Essentially, you're meant to meander around the forest a lot, collecting memories, and then make your way back to the path and go to Grandma's. And here's the thing: Grandma's house is creepy. For one thing, regardless what time it was when you started your journey, when you get to Grandma's, it's always night. For another thing, it's really dark in Grandma's. On top of that, once you've entered, you can only go forward. Each button press moves you one step forward, and you can't turn around or go back outside; you're on rails at this point. You can use the mouse to look around a bit, but you're headed for Grandma's room no matter what.

Once you get to Grandma's room, you find her lying on her bed, eyes open, yet unresponsive. There's what appears to be a stuffed (as in taxidermied) wolf next to her bed. I played as Robin, the 9 year old the first time around. She just climbed onto the bed, threw her legs over the board at the foot of the bed, and lay herself back like it was no big deal. Clearly, something's going on here, but I'm damned if I know what.

However, I haven't yet played with any of the other girls, so maybe this will all become clear at some point. But what I know is this: when you get to grandma's, your score is displayed, measured in Items Collected; Special Rooms Unlocked; Distance Traveled; and Wolf Encountered, yes or no. Then you're either told FAILURE! or something else, you're given a grade, and then a little message like "You know where grandmother lives". And then you can start all over again.

I can honestly say that I'm not sure whether I even like the game enough to keep playing it, but since I bought it at $9.99, I should at least give it another shot. The thing is, I hate the walking speed, and the running mechanic. I understand that this game is slow for a reason, but ... there are collectible flowers to find; 144 in all. When you see one in the distance, you want to run to it so you can pick it up. But running makes the flower disappear from view. It's that kind of thing that bothers me.

Also, I shouldn't have to read the manual to know what's going on. There are bits about the mechanics and the game itself that I didn't realize until I read the documentation, and that just irks me. It seems that Tale of Tales wants you to regard this as some sort of pure emotional experience, yet at the same time, they've implemented a scoring system. There seems to be no real reason to make your character walk, other than to prolong the experience of the game. They could easily have altered the mechanics to include all the exploration inherent in the game as it stands, and still leave out the maddeningly slow pace. I'm really torn on The Path. I don't know what to do about it. Go check it out if you're daring enough, because there is no demo. You either buy it or you don't. You can take a look at the trailer here and decide. Good luck.