Recent reviews by Majorlag

Ow, my brain.

This is a real good metroidbrainia, so I can't really say much because I have to avoid spoilers. Here's a few tips though:

1) Look around for notes, some of them are hard to see
2) You can use standard PC copy/paste shortcuts in the terminals and I really wish I'd known that earlier
3) Because there is no saving, take note of how you opened every door
4) Take lots of notes
5) There is no way out

I hemmed and hawed about whether or not to recommend this game, because while it is brilliant in many ways, it also drove me insane with its obtuseness and the way it doesn't respect your time. A spoiler-lite hint guide is recommended when you start to go insane.

Alright, so, the brilliant stuff: The sokoban-style puzzles are really good. They're challenging the first time through, and the second (or third, depending) time when they're even harder, and after that they start to exist in a different context that honestly makes them a bit of a slog as you repeat them dozens of times. Then you find a few more sets of puzzles as you play out the finale that are mostly also pretty brilliant, by which I mean very hard.

The finale is really interesting, because it is metroidbrainia-like, but only the first few things you learn really give you that "I COULD DO THAT THE WHOLE TIME!?" feeling, after that it's a lot of decoding of obtuse clues you'll probably try several different things for before getting it right, each time having to re-navigate significant portions of the labyrinth.

Did I mention one small mistake is often enough to cause you to have to start all over? Yeah.

Oh, and that significant parts of the game are locked away if you are in certain states, without really telling you? Yeah.

....and there's a puzzle that requires the use of external tools to solve? ...yeah....

And the cherry on top is this whole thing ends with some sections that are decidedly not what you've come to expect from a puzzle game.

I could go on for a while about the things I don't like about this game, but ultimately I cannot claim that it is not a work of art, if one I personally find hard to actually... well, like, I guess. Feels weird to say considering I put 40 hours into it, and I did enjoy significant portions of it, it's just... holy crap do I also kind of hate it.

Really good puzzle game with very few opportunities to lose progress, which I appreciated. Despite often appearing obtuse, the puzzles are all quite reasonable and satisfying. I particularly adored the PS1 style sections. Loved every minute of my 23 hours.

Oh, and you can pet the dog.

I can't recall exactly how I heard about it, but it was stated that if I liked Blue Prince and Outer Wilds (two games in my top ten), I would probably like this.

Like is a bit of an understatement; this game is incredible and I love it.

If you need more to convince you: it's sort of a single giant escape room metroidbrainia with color puzzles and just a tiny bit of what could be considered platforming. I can't say that there is much in the way of narrative, but what is there moves the game along sufficiently.

I personally had a very difficult time pulling myself away to do anything else during my 14 hours of play time. The puzzles are sometimes challenging while still being completely within the game's logic and very solvable, but you might need to experiment some to fully appreciate the ramifications of the mechanics involved.

10/10, would wipe my memory to play it again for the first time.

Very cool environments and themes in this PS1-style walking simulator puzzle horror game. Some genuinely creepy as hell moments.

Short, but intense psychological PS1-vibe horror game. The hacking was similar enough to real life that I got a little tripped up when standard unix commands wouldn't work. The world building is so good I want more.

I usually wait until I'm done with a game before reviewing/recommending it, either because I've finished it or got sick of it, but I'm not sick of Blue Prince and I'm not sure it ever finishes.

For real, this is a game where the credits are the end of what is effectively the tutorial, about 20 hours in.

If you're not ready for that, if you're not ready to experienced a game more densely packed with puzzles than The Witness, the you probably aren't ready for Blue Prince.

While I could enumerate my frustrations with the game, it would be pointless because ultimately the only reason those things bothered me was because I was enjoying it so much. It's an incredible piece of work that has replaced DOOM in my top 10 of all time.

Some people might say that it doesn't respect your time... and I find it hard to disagree with that after a certain point in the game (around hour 40 or 50 in my case), but honestly it's completely worth it to either push through or break down and take a few gentle nudges in the right direction.

It's like if Action 52 were legendarily good instead of legendarily garbage!

Chapter 1: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. This game is a fever dream that somehow manages to feel both like a surreal PS1 game and a manically animated CD-i game. I love it.

Short and surreal, steeped in what I assume to be metaphor, though for what I'm not entirely sure. I liked it largely for the PS1 aesthetic and being brave enough to be uncompromising in its themes. I only got endings 1 and 3, and didn't really feel like trying to work out what the missing ending was, but otherwise I enjoyed my time with it.