I don’t know if it’s possible to make a more annoying and boring intro to a game, holy shit it’s bad. I don’t even know what to say abt this game. It looks nice, but you kinda don’t care because you are being distracted by the non-stopping commentaries made by the main character. She has to say something about every single interaction and the ratio of the annoying and unnecessary stuff is outstanding. The story, or at least the small part of it that I got to see is extremely banal: you have to go and find your missing husband. It’s fine, as long as the delivery is good, but it’s not. You just get to the island and the first thing you see is the note in french. Of course, the somber turn is that the heroine can only understand two words: “island” and “death”.
Nah, bruh, I ain’t playin allat

Really good game.

The artstyle is the reason I wanted to play this, as this is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. Sometimes I would just sit and stare at the game, it just look so good.

The Story is what takes center stage here, and its pretty good. It starts out a little boring, but as it continues it gets pretty wild. Everyone diving more and more into insanity from being on the Island was a crazy thing to wacth unfold. It's also a really beautiful love story, one of sacrifice and determination from both Harry and the main protagonist Nora. It really starts to tug on your heart strings near the end.

Nora herself is a pretty good protagonist. My only problem with her would be how sometimes she can seem a little niave to her cituation, or she won't have the proper reaction to the absolutely insane things happening around her. She's still a great charcter though, very selfless and determined to save her husband.

The gameplay is puzzles. These puzzles often are very obtues and convaluded, at least they were for me. Chapter 3 probably was the worst of it. I hate to have to look up walkthroughs when playing games, and I think that's what seperated the good puzzle games from the great ones, when they aren't complete horseshit. I did like a good bit of them though, so its not like they were all bad.

The thing I can't stand with this game the most is this horrible motion blur. My gosh, this is some eye melting mush of motion blur. It takes the game from stunigly beautiful to making it look just terrible. You have to play it to see what I mean, it's really bad. There should atleast have been an optipon to turn it off.

Something I got to quickly mention is the musical score. It was absolutley beautiful, and really made everything fully come together whenever it came on.

Lastly, the ending. It was weird, it was a little convaluded, maybe a little dumb, but it was very bittersweet. Having to chose between going back to Harry and living with your illness until you die, or accepting your fate, is something that I'm wondering if that was something the developers should have done. I chose to accept my fate, I did this because everything Harry did, and everything people died for, would have been for nothing. Harry's ending is a bit sad, but I think he would rather Nora be alive and well then her be dead.

All and all, I enjoyed this game quite a bit. It's puzzles could have been a lot better, and the motion blur is some of the worst I've ever seen. But the story is great, the artstyle gorgeous, and the music fantastic. I'm not sure I would recomend this to anyone who like games in general, but If you like Story driven and/or puzzle games, play this game.

Score: 3.6/5
Letter Grade: B

This was pretty much perfect in the puzzle aspect. There were clues for the puzzles around the environment and it was all solvable. I did get stuck a few times for a while, but I ended up figuring everything out without needing to look anything up.

In terms of the story, it started out fine and was pretty engaging for most of the game, but I kind of felt like it started to fall off the rails as it neared the end.

The gameplay was ok with nothing crazy. Basically just a lot of walking around and clicking things. I kind of wish there were some changes to make it less tedious sometimes, like maybe a faster sprint or something.

The artstyle reminded me heavily of Sea of Thieves.

7/10

Puzzles may be somehow repetitive in their structure (explore, find notes and letters, activate the mechanism) and narratively dissonant, but what a great plot.

What a great reinterpretation of clsssic adventure novels and imageries, how original as a take on Lovecraftian mithologies, what a brilliant reflection on womanhood and monstrosity, on masculinity and discovery. How effective as a subversion of its references. And what a great love story, with a moving and thought-provoking ending.

PROS:
- the art style is really gorgeous, kind of a pastel vibe, and looks and runs great on PS5.
- the voice acting is all very solid, although I do wish that the protagonist Norah would sometimes let the player soak up what they're saying without feeling the need to exposition-dump constantly (more on this later).
- the story was definitely interesting enough to keep me playing until the end, and the game is relatively short so it doesn't overstay its welcome.
- the puzzles, for the most part, were quite good. They hit the sweet spot of not too easy but also not too hard that I wanted to bash my head against the wall solving them.

CONS:
- as mentioned earlier, Norah talks WAY too much in this game. Sometimes I just wanted to take in the scenery and vistas of the island the game takes place on without her constant voice over.
- earlier on in the story there is a creepy, almost psychological horror Cthulu vibe that the game presents, but this seems to just get abandoned a few chapters in, which is a shame. I'm thinking in particular of one of the early 'dream sequences' which has a moment in it that I won't spoil but which genuinely unnerved me, would have loved to have seen the devs explore this angle more.
- my biggest gripe in this game has to be the movement speed. It is, admittedly, plot related as Norah has an illness which inhibits her movement, but this seems like a concession which is only a detriment to the player. One of the chapters towards the end of the story features a puzzle which requires moving between multiple floors of an in-game space, and it is so much more frustrating than it needs to be because of the protagonist's slow movement speed. There is a sprint button, but it is still not fast enough.

OVERALL - 4/5 - for fans of puzzle games and maybe even walking sims there is a lot to like here, as a beautifully realised game-world combines with an interesting plot to create an engaging experience. The movement speed sucks, though.