Easily one of the most beautiful works of visual media I've ever experienced. It's not just the alien beauty of the environments, it's the immense attention to detail in every facet of how those things move and interact. There's a fascinating interplay of organic, inorganic, and abstract visual concepts that are all flawlessly employed into an interactive space with so many moments of sublime and wondrous environmental motion offered as a reward for solving puzzles and interacting with the world.
The gameplay, on the other hand, is only pretty good. There are some solid puzzles on offer here, but it rides a really weird line between the simplicity of Limbo and Inside and a much more abstract puzzle design space that begs for a more fully realized and longer puzzle game. For me, that causes it to land in an unsatisfying spot. Some people don't like Inside for being too easy or simplistic, but if something is going to be mostly about atmosphere and art, I'd personally prefer the gameplay to be a bit more straightforward. Similarly, if a puzzle is going to make me think, I want it to make me think in a way where resetting the state of the puzzle is fast and most of the complexity lies in figuring things out top-down rather than just carrying objects slowly around large levels to figure out where to slot something for the next (usually simple) step.
It's not braindead easy, but the most difficult moments just feel obtuse not because the conceptual tissue is lacking but because the layouts of the level obfuscate how things connect often due to requiring the player to travel unsatisfyingly large distances between the pieces of the puzzle. The most complex world layering puzzles at the end also have some really annoying setups in terms of how much space has to be traversed to reset elements of the puzzle when the player makes mistakes, and every case of this is implemented in an unnecessary way (the distances could all easily be halved in terms of level design).
There are also weirdly some bosses, they're... Fine? A little bit too long on waiting on behavior cycles in some cases, but not frustrating or boring. Not a lot to say there. Also a bit annoyed I missed 2 of 12 collectibles, but there's no backtracking whatsoever, so it happens.
Overall worth the play experience for the art alone, but the gameplay offered an itch that it never fully scratched.
The gameplay, on the other hand, is only pretty good. There are some solid puzzles on offer here, but it rides a really weird line between the simplicity of Limbo and Inside and a much more abstract puzzle design space that begs for a more fully realized and longer puzzle game. For me, that causes it to land in an unsatisfying spot. Some people don't like Inside for being too easy or simplistic, but if something is going to be mostly about atmosphere and art, I'd personally prefer the gameplay to be a bit more straightforward. Similarly, if a puzzle is going to make me think, I want it to make me think in a way where resetting the state of the puzzle is fast and most of the complexity lies in figuring things out top-down rather than just carrying objects slowly around large levels to figure out where to slot something for the next (usually simple) step.
It's not braindead easy, but the most difficult moments just feel obtuse not because the conceptual tissue is lacking but because the layouts of the level obfuscate how things connect often due to requiring the player to travel unsatisfyingly large distances between the pieces of the puzzle. The most complex world layering puzzles at the end also have some really annoying setups in terms of how much space has to be traversed to reset elements of the puzzle when the player makes mistakes, and every case of this is implemented in an unnecessary way (the distances could all easily be halved in terms of level design).
There are also weirdly some bosses, they're... Fine? A little bit too long on waiting on behavior cycles in some cases, but not frustrating or boring. Not a lot to say there. Also a bit annoyed I missed 2 of 12 collectibles, but there's no backtracking whatsoever, so it happens.
Overall worth the play experience for the art alone, but the gameplay offered an itch that it never fully scratched.