, environment such as weather/storms + gear for certain biomes: hot/cold, etc, but what I've seen in the loading screen, this game was built with only seven people, so kudos to y'all for that.
Problems:
Upgrading seems easy enough, such as level 1 gear to level 2 gear, but the story gave me a level 4 shield when I still had a level 1; never found a level 2 or 3 at the time, but that doesn't matter now, so why craft it now?
Save/Load resets health/stamina + respawns material, which was a boon for me when hunting down resources so I didn't have to chase my tail around the map a hundred times.
But did anyway: for the Amphiscus orbs achievements, and the Key fragments achievement, and the resources to make allies with each tribe, and the resources spent to level them to tier 3, and the resources to buy their exclusive blueprints, and the resources to build all their exclusive gear...
Whoever thought it was cool to make key fragments black on the map, I love you bro, really... but someone should check on you.
Scout balloon should have been upgradable to expand search diameter, because searching the entire map was terrible...
If you are going to go for those achievements, then I recommend a map guide instead of doing it yourself, for it really does suck - especially once you round the map three times due to still missing something.
Can't move inventory around, no storage; inventory management should be a thing, or at least a filter.
When selecting consumable, it should auto select once you hover over it - I shouldn't have to hover over it, then click it, instead of just hover over it, and auto selects once I let go.
Having to adjust game resolution each time I play, since it maxes out to the highest resolution and only keeps the settings for that playtime.
Moving objects still move when game is paused, causing the character to phase through them: elevators for example.
Once game hitches, it begins to do it every 5-10 seconds, sometimes worse than that, until you quit to main menu - but there were a few moments where that didn't work, so I killed the game: this was my biggest headache playing this game, and there was a time I felt like uninstalling due to the anger I got from constantly reloading the game to fix it.
Also the reason I'd give it a neutral over recommending it.
If all those problems were fixed, things improved, more depth, better story, etc, this game could be as good as Fable if done right.
Like, we're missing fishing as a mechanic - so much water too...
Give us air traversal, or ziplines, or something to get across the map faster than the Alpaphant.

Its a pretty basic game, the open world is pretty diverse. creature design is the highlight for me. Its worth playing as its fun, lasts 20-25 hours

I bought this game on sale for the name and adventure, it looked simple and as you play it is, but the longer you do the more things you can do, well made and highly recommend as a way to relax.

Really, really fun open world, exploring, fantasy/world building focused. Also I love Hue's physical capabilities -- really makes the most of the open world.