I picked up automata on a whim when I went to a gamestop randomly to buy some other thing that wasn't available. Since the game I was looking for wasn't there I said screw it, lets pick this up since people were saying good things about it and I hadn't played a platinum game before. Best purchase I ever made for my PoS4. This game has a gripping story, with excellent characters and direction, without a doubt the best OST ever composed for a game, and the single greatest contribution to video game butts ever.

While at points the gameplay gets tiresome (particularly the hacking minigame in Route B and onward), this game is without a doubt in my top 10 GOAT list, and is an experience I think about fondly.

Return of the Obra Dinn is with no doubt in my mind the most innovative mystery game I have ever played. While certain aspects of the presentation can be frustrating, out of sheer creativity I have to rate this game a 5/5. The narrative is simple, but I love the presentation, I love the voice work, and no other game has ever given me anything remotely like the experiences I had on my first and only playthrough of this game. If there was a list of games I wish I could forget and re-experience, obra dinn would be on there with no questions asked. You would be doing yourself a disservice to not play this game.

This game is awesome. An easy top 5 entry for me and just so many excellent elements and forward thinking ideas despite its age. I played it all the way through after being inspired to give it a shot after mandaloregaming's review. Every now and then I try playing old cult classics and they just don't stick for me, especially early era 3d games that didn't age so well. This game has incredible art direction, great sprites, and animation; citadel station is super well designed and feels thought out - a real blast to explore.

Shodan is such an incredible villain and performance that it really lets me looks past the very poor "we let whoever was in the office that day record the audio for this log" voice acting performances (although to be fair, first game to ever have voice logs at all). You feel her presence throughout the game, and the steady learning of each area, her minions, and the tools you acquire over the journey to fight back really keeps you engaged. While the OST is all over the place, most levels have memorable tracks and great atmosphere. Goofy B horror abounds, an eerie station, freakish mutants and cyborgs roaming the halls, and you got yourself a fun adventure romp.

The game even has heavily customizable difficulty settings. Its crazy to think just how many things it got right, and just how many of those things shine through with the addition of mouse look. I'd recommend this game to everyone.

There are a few things that suck though - mainly cyberspace and pretty bad audio mixing in a few places. My ears do explode whenever there's radiation present.

Final score: Your memo/Your memo

A perfect puzzler. While there's no clear end objective (though credits are reachable), this game had me hooked from pickup to put down. The puzzles are ingeniously crafted into interconnected islands that act like resettable levels, in a world that constantly gets more connected and intricate as you progress. With unique challenge puzzles that often span multiple islands, figuring out how to reach a place that you know exists but seems just out of reach is just pure joy. While I can't tell if Draknek has any affiliation to increpare at all (maybe the friends?) this game seems to be quite inspired by stephen's sausage roll and in my opinion has a similar level of brain busting for some of the optional puzzles and is definitely more accessible. If you like sokoban, but found the difficulty of something like stephen's sausage roll daunting, then I would highly recommend this game. If you liked the difficulty of stephen's sausage roll then I would still highly recommend this game, just with the stipulation that you should spend time hunting some of the snowmen islands down.

I did not 100% the game, but honestly if I feel the drive to play a puzzle game again, I could see myself returning to my save file.

I would rate this game higher but as an overall experience its missing some things to really tie it all together as a wholly positive and enjoyable one. I think that if you like exploration, and are in a introspective mood, this game can be a fun little sandbox to play in. Unfortunately nothing in it really shines. That said, I love the art direction and the music is lovely too. Alas the presentation is also really held back by numerous audio and visual glitches, severe performance issues, and occasionally (or often, depending on your inclinations) wonky controls.