DaGreenMachine
Obviously it was amazing in a lot of ways. The new abilities are way more fun than BotW, the story is definitely stronger than BotW, the puzzle design is way better than BotW, the overworld design is much more interesting, there seems to me to be less useless filler. Someone who likes open worlds will want to explore every inch of this place because it is so well done.
It definitely has some flaws as well though. Weather is perhaps explained slightly better but still sucks. Rain and lightning especially are awful and add nothing to the game but frustration. Upgrading armor is a super important part of the game that is basically completely opaque. The questline required to fully upgrade your armor might as well require searching on the internet. There were a bunch of shrines that were "transport this crystal back to the shrine" quests that were sometimes fun but usually super tedious.
While the main land has been vastly improved, the added sky and depths areas are sorely lacking. The sky area is great at first until you realize that it is mostly the exact same area copy pasted about 10 times. The depths has some fun enemies / mini-bosses but is mostly a vast emptiness made worse by the annoying gloom mechanic and darkness requiring you to constantly throw or shoot little seeds to light up the way. Tediousness is not gameplay.
Some of the controls are weirdly clunky. Trying to run or jump while crouched doesn't work until you uncrouch. You have to run to put away your weapon otherwise the shield button does nothing. There are a bunch of times I can no longer remember when I thought things should work one way and worked another instead. Also, switching between powers was weirdly slow, I couldn't just push the power button and the direction and instantly get the new power. I had to hold the power button for a half second until the power menu came up and THEN I could point a direction to switch powers.
The open world does not do any favors to the progression of the story. Because you can do stuff in any order, they re-explain what is going on about 15 times. There is one long major cinematic that is repeated almost verbatim 4 times in the game. It is so identical it feels lazy. I did a series of quests to get a bunch of background story and that ended up being basically a waste of time because all the interesting bits were called out later about 5 more times in other story parts.
Overall, highly recommended but definitely flawed. If you like open world adventure games, it may be the best one ever made. If not, ymmv.
It definitely has some flaws as well though. Weather is perhaps explained slightly better but still sucks. Rain and lightning especially are awful and add nothing to the game but frustration. Upgrading armor is a super important part of the game that is basically completely opaque. The questline required to fully upgrade your armor might as well require searching on the internet. There were a bunch of shrines that were "transport this crystal back to the shrine" quests that were sometimes fun but usually super tedious.
While the main land has been vastly improved, the added sky and depths areas are sorely lacking. The sky area is great at first until you realize that it is mostly the exact same area copy pasted about 10 times. The depths has some fun enemies / mini-bosses but is mostly a vast emptiness made worse by the annoying gloom mechanic and darkness requiring you to constantly throw or shoot little seeds to light up the way. Tediousness is not gameplay.
Some of the controls are weirdly clunky. Trying to run or jump while crouched doesn't work until you uncrouch. You have to run to put away your weapon otherwise the shield button does nothing. There are a bunch of times I can no longer remember when I thought things should work one way and worked another instead. Also, switching between powers was weirdly slow, I couldn't just push the power button and the direction and instantly get the new power. I had to hold the power button for a half second until the power menu came up and THEN I could point a direction to switch powers.
The open world does not do any favors to the progression of the story. Because you can do stuff in any order, they re-explain what is going on about 15 times. There is one long major cinematic that is repeated almost verbatim 4 times in the game. It is so identical it feels lazy. I did a series of quests to get a bunch of background story and that ended up being basically a waste of time because all the interesting bits were called out later about 5 more times in other story parts.
Overall, highly recommended but definitely flawed. If you like open world adventure games, it may be the best one ever made. If not, ymmv.
2019
Quite well made and a very intriguing story. I think if it had been any longer the gameplay would have gotten stale but as is was great.
The biggest disappointment is that the story isn't really resolved at all. Considering the story is a major component of the game, this is a big downside. Be warned.
The biggest disappointment is that the story isn't really resolved at all. Considering the story is a major component of the game, this is a big downside. Be warned.
2022
2019
Not for me. I like the idea behind all the color changing puzzles but ultimately the game just had a lot of stuff I didn't like.
The open world was super tedious with no map or good fast travel. The combat was terrible. The puzzles were occasionally fun and occasionally totally opaque. There were times when they would say "You have everything you need to solve this puzzle" for obvious puzzles and then there were puzzles which required leaps in logic of how various elements interacted with no such prompt.
For a mostly single developer labor of love, this is pretty incredible what was created. But for your time, I would spend it on other stuff.
The open world was super tedious with no map or good fast travel. The combat was terrible. The puzzles were occasionally fun and occasionally totally opaque. There were times when they would say "You have everything you need to solve this puzzle" for obvious puzzles and then there were puzzles which required leaps in logic of how various elements interacted with no such prompt.
For a mostly single developer labor of love, this is pretty incredible what was created. But for your time, I would spend it on other stuff.
2022
2022
2022
I've seen enough.
Ultra repetitive jank and then they throw in extremely unfun action sequences. But ultimately I quit just because of poor level design.
There is one puzzle repeated as nauseam in the game: put the blocks / lasers / bridges in the last spot they need to be in, then the 2nd to last, etc until they are in the first spot they need to be in, then execute by going through the puzzle and rewinding things to hit switches in the proper order. Changing how annoying it is to set up this sequence or how many different elements are needed does not make it a more interesting puzzle. It just makes it a longer more tedious puzzle.
Frequently you would only have access to part of a puzzle room at the beginning and can only predict the last couple places the objects will need to be. In these cases, you need to do half a puzzle, realize you didn't place all the objects properly to begin with once you can ACTUALLY see everything, go back and reset and start setting it all up again.
This is made even worse by janky puzzle setups where the physics can easily send an object in the wrong direction and force you to reset the whole puzzle again due to no fault of your own. There was an early puzzle that I had to do no less than 5 times because a block kept bouncing off the switch. Was this playtested at all?
If you like wasting hours on completely uninteresting puzzles in what is probably the worst Portal ripoff I have ever played, this game is just what the doctor ordered.
Ultra repetitive jank and then they throw in extremely unfun action sequences. But ultimately I quit just because of poor level design.
There is one puzzle repeated as nauseam in the game: put the blocks / lasers / bridges in the last spot they need to be in, then the 2nd to last, etc until they are in the first spot they need to be in, then execute by going through the puzzle and rewinding things to hit switches in the proper order. Changing how annoying it is to set up this sequence or how many different elements are needed does not make it a more interesting puzzle. It just makes it a longer more tedious puzzle.
Frequently you would only have access to part of a puzzle room at the beginning and can only predict the last couple places the objects will need to be. In these cases, you need to do half a puzzle, realize you didn't place all the objects properly to begin with once you can ACTUALLY see everything, go back and reset and start setting it all up again.
This is made even worse by janky puzzle setups where the physics can easily send an object in the wrong direction and force you to reset the whole puzzle again due to no fault of your own. There was an early puzzle that I had to do no less than 5 times because a block kept bouncing off the switch. Was this playtested at all?
If you like wasting hours on completely uninteresting puzzles in what is probably the worst Portal ripoff I have ever played, this game is just what the doctor ordered.
2018
2013
2019
2020
2007
2013