izigame.me

Sadly, I cannot recommend this game in good faith. Not because of its bugs, which have thankfully been minor for me, but because of its weak relationship between its writing and gameplay.
I came into this excited to try what seemed to be an obviously Moebius-inspired experience. Judging by its art style and presentation, one would expect it to involve a moody, hardy experience to contrast with its mystery and wonder. However, challenge and sensitivity are largely absent from "Sable"; the bike is presented as a machine to bond with, to become keenly in tune with, and yet feels largely incidental; climbing felt more like the main attraction in this game. As one other review suggested, having a mechanic in which the bike can take damage from crashes, which would tie into a repair system and contextualize the acquisition of new bike parts, would actually make one feel 'bonded', sensitive to the bike, as the story frames it. Sadly, the bike as it is feels de-boned, both in its in-game physics and in its broader gameplay context; the different parts are only three sliders away from being cosmetics.
The dialogue, however, was the most and first noticeable deficiency in "Sable". I may just be spoiled from an early diet of silent protagonist games, but Sable's overcooked Wattpad-scented internal monologue takes up more space than it deserves. It's perfectly appropriate to characterize her as the teenager she is in a coming-of-age story, but not in this inelegant way. Something more subtle, maybe in the responses and reactions of other characters to her, sans inner monologue, would have been less taxing to and more inviting of one's attention. My thumb gets twitchy when Sable goes into a full paragraph of minutiae when all I want is to buy a pomegranate. The game feels insecure about simply allowing you to feel Sable's interactions and moments directly, and instead opts to have Sable explicitly feel on your behalf. It doesn't work, sadly.
More broadly, "Sable" feels almost pathologically averse to facing any serious darkness or intensity in its themes. Despite many opportunities to do so, mainly in some of its side quests, it's careful not to, as it were, 'wake the baby'. The darkest the game gets is when Sable enters a giant dormant beast and discovers a prior sojourner's doomed fate inside it. You get a silly mask out of the adventure, which, consistently enough, posed absolutely no threat to you. This world is too safe for what it's supposed to be; either make dangerous places inaccessible, or have consequences for entering them. Maybe insert a mechanic where, if she gets hurt, Sable must then pay for treatment by a healer, who could even be another mask-caste she could do tasks for and consider joining. Funny enough, there is already a doctor character in the game, but she doesn't provide anything beyond a couple lines of flavor text.
Speaking of threats, Sable is given a special stone that allows her to float, glide, gently downwards, and it also breaks her fall at the last second if she decides to skydive recklessly. However, at the very beginning of the game, you don't have it, and you could very well fall from a great height at that point. But even without the stone, if you fall from a surely fatal height, nothing happens. The danger of climbing without the stone is even acknowledged by other characters in the game, so it feels oddly dissonant that the game would allow you to be endangered without actually allowing you to face the consequences of that danger. Maybe if Sable could actually get injured early in the game without the stone (maybe leading to a warm interaction with a village healer NPC who fixes the foolhardy teenager up), it would help ground the game, no pun intended.
Maybe this is petty, but I also just don't like the design of the chums, in visuals and sound. What is this Pusheen type doing in this Moebius world? They feel like they're supposed to be a mascot for a boba tea chain.
Now, credit where credit is due, the art is cool, the world is basically interesting, and I appreciate the story you get to uncover about the true origin of the people in this world, which actually *does* feel like something my initial impressions led me to think this game was about. The music is also fine, and I'm sure it's someone else's cup of tea. I also like how the fish in the fishing update look; definitely an improvement over the chums, as their strange designs are far more congruent with this mysterious Moebius-world.
We have to remember that a very small team, with a very small budget, accomplished something that is at least a 10-hour experience in a functional, large open world with an art style and presentation so enticing, it got 12 to 24 dollars out of lots of people. This is no small feat, it is something for them to be proud of. I hope all the best for their future endeavors, and I'm sure with the talent and passion on display here, their next game will be even better with the experience gained from "Sable".