This game feels extremely chaotic, where a lot of gameplay elements seem out of place. At first, I did enjoy the puzzles and found them interesting because of the unique approach. And by the end, I still didn't mind them that much, but that's about it. It felt like the approach to puzzles in the first hour or so had vanished and now I had to deal with much more boring ones. Most of them started being nothing but just run there in time, or click this and that in the right order. At some point, I solved a puzzle completely by accident. I wasn't lost and still was looking around and then I randomly clicked something that I didn't know I could click, I didn't even know this thing was there, and the puzzle got solved. Besides that, most of the puzzles don't rely on your wit to solve them, but rather on you traversing large areas and finding all the objects to, again, click in the right order. I did enjoy the visuals of the game, especially in the first hours of the game, but after that, I found myself traversing long distances and still being in the basically same area, without anything changing, but the rooms that you go through which themselves are empty and not memorable at all. I recognize that this is the intended mood and design of the game, but I would much rather prefer the areas to be smaller, or at least the paths that you have to traverse. If you have a walking sim and cannot make those long runs actually interesting, then the game has a lot of problems. Honestly, I found most of the platforming to be fine. It was the most fun part of the gameplay, but quite often I got lost during the platforming because the game showed me multiple paths to choose from and each one of them led to nowhere except for one that actually was the right one. On one hand, I do appreciate that the place isn't linear because it does fit this game, but, again, there wasn't absolutely anything in the paths that I took that were the wrong ones. You go, you see a wall or a precipice, and then you go back and choose another path. I really don't like dropping games that I already decided to play and where I already made decent progress, but at the end I just felt annoyed and wasn't enjoying anything that the game gave me, which is usually rare. This is a shame, because, the first hour and then the first half of the city area were really engaging and felt unique and made me look around and actually want to investigate the place. Ah, yeah, and the checkpoints fucking suck. Instead of letting you save the game for yourself, you have to walk thousands of kilometers in some moments because you accidentally got stuck in one of the places, where the game technically allowed you to go, but from where was no place out. Or when you fail a puzzle and die and have to go for half a minute or so to actually get back to solving the puzzle.
It's not a terrible game, don't get me wrong. It really has a dense atmosphere with breathtaking visuals, but it just stops working because of the gameplay after some point.
Grade: 4/10

The game has an interesting story that is hidden behind the rubble of atrocious gameplay that is absolutely butchered by the camera. Everything, from exploring to platforming and combat, is several times worse than it could have been because of the camera. The locations, even without this problem, are monotonous and not very interesting, but with it, are a chore to explore. The combat is already too repetitive and clunky because of the camera work, but it is even worse since when you explore the locations, the enemies respawn and appear out of thin air, which made me want to just run through them without doing anything. Maybe it was much less clunky on ps2, but on pc it just didn't work.
Upd: I dropped it. I really didn't want to struggle through the camera problems. I had several instances where I wasn't physically able to see the solving to the puzzle because of the camera restrictions, or that I fought invisible enemies because my view was cluttered by a tree in the middle of the screen. I am, however, interested in the story, but it is hidden behind this chore of the gameplay sections, so I’d rather watch all the cutscenes on yt

Such a great puzzle. I honestly see no negatives in the entire game. Even though the gameplay is relatively simplistic, there is no sense of repetitiveness to it and every episode has a unique approach to it with different types of riddles. I had multiple moments during the game where I had a tricky puzzle and then I would go through the entire case and figure out the puzzle because of some small detail which at first you wouldn’t notice or would find insignificant, but then at the end realize that it fits the picture perfectly. This game is often compared to Return of the Obra Dinn since they are both of the same genre and since they both were able to nail the feeling of being a detective. What I do find TCotGI has done better than RotOB is its story. It has a really nice atmosphere of a classical mystery detective and even throws out some twists and turns along the way. Nevertheless, I do still think that these both are excellent and exceed in different places while still being of equal quality.
Rating: 9/10
Update: I replayed it and decided that it’s definitely worth a 10/10 or at least 9.75/10 for me personally. One of the most enjoyable games.
Rating 2.0: 9,75-10/10

First of all, I think it would be most appropriate to compare this game with "Sunless Sea" and "Sunless Skies", cause it is most obvious that it not only took a lot of inspiration from these titles but also that it shares with them every single major gameplay mechanic. The best part of A House of Many Doors is its writing, which is among the best games I've played. It does manage to transmit the world setting and its different aspects (characters, locations, monsters etc.). It does stay on par with both games from Failbetter Games. It is quirky, witty and mysterious almost everywhere it has to be. Nonetheless, I had a feeling that in every other single aspect, the game falls short and doesn't deliver as much as the other two games did. This might be the budget thing, which I can understand, but with having already experienced "sunless sea" and "sunless skies", I feel that the world is much more empty and doesn't have much to offer. There is almost nothing to do in between locations, therefore, there is no sense of exploration, which, for me, was one of the strongest cards of the other two titles. The world looks too similar everywhere and does not offer any interaction with it. I have heard positive things about the combat in the game and how it is much less annoying than in "Sunless Sea". Tbh, I disagree with this point completely. I agree with the fights being a tad less primitive, but they are also less immersive and still underdeliver in terms of gameplay. At first, it seems complex, but once you get the gist of it, it becomes mundane and boring, and in most of the fights you just have to destroy the guns of your enemies and then just destroy their ship entirely. Immersion-wise, I don't like how you only fight other kinetopedes and cannot fight any monster at all (haven't finished the game and there might be a chance to fight monsters, but in my 12-13 hours I only fought bandits and occultists). Besides, I don't like that this is not implemented in any way into the world itself and is happening completely isolated, like a mini-game. That's why, even though I can accept criticism of the combat in "Sunless Sea", I do still think that it still is good enough for such a game as it is. It gives you much more flexibility in how to approach the battle. All the upgrades that your ship can get, can be used in a fight. In "A House of Many Doors", you depend only on your staff and your guns. Other upgrades play a much lesser role and are needed only for exploring. Exploration in this game, as I said, is boring, it is basically nonexistent. The layout of the map is the same everywhere, with the same houses, the same ruins, and, thus, the same interactions, and the same music, both in cities and outside in the house's rooms. In Both SSs you had different mobs in different map areas, different weather effects, and different visuals overall. In addition, you had different music, which was great and made every other aspect much more colorful and atmospheric. When you approach a port, you are able to see how it looks from the outside, along with seeing the mobs around it and the music playing, which gives you an initial impression of what's to come. In AHoMD, you just go through empty corridors and then suddenly find a city or some other location. The transportation here feels more like a burden and a waste of time between the cities. The areas (cities and other hubs) are done well, mainly because of writing, as I already mentioned. The crew of your kinetopede is, I think, definitely better than in "Sunless Sea", and is either on par or a bit better than in "Sunless Skies". Everyone has their quirk and unique interactions which you don't expect in the other two games. The thing is, again, all these cool mechanics could've been even better if the other elements were done successfully. The last thing: this game is not as challenging as the other games. I had much fewer problems with surviving in this game because the resources were easily manageable, and if there was any real threat to my ship, I could just run away to another room, which wasn't really hard if you juke in the ruins well enough.
Even though I did criticize this game heavily, I don't think it's bad, since it does have its own strong points. I just could not go without comparing it with the other two games, of which I think very highly. I think, it deserves a 6/10 for me, but, if you haven't played "Sunless Sea" or "Sunless Skies", you might as well start with this one, and you might like it more than me.