fundamentally not a bad game, thus my 3 star rating, but after having played prose & codes, the original, which is better in every way, i just don't really want to play this one much more.

ciphers are better in prose & codes, not in the way you'd expect: you get unlimited hints in poems, making solving unsatisfying because you can get lost in a moment of frustration and just use up all your hints, something impossible in prose. knowing you can solve the cipher at any point simply by pressing "hint" over and over makes it also pretty boring. there's no stakes.

something i enjoyed greatly about the original was its ability to entice you into finding new reads: it gives you one quote and then links you to the original work if you so choose. i read many short stories after being intrigued by the quote i solved the cipher for; in poems, you slowly unlock the entire poem section by section. because of this, the final reward of the full poem feels "lesser."

so, in short, NOT a bad game (it's still worth playing if you enjoy cipher solving and/or poems), but quite a poor sequel, in my opinion.