With a four hour playtime, the game was probably twice as long as the first game. I jumped from one to four, exactly how a series is meant to be played!
I gave it the same rating as the first game for different reasons. I think it has more going on, the puzzles are still solid though never too hard. A few seem hard because I don't think you're given enough contextual information from some of the components, like maybe you weren't aware something could turn. I also found the "tentacle" scenes to be quite boring eventually. Once you complete a room, tentacles swarm the place and either kick you out or your character flees before darkening the room and prevent re-entry. The first time you see them they're a bit spooky, maybe even the time after that, but then it happens six more times. It just feels like loading screens, even though I doubt that's what they are. Same with the in-game journals you find in each room. Like the first game, they don't make much sense, arguably ever, but certainly not until the end where they really ramp up. It's seemingly a bizarre attempt at adding a story, until the very end of the game where there's a cutscene and your character apparently has a name and you see this cult and your crystal is one of many. So clearly there is a story here, but it's just sort of tucked in at the end and you don't ever really care.
But it's a puzzle game, first and foremost, and I'd say they all work pretty well. Towards the end, maybe it's simply the four hour time requirement, I was ready for it to be over. Even though I think they nailed the pace at which you open new rooms, thus keeping a sense of "freshness" going the whole time, four hours was simply too long. Probably could have lost an entire one of the rooms, here, maybe even two.
All in all, a fun game, another solid entry, though sadly while it improved it also managed to falter. I wonder if the fifth game will change the formula at all, though not likely, as these are also mobile games. That's probably where all the money is these days. It sucks that that is likely a limiter as to how much more this series can do.
I gave it the same rating as the first game for different reasons. I think it has more going on, the puzzles are still solid though never too hard. A few seem hard because I don't think you're given enough contextual information from some of the components, like maybe you weren't aware something could turn. I also found the "tentacle" scenes to be quite boring eventually. Once you complete a room, tentacles swarm the place and either kick you out or your character flees before darkening the room and prevent re-entry. The first time you see them they're a bit spooky, maybe even the time after that, but then it happens six more times. It just feels like loading screens, even though I doubt that's what they are. Same with the in-game journals you find in each room. Like the first game, they don't make much sense, arguably ever, but certainly not until the end where they really ramp up. It's seemingly a bizarre attempt at adding a story, until the very end of the game where there's a cutscene and your character apparently has a name and you see this cult and your crystal is one of many. So clearly there is a story here, but it's just sort of tucked in at the end and you don't ever really care.
But it's a puzzle game, first and foremost, and I'd say they all work pretty well. Towards the end, maybe it's simply the four hour time requirement, I was ready for it to be over. Even though I think they nailed the pace at which you open new rooms, thus keeping a sense of "freshness" going the whole time, four hours was simply too long. Probably could have lost an entire one of the rooms, here, maybe even two.
All in all, a fun game, another solid entry, though sadly while it improved it also managed to falter. I wonder if the fifth game will change the formula at all, though not likely, as these are also mobile games. That's probably where all the money is these days. It sucks that that is likely a limiter as to how much more this series can do.