Oh snap! Those llamas seem to have stolen your beer ( not really ) and are currently running away! You can’t allow this to happen! JUST NOT MY BEER! Quick, follow the young shepherd boy called Alto and help him on his epic adventure of retrieving those silly runaway llamas. In the process, you’ll eventually unlock more of Alto’s friends which have their own unique, special abilities, ranging from smashing rocks like they’re nothin’ but air to literally giving no fudges and having all the abilities in the game at once, on top of that also a mini-immortality ability. Yeah.
Graphics
The game’s art style is flat and rather simplistic, but despite its simplicity, it can still create some amazing and beautiful views, including villages with glowing lights at night and an interesting architecture, small forests with falling leaves, abandoned ruins with some campfires and quite often also breathtaking chasms. You literally can’t really get enough of those pretty sights, and it’s really fun screenshoting them.
The changing daytimes/climates also create a variety of different athmospheres, when it’s daytime, it’s usually rather green, when it’s snowing heavily, it’s blue-ish with many snowflakes falling, when it’s evening, you can watch the beautiful, orange-ish sunset and if it’s raining at night, you get to see an awesome, puple-ish looking rainfall, with some lightning strikes here and there to create a even more charming weather effect.
Overall, the game excells really well in presenting amazing views to you, despite not having hyper-ultra-extremely realisitc graphics, it’s an interactive piece of art, as they say.
Gameplay
Featuring a very simple one-touch input method, where you just need to tap the screen to jump once and hold down to flip while being airborn, learning the game’s core mechanics is rather easy, but mastering them like a pro is another deal. With different characters it’s easier/harder to perform certain tricks, so be aware of that when you, say, play with Santa Claus ( aka. Paz).
To spice things up more, there are grinds on top of which you can snowboard, rocks that result in either life or dead, depending on whether or not you have the momentum to crush them, slow-mo, epic chasm jumps ( which you then fail misserably, and then it doesn’t look as cool anymore xD) and also those pesky elders, that get annoyed when you wake them up, and start chasing you at a speed faster than light ( like jeez, I’ve never seen a thing move as fast as those, what are their llamas on??)
Combining all those elements, you get an amazing gaming experience throughout your journey on those snowy mountains. There are also things like collectable coins ( for more $ ) and collectable llamas ( for extra points per llama ), also, there are boosts like the coin magnet, hover feather and llama horn which give you other cool abilities for a short time.
My favorite aspect of the entire game is the wingsuit. Like, seriously, that thing is so fun to play around with, it’s just pure cheese ^_^. Over9000 point combos… incooomminggg….
Tips
Having trouble with a certain goal or can’t get very far without crashing? Here’s some good ol‘ advice from me that’ll hopefully help you on your tracks 😉
Regarding the characters…
-Alto is a pretty straight-forward guy, he can handle most tricks fairly well without being particularly bad at anything and neither too good. He’s an OK starting character and also that typical main character that’s like iconic for the game and so on while there are actually much cooler and more interesting characters than this peasant ))0)
Specialties: none
-Maya is a pretty talented girl and is the fastest flipper out of all the characters. She starts off slow which may result in some early chasm deaths or anything similar, but due to her improved agility it’s much easier to survive a backflip and build crazy combos. She’s one of the best wingsuit users and upon getting her I’d also save up for that Wingsuit in the shop to use with her.
Overall, just watch out to get you timing right on those chasm jumps and don’t hesitate to do extra backflips while using her, she feels really good in your hands… if that, uhm, even makes sense….
Specialties: quicker backflips; downside -> slower speed
–Poor Paz is getting in my opinion a bit too underappreciated due to the playstyle that you have to keep in mind when using him, while it’s really fun and cool doing all those cool backflips, he won’t really be able to give you that satisfaction since this guy can’t backflip for days. But, there’s one cool upside to him: his momentum lasts much longer than the other’s, meaning that he can crush rocks for much longer without getting hurt, which also kinda fits his looks, that one bulky guy that can resist a lot of damage. He also moves extremely fast ( idk what they said about him being slow to start or something, this guy is even faster than Izel at most occasions ). Either way, give Paz a try once you unlock him, he’s very different from the others, but you can definitely find a way of playing him effectively if you mind his pros and cons.
Be careful with your backflips and watch out when destroying rocks, him momentum lasts really long, but you might also sometimes overestimate that and… well die.
Specialties: stronger momentum; downside -> slow to start with ( not true ); can’t perform backflips as effectively
-Izel is indeed an amazing character due to the fact that she has a really cool ability and no downsides. She excels well in building up speed, as you perform some sort of trick with her, she’ll gain momentum and unleash some fire from her snowboard, significantly increasing her velocity. This is great for escaping elders and surviving a bunch of dangerous passages that would’ve normally killed you. Real MVP here.
Specialties: higher speed; unleashes awesome looking flames when gains speed
-Felipe is a very interesting addition to the list, as it is… a llama! Quite unusual sight, right? Either way, Felipe is also a great character with sweet abilities and looks. He’s also probably the coolest oft hem all. I mean, c’mon, it’s a llama, how can you beat that? Felipe’s main ability is the double-jump mechanic which is pretty self-explanatory, we’ve seen that like hundred times before in other games.
Just like Maya, Felipe is really good at using the wingsuit as those double-jumps allow you to reach grinds, thus gaining more points, perform extra backflips etc. This ability has a lot of potential and can be really useful in a bunch of situations.
Specialties: 2x-jump; cool cuz he’s a llama
–Here comes the best of them all, I present to you… Tupa. Tupa is indeed that one elder that you meet and doesn’t stop chasing you, remember that? Either way, if you thought at some point that this guy was really weak and stupid, then I’ll have to dissapoint you… He’s a god! OP!! Unstoppable!!! He posseses the powers of all characters ( Maya’s agility, Paz’s momentum, Izel’s speed, Felipe’s double-jump and his own free respawn when falling into a chasm). It’s indeed worth playing the game until unlocking him, as it’ll feel really amazing playing with him. He is very responsive, and on top of all those crazy abilities, he also has cool blue flames instead of normal ones. What else could you ask for in a character? Give Tupa definitely a try! He helped me beat my all-time record by double of ist score! INSANE! 😀
Specialties: quicker backflips; stronger momentum; higher speed; double-jump; revive after falling into a chasm ( only the first time)
Personal Comment:
Overall, I’d call Alto’s Adventure a very succesful runner game with lots of beautiful scenaries that your eyes are awaiting to see and also lots of replayability, as it never gets old, and is also quite addictive at times. I generally really like playing this game if I’m on a journey or something and when I’m looking out of the window of the car/train, I’m just like expecting to see something interesting. Then I grab my phone, and open up „Alto’s Adventure“ and just start relaxing, as the wind carries me through the world…
Definitely check out this game, it satisfies your soul and gives you a chill feeling… ^_^
