Haipa
I genuinely hate giving this game a low score, because there's this interesting hook, conceptually speaking, of this lively town where these incredibly diverse cast of townsfolk that have their own personal issues that you resolve does appeal to a certain part of my personal sensibilities. The world draped in this fairly-tale dressing that informs much of the characters and the turmoil they go through that Porch resolves by exploring the world outside. These season-themed levels that Porch goes through are not necessarily traversed to reach the finish line but to explore these worlds and find the root cause of the problem of the characters that inhabit them and how it mirrors the townsfolk in Napple World.
However, there are just a number of little things that just bother me that really hinder my enjoyment of this game, whether it's the Paffet-remixing subsystem, or the unremarkable 2.5D platforming that I genuinely don't see improving beyond the first few levels I had played, or how long it just takes to do much of anything at the beginning.
This is clearly just a Not My Thing issue, thought the rather banal fixed-camera 2.5D platforming is certainly a problem. I can see myself warming up and even giving a higher score to Napple Tale if I decide to pick it up again and progress further. Really understanding the motifs of this game and further understand this fantasy world down-the-rabbit hole that Porch finds herself in. But as I was helping out a school whose piano had broken down, and I was self-aware of my own apathy as I was resolving the problem, I knew it was time to hang up the hat for now.
Also, it can not be understated how amazing Yoko Kanno's contribution to this game is.
However, there are just a number of little things that just bother me that really hinder my enjoyment of this game, whether it's the Paffet-remixing subsystem, or the unremarkable 2.5D platforming that I genuinely don't see improving beyond the first few levels I had played, or how long it just takes to do much of anything at the beginning.
This is clearly just a Not My Thing issue, thought the rather banal fixed-camera 2.5D platforming is certainly a problem. I can see myself warming up and even giving a higher score to Napple Tale if I decide to pick it up again and progress further. Really understanding the motifs of this game and further understand this fantasy world down-the-rabbit hole that Porch finds herself in. But as I was helping out a school whose piano had broken down, and I was self-aware of my own apathy as I was resolving the problem, I knew it was time to hang up the hat for now.
Also, it can not be understated how amazing Yoko Kanno's contribution to this game is.
2000
Don't let the haters or doubters tell you differently.
This game is the accumulation of all the best design principles of classic beat-em-ups before and the current undisputed grandmaster of its genre.
A must play for all.
This game is the accumulation of all the best design principles of classic beat-em-ups before and the current undisputed grandmaster of its genre.
A must play for all.
2004
2004.
A year in gaming like no other, where consumers were banqueted an assortment of games, many of which would become some of the best in gaming of all-time. That year, we saw the release of games like Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Counter-Strike: Source, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Ninja Gaiden, Katamari Damacy and many, many more. More importantly though than that these games were fun, they were innovating. Pushing forward to the future of what games could become. And the game that lead that helped lead this charge and would lay down the foundational bedrock for a scene that would rival AAA studios was Doukutsu Monogatari, or Cave Story. A game that was all created by one developer, Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya.
Amaya's game wasn't groundbreaking by any means. Cave Story isn't an innovative milestone nor is it pushing any boundaries. What Cave Story is was polished, taking influence from games that Pixel enjoyed from his childhood, like Metroid and Castlevania that he references. It was an extraordinary game, with absolutely stellar music, gorgeous pixel art, and very snappy run-and-gun action. Cave Story is cited by many indie developers as the game that got them into development or as influence for their games, and in-turn, the art those developers would create would influence other indie developers in this chain-reaction of inspiration that would see the rise of the indie game industry. It is to note that Cave Story is by no means stand out in what it does, even in its legacy of a game from one developer. There is a long history of fan-made and independent content. It would be more apt-to say that Cave Story laid the foundation for indie developers in terms of its inspiration, much like Cave Story was inspired from others before it.
But Cave Story was not even meant to be special, it was an untranslated shareware game, among others in Japan's own long history of doujin soft, that had been going on way long before Cave Story even came to the picture. Japan's history of indie development goes back just as long as the rest of the world, most of which of which were as a hobby. This scene that was once, and in some cases still is, enclosed off from the rest of the world, would have its own fair share of games that inspired others, have doujin games created based off the works of others out of admiration, like Touhou. In 2004, Cave Story would be released into the public in a limited release alongside another game that would predate it.
Yume Nikki.
Yume Nikki released on the same year as Cave Story on the same site. Much like Cave Story, Yume Nikki was also developed by one person, Kikiyama, who would create the entire game's sound, art, programming, everything. It also saw a very limited release, until fans of the game created an English-translation that would see to this games proliferation across the Internet. And much like Cave Story, it's a game that has had a strong influence on so many people across the independent games scene across the globe and has become the primary inspiration for a lot of their games, with the primary example being Toby Fox's Undertale, which in-turn would also spawn it's own creative legacy with others. But what sets this apart from a lot of its contemporaries, despite also not being the first game to accomplish this, is Yume Nikki itself.
Yume Nikki does not play like anything I've ever seen before, with LSD: Dream Emulator probably being the closest example we have, and yet Yume Nikki is still unique of its kind. Yume Nikki is a game where you're experiencing the dreamscape of your unconscious mind. There are no specific goals, there is no dialogue, there is no direction. There is only experience. Drifting around these multivaried and interconnected areas of your REM sleep reality, all abide by unspoken, archaic rules. Worlds inhabited by all of peculiar creatures, if you can even call them that. Common themes that binds one particular area offset from another with their own entirely different gimmick. These worlds were not meant to be traveled but be explored, not to pass by but to immerse in. These long, often unending segments of your dream stretch out unfathomably long with often repeating objects in varied patterns dispersed widely across the abstract plane. It also seems so repetitious, especially underscored with tracks that last no longer than ten seconds before they loop back.
And yet, that is the point.
The long journey to of discovery of one's own mind, the human tendency to find patterns and symbolism in things that seem incomprehensible to anyone else. To seek meaning in things where their may not even be any and may not matter if it means something to us. These long stretches of pure infinite void to find discovery in things about ourselves and trying to make sense of the chaos that we have no control over, there is a sense of understanding. As you traverse further into the worlds deeper and deeper below the surface, things become more sensible and concrete and another branch far deeper are the things that we don't understand but have a profound effect on us. The further down we go, the more sensible it is and the more terrifying the implications, as the things that make sense are the things that are the reasons why they're pushed so far below in the dark depths of Madotsuki's mind, likely distorted memories of things that should never be resurfaced. Memories of key moments in her life that we do not wish to ever see. While Yume Nikki is quite abstract it is not without some obvious themes and common interpretations found from the clues you find plummeting down the rabbit void. A sense of identity, trauma, and death are very common imagery found throughout the game and lots of theories that the community have surgically went over the game. For me, I ignored all of those because they're not relevant to what I want to take away from this personally and feel like using things as guides and theories would get in the way of the intended idea of directionless roaming around without any sense of guidance or preconceptions.
If there's any one goal the game might have it's collecting these Effects that will transform Madotsuki into various forms with some power. All of which have very little-to-no use and almost none needed to "progress" in the game. But what they do have is consequence. The unpredictable events that it can bring to the inhabitants of your mind, and in doing so, discover a little more (or less) about ourselves. I used an Effect to transform myself into a traffic light and interacted with one inhabitant, in a place fathoms below the surface of our dream, who are one of the few people who actually resembles something like a human in a landscape where everything looks distorted and crude. What I got was a complete surprise and something I never would have expected from a game that thrives off unpredictability and the strange at the very beginning.
Even as I completed the game and remained stunned at the ending of a game I already knew years in advance would happen, the first thing I did was boot it back up again and kept going. Yume Nikki has this wonderful sense of atmosphere that I kept finding myself going back to even after its completion, because it wasn't complete. There was more to see and discover and more to know about what this game is. To retread familiar grounds and journeying through tonally whiplashed zones, both visually and through its sound. It's hard to really nail down what this game is trying to go for or to explain the hook of what makes this game. In fact, conceptually it sounds extremely boring. There are no puzzles, nor action, exploring the worlds sounds repetitive, there's no story. And yet, for many, it's their favorite game of all time and has saw almost as much popularity over Cave Story.
It has found its own niche audience that has grown in popularity. Many fan games were created that were almost as good, if not just as good, as Yume Nikki. And while it's not a big foundation starter for a global industry kickstarter like Cave Story, it would help lay the cement and provide further inspiration to younger developers to create things of their own: things that were more profound, thought provoking, creative, or just downright silly and strange. That's what's fascinating about doujin soft games is that they didn't care much about making games that fit some niche but to fit the things themselves they would want to put out. Born from that were some incredible titles of ingenuity, while of course among the piles of rather mediocre titles. Regardless though, all made out of some love or passion from what the things that influenced them that would be discovered by others to translate these games to be shared worldwide and influence other generations of artists to create something of themselves. Yume Nikki while has its influences that clearly inspired it, like Mother 1, it doesn't behold to any conventions or adhere to any standard industry practices. It's just whatever Kikiyama wanted to make, no strings attached.
2004 was a good year.
And Yume Nikki is an art like nothing else.
A year in gaming like no other, where consumers were banqueted an assortment of games, many of which would become some of the best in gaming of all-time. That year, we saw the release of games like Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Counter-Strike: Source, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Knights of the Old Republic 2, Ninja Gaiden, Katamari Damacy and many, many more. More importantly though than that these games were fun, they were innovating. Pushing forward to the future of what games could become. And the game that lead that helped lead this charge and would lay down the foundational bedrock for a scene that would rival AAA studios was Doukutsu Monogatari, or Cave Story. A game that was all created by one developer, Daisuke "Pixel" Amaya.
Amaya's game wasn't groundbreaking by any means. Cave Story isn't an innovative milestone nor is it pushing any boundaries. What Cave Story is was polished, taking influence from games that Pixel enjoyed from his childhood, like Metroid and Castlevania that he references. It was an extraordinary game, with absolutely stellar music, gorgeous pixel art, and very snappy run-and-gun action. Cave Story is cited by many indie developers as the game that got them into development or as influence for their games, and in-turn, the art those developers would create would influence other indie developers in this chain-reaction of inspiration that would see the rise of the indie game industry. It is to note that Cave Story is by no means stand out in what it does, even in its legacy of a game from one developer. There is a long history of fan-made and independent content. It would be more apt-to say that Cave Story laid the foundation for indie developers in terms of its inspiration, much like Cave Story was inspired from others before it.
But Cave Story was not even meant to be special, it was an untranslated shareware game, among others in Japan's own long history of doujin soft, that had been going on way long before Cave Story even came to the picture. Japan's history of indie development goes back just as long as the rest of the world, most of which of which were as a hobby. This scene that was once, and in some cases still is, enclosed off from the rest of the world, would have its own fair share of games that inspired others, have doujin games created based off the works of others out of admiration, like Touhou. In 2004, Cave Story would be released into the public in a limited release alongside another game that would predate it.
Yume Nikki.
Yume Nikki released on the same year as Cave Story on the same site. Much like Cave Story, Yume Nikki was also developed by one person, Kikiyama, who would create the entire game's sound, art, programming, everything. It also saw a very limited release, until fans of the game created an English-translation that would see to this games proliferation across the Internet. And much like Cave Story, it's a game that has had a strong influence on so many people across the independent games scene across the globe and has become the primary inspiration for a lot of their games, with the primary example being Toby Fox's Undertale, which in-turn would also spawn it's own creative legacy with others. But what sets this apart from a lot of its contemporaries, despite also not being the first game to accomplish this, is Yume Nikki itself.
Yume Nikki does not play like anything I've ever seen before, with LSD: Dream Emulator probably being the closest example we have, and yet Yume Nikki is still unique of its kind. Yume Nikki is a game where you're experiencing the dreamscape of your unconscious mind. There are no specific goals, there is no dialogue, there is no direction. There is only experience. Drifting around these multivaried and interconnected areas of your REM sleep reality, all abide by unspoken, archaic rules. Worlds inhabited by all of peculiar creatures, if you can even call them that. Common themes that binds one particular area offset from another with their own entirely different gimmick. These worlds were not meant to be traveled but be explored, not to pass by but to immerse in. These long, often unending segments of your dream stretch out unfathomably long with often repeating objects in varied patterns dispersed widely across the abstract plane. It also seems so repetitious, especially underscored with tracks that last no longer than ten seconds before they loop back.
And yet, that is the point.
The long journey to of discovery of one's own mind, the human tendency to find patterns and symbolism in things that seem incomprehensible to anyone else. To seek meaning in things where their may not even be any and may not matter if it means something to us. These long stretches of pure infinite void to find discovery in things about ourselves and trying to make sense of the chaos that we have no control over, there is a sense of understanding. As you traverse further into the worlds deeper and deeper below the surface, things become more sensible and concrete and another branch far deeper are the things that we don't understand but have a profound effect on us. The further down we go, the more sensible it is and the more terrifying the implications, as the things that make sense are the things that are the reasons why they're pushed so far below in the dark depths of Madotsuki's mind, likely distorted memories of things that should never be resurfaced. Memories of key moments in her life that we do not wish to ever see. While Yume Nikki is quite abstract it is not without some obvious themes and common interpretations found from the clues you find plummeting down the rabbit void. A sense of identity, trauma, and death are very common imagery found throughout the game and lots of theories that the community have surgically went over the game. For me, I ignored all of those because they're not relevant to what I want to take away from this personally and feel like using things as guides and theories would get in the way of the intended idea of directionless roaming around without any sense of guidance or preconceptions.
If there's any one goal the game might have it's collecting these Effects that will transform Madotsuki into various forms with some power. All of which have very little-to-no use and almost none needed to "progress" in the game. But what they do have is consequence. The unpredictable events that it can bring to the inhabitants of your mind, and in doing so, discover a little more (or less) about ourselves. I used an Effect to transform myself into a traffic light and interacted with one inhabitant, in a place fathoms below the surface of our dream, who are one of the few people who actually resembles something like a human in a landscape where everything looks distorted and crude. What I got was a complete surprise and something I never would have expected from a game that thrives off unpredictability and the strange at the very beginning.
Even as I completed the game and remained stunned at the ending of a game I already knew years in advance would happen, the first thing I did was boot it back up again and kept going. Yume Nikki has this wonderful sense of atmosphere that I kept finding myself going back to even after its completion, because it wasn't complete. There was more to see and discover and more to know about what this game is. To retread familiar grounds and journeying through tonally whiplashed zones, both visually and through its sound. It's hard to really nail down what this game is trying to go for or to explain the hook of what makes this game. In fact, conceptually it sounds extremely boring. There are no puzzles, nor action, exploring the worlds sounds repetitive, there's no story. And yet, for many, it's their favorite game of all time and has saw almost as much popularity over Cave Story.
It has found its own niche audience that has grown in popularity. Many fan games were created that were almost as good, if not just as good, as Yume Nikki. And while it's not a big foundation starter for a global industry kickstarter like Cave Story, it would help lay the cement and provide further inspiration to younger developers to create things of their own: things that were more profound, thought provoking, creative, or just downright silly and strange. That's what's fascinating about doujin soft games is that they didn't care much about making games that fit some niche but to fit the things themselves they would want to put out. Born from that were some incredible titles of ingenuity, while of course among the piles of rather mediocre titles. Regardless though, all made out of some love or passion from what the things that influenced them that would be discovered by others to translate these games to be shared worldwide and influence other generations of artists to create something of themselves. Yume Nikki while has its influences that clearly inspired it, like Mother 1, it doesn't behold to any conventions or adhere to any standard industry practices. It's just whatever Kikiyama wanted to make, no strings attached.
2004 was a good year.
And Yume Nikki is an art like nothing else.
This review contains spoilers
It’s difficult not to contrast the DLC with the base game when it tries hard to integrate itself into the entire main package while still being a segregated part of the whole, even if it makes sense contextually. All of the clues and solutions you need for the game will only be found from The Stranger with no interactions necessary from other planets. But not satisfied with just having its cake and eating it too, it takes a different design direction than anything we’ve seen from Outer Wilds. Even taking the DLC as its own separate instance, the direction it takes is something I feel tedious and frustrating at the worst of times. Despite my misgivings though, there is something really good at the heart of this game that feels way more emotionally potent than what I found in even the base game.
Echoes of the Eye poses a question of how one reacts to the knowledge of their own demise and the fear and anxiety that drives people to commit acts of cruelty to cheat over their mortality even if the outcome is inevitable. That is the crux of this campaign and is something that resonates similarly to the base game’s take on death on how one reacts to it. Unlike the forum-style inscriptions of the Nomai that detail their history through dialogue, EotE has a show [through powerpoint] don’t tell about the history of the people, mostly redacted to preserve the secrecy of their tribe and what acts they have done to ensure that.
One of the driving worries was that we would never really know too much about the tribe outside of the fact that they just had some great mystery that they were hiding, and thankfully that’s not entirely true and even more so that it’s not just through slideshows. Through the little contextual clues found throughout the breathtaking yet ruined ringworld of The Stranger and the mirrored veneer of a once living world now drowned in near pitch darkness brings together a picture of what these people were once like before fear took hold that drove a once peaceful, nature loving people to take the actions that you will soon discover over the course of the game.
Despite new liberties that the game takes, there is still the familiarity of exploring every corner of the planet still present in the game, piecing together what clues you have and places that still haven’t been fully explored. It still maintains the core concept of the game for the most part, but unfortunately is confined to a small scope. Regardless of it being meant to be played as a part of the whole, it still doesn’t change the fact that it's a secluded area of the solar system. Meaning that each loop will be dedicated to exploring, dying, going back to your ship, and making your way back to what you were doing before the end of the loop. In the base campaign, it works since things that were sectioned off could be worked on another loop and you can use the remaining time and switch to another part of the solar system or planet to explore. The time limit works against you in this case. That sense of urgency somewhat hinders some of the appreciation of picking up on clues that show the type of people the inhabitants of The Stranger were and are now, especially when it comes to the Dream World.
My first impressions of the Dream World were extremely sour and is the biggest deviation from Outer Wilds. No suit or flashlight, but instead a pitch dark world where you have only candles and other small sources of light aside from your lantern. There are multiple entry points to this world, but exploring it can be a giant hassle of getting to the specific entry you want to be in and start finding out where you need to go while avoiding the inhabitants within. The lamp is what both helps and hinders you. The light only gives you a small cone of vision where you can barely see three steps ahead of you, but you can either conceal your flame and stay in total darkness, or focus your light to see at a greater distance at the cost of significant speed.
When it comes to avoiding the people of the Dream World, most of the time you’re trying to run and hide in a completely unfamiliar level layout with no light except your own to see where you’re going unless you stop and focus your light to see ahead, all the while being chased by the denizens. This is where most of my frustration with the game lies of having to get the lay of the land before you can attempt to properly stealth your way through the area since the first few times will likely be fumbling around and spotting the dead ends and the areas of interest that you need to be at. There is a boon to all of this and that is the AI is thankfully slow and easy to conceal yourself from, but this is at the cost of concealing your flame and going into pitch darkness. Sometimes the game has obvious looping layouts for you to be able to juke them, but then there’s more complex architecture with small hideaways that would be ideal if the game wasn’t having you run in darkness and stop for a moment to see what’s ahead of you so you don’t accidentally bump right into the enemies. There are thankfully only two instances where you actually need to sneak around enemies, and one of them is actually pretty straightforward.
Even for all of my troubles with The Dream World, it still adheres to the design principle of hiding in plain sight, all you need is the knowledge. Very much inline with Outer Wilds base game, the DLC "hides" these mechanics, anticipating a typical player behavior, with only information being the key. Like in base game you could just immediately skip straight to the end, but the only real thing that's stopping you is the know how. Echoes of the Eye has ways you get through obstacles that you already possess technically but you're kept in the dark about them until you uncover them. Like you can drop the lantern and stray away from its radius and you can see the everything for what it all is, fake and virtual, or how you can die on one of the green fires in the real world and that way you are completely immune to alarms. With a bit of experimentation, you could probably accidentally stumble upon some of these unintentionally. But if you know all of this information, you could just immediately skip straight to the end if you already have the knowledge to get to the final area. It's these aspects of Outer Wilds that I enjoy that are thankfully present in the Echoes of the Eye. Not through additional mechanics or keys, but information is what unlocks all the doors for you.
Most of my grievances, aside from a few uncertain hints to solutions, can be distilled into facets of the dream world and a bit of tedium. But for all the annoyance of tracking back to pick back up the progress being made, the game still has a story to tell about a people. A story of finding a species of people that don’t want to be found, content to live in darkness to hold on to that secrecy. Clinging to the green flame, that once brought them together as a culture, now keeping them on life support, becoming husks of their former selves, existing in the fake reality they've constructed themselves, with all its imperfections. Oblivious to the rot and decay of the world they left behind, until it reaches the tipping point and all comes crashing down on them in the end.
That awe of entering The Stranger for the very first time, the added score, entering the sealed vault, the last vision, and revisiting The Eye one last time. All these moments of Echoes of the Eye are some of the best times I’ve had from Outer Wilds in general. It is only a shame that my own personal qualms got in the way of truly appreciating what this campaign does. It’s hard for me to treat it as part of the entire OW experience given its seclusive nature, but still makes for a nice contrast from the rest of the game when taken at its own terms. While my score seems to reflect somewhat poorly on Echoes of the Eye, it’s a game I can immensely appreciate.
Author Note: I want to thank Colin Halby, whose not even on this site, for assisting me in sorting my thoughts out about this game and bringing to light details I hadn't fully considered.
Echoes of the Eye poses a question of how one reacts to the knowledge of their own demise and the fear and anxiety that drives people to commit acts of cruelty to cheat over their mortality even if the outcome is inevitable. That is the crux of this campaign and is something that resonates similarly to the base game’s take on death on how one reacts to it. Unlike the forum-style inscriptions of the Nomai that detail their history through dialogue, EotE has a show [through powerpoint] don’t tell about the history of the people, mostly redacted to preserve the secrecy of their tribe and what acts they have done to ensure that.
One of the driving worries was that we would never really know too much about the tribe outside of the fact that they just had some great mystery that they were hiding, and thankfully that’s not entirely true and even more so that it’s not just through slideshows. Through the little contextual clues found throughout the breathtaking yet ruined ringworld of The Stranger and the mirrored veneer of a once living world now drowned in near pitch darkness brings together a picture of what these people were once like before fear took hold that drove a once peaceful, nature loving people to take the actions that you will soon discover over the course of the game.
Despite new liberties that the game takes, there is still the familiarity of exploring every corner of the planet still present in the game, piecing together what clues you have and places that still haven’t been fully explored. It still maintains the core concept of the game for the most part, but unfortunately is confined to a small scope. Regardless of it being meant to be played as a part of the whole, it still doesn’t change the fact that it's a secluded area of the solar system. Meaning that each loop will be dedicated to exploring, dying, going back to your ship, and making your way back to what you were doing before the end of the loop. In the base campaign, it works since things that were sectioned off could be worked on another loop and you can use the remaining time and switch to another part of the solar system or planet to explore. The time limit works against you in this case. That sense of urgency somewhat hinders some of the appreciation of picking up on clues that show the type of people the inhabitants of The Stranger were and are now, especially when it comes to the Dream World.
My first impressions of the Dream World were extremely sour and is the biggest deviation from Outer Wilds. No suit or flashlight, but instead a pitch dark world where you have only candles and other small sources of light aside from your lantern. There are multiple entry points to this world, but exploring it can be a giant hassle of getting to the specific entry you want to be in and start finding out where you need to go while avoiding the inhabitants within. The lamp is what both helps and hinders you. The light only gives you a small cone of vision where you can barely see three steps ahead of you, but you can either conceal your flame and stay in total darkness, or focus your light to see at a greater distance at the cost of significant speed.
When it comes to avoiding the people of the Dream World, most of the time you’re trying to run and hide in a completely unfamiliar level layout with no light except your own to see where you’re going unless you stop and focus your light to see ahead, all the while being chased by the denizens. This is where most of my frustration with the game lies of having to get the lay of the land before you can attempt to properly stealth your way through the area since the first few times will likely be fumbling around and spotting the dead ends and the areas of interest that you need to be at. There is a boon to all of this and that is the AI is thankfully slow and easy to conceal yourself from, but this is at the cost of concealing your flame and going into pitch darkness. Sometimes the game has obvious looping layouts for you to be able to juke them, but then there’s more complex architecture with small hideaways that would be ideal if the game wasn’t having you run in darkness and stop for a moment to see what’s ahead of you so you don’t accidentally bump right into the enemies. There are thankfully only two instances where you actually need to sneak around enemies, and one of them is actually pretty straightforward.
Even for all of my troubles with The Dream World, it still adheres to the design principle of hiding in plain sight, all you need is the knowledge. Very much inline with Outer Wilds base game, the DLC "hides" these mechanics, anticipating a typical player behavior, with only information being the key. Like in base game you could just immediately skip straight to the end, but the only real thing that's stopping you is the know how. Echoes of the Eye has ways you get through obstacles that you already possess technically but you're kept in the dark about them until you uncover them. Like you can drop the lantern and stray away from its radius and you can see the everything for what it all is, fake and virtual, or how you can die on one of the green fires in the real world and that way you are completely immune to alarms. With a bit of experimentation, you could probably accidentally stumble upon some of these unintentionally. But if you know all of this information, you could just immediately skip straight to the end if you already have the knowledge to get to the final area. It's these aspects of Outer Wilds that I enjoy that are thankfully present in the Echoes of the Eye. Not through additional mechanics or keys, but information is what unlocks all the doors for you.
Most of my grievances, aside from a few uncertain hints to solutions, can be distilled into facets of the dream world and a bit of tedium. But for all the annoyance of tracking back to pick back up the progress being made, the game still has a story to tell about a people. A story of finding a species of people that don’t want to be found, content to live in darkness to hold on to that secrecy. Clinging to the green flame, that once brought them together as a culture, now keeping them on life support, becoming husks of their former selves, existing in the fake reality they've constructed themselves, with all its imperfections. Oblivious to the rot and decay of the world they left behind, until it reaches the tipping point and all comes crashing down on them in the end.
That awe of entering The Stranger for the very first time, the added score, entering the sealed vault, the last vision, and revisiting The Eye one last time. All these moments of Echoes of the Eye are some of the best times I’ve had from Outer Wilds in general. It is only a shame that my own personal qualms got in the way of truly appreciating what this campaign does. It’s hard for me to treat it as part of the entire OW experience given its seclusive nature, but still makes for a nice contrast from the rest of the game when taken at its own terms. While my score seems to reflect somewhat poorly on Echoes of the Eye, it’s a game I can immensely appreciate.
Author Note: I want to thank Colin Halby, whose not even on this site, for assisting me in sorting my thoughts out about this game and bringing to light details I hadn't fully considered.