Posted on: March 1, 2024

decorus_veritas
Verified ownerGames: 142 Reviews: 64
Haunting aesthetic, gnarly puzzles
Although I don't think any game will top Limbo's perfection as a puzzle platformer, or Little Nightmare's macbre and suggestive imagery, Darq is about the closest thing I've seen to a successor to both games. The artwork is splendid. It features fully 3-D artwork with an incredible amount of detail and creepiness, coupled with a bone-jarring sound design. But where the game really shines is deploying a very clever mechanic to produce some fairly tricky puzzles. Essentially, the game leves are constructed in a kind of rubix-cub fashion, such that you spin rooms in various ways to complete objectives and solve puzzles. It works incredibly well. Like other reviewers here, I found the difficulty level for the original seven chapters, and the Tower, to be just right -- challenging, but I usually could solve my way out of it in a few minutes. The Crypt, on the other hand, wicked difficult, in part from the geometry of the level and in part because the puzzles themselves are at an extra level of difficulty. Thoroughly enjoyable tho. It's a short game. The first seven levels and the Tower took me about 2.5 hrs. Your mileage will vary on the Crypt depending on how fast you can figure out its trickery. But while it's short, I'd say it's the best way you could spend your hours. Make sure to play with a gamepad for the best experience. Really, my only complain is the last chapter ends with a chase sequence, which is a little annoying, but it's pretty mild in the pantheon of chase sequences, and all the other chapters make it totally worth it.
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