Shardlight

Some puzzles are pretty bad. Sometimes you need to do the same puzzle too many times, in a situation where a new solution would have worked better. There are some illogical puzzles that should be solvable using other means. The developer has said some of the worst puzzles will be addressed in a patch. Most of the game plays well enough though. Graphics are stunning, except for animations that could use some extra frames. The background mattes paint a lovely post-apocalyptic landscape and the clever usage of the repeating color palette adds something interesting in every painting that is the background. Character portraits are fantastic. Voice work is nearly perfect. The only exceptions are some of the screams which appear to have some mastering problems with them as the sound breaks a bit. All the voice actors did an excellent job. Music is varied, but wasn't really to my taste. The story and characters are good. All of the characters felt believable to me, and especially the protagonist was someone I could find myself rallying behind. The ending felt hurried to me. This seems to be something lots of adventure games struggle with.

It's just mediocre, which is really disappointing taking in consideration it's a Wadjet Eye game. It's absurdly short - took me about 5 hours to finish without any sweat. Most of the "puzzles" are self-explanatory with only one or two steps, including shooting something with your crossbow (they really overused this throughout the game's length). If the puzzle didn't require the crossbow, all solutions were given to me in a really blatant way. Mostly they required just talking to a right NPC. There are only a few real puzzles which turn your brain cogs on. The story and its flow were too obvious not to predict how it will all play out. The backstory, music and environments are much more interesting than the actual story itself, which is really as generic as it could be. There were a few great moments where the game's narrative could shine, both story- ang gameplay-wise (eg. split the story path in two - work for the Aristocracy or the rebels: unfortunately we're railroaded into helping rebels while our character has absolutely no reason to "fight against" the Aristocracy). There could still be the same puzzles to solve for the most part, but tools and ways to resolve them would be different depending on the player's path. Wasted opportunity right off the bat, just when I though the game was going just for that after the prologue sequence. It's definitely the worst game from Wadjet Eye I've played thus far. It looks great. The environments are great. The music is great and so is the overall atmosphere. But everything turns out to be just disappointing after a while of having fun. Feels rushed, just like the ending and completely out of place ending sequence with "choices" none of which felt natural. Not worth the default price tag, sadly.

Well, this was another fun game to go through, I've come to expect this insanely high quality from Wadjet Eye. Maybe because of that, this actually felt *less* perfect of a game than some of their other games. I'll go through the things which annoyed me, and then you can decide whether it still sounds good. Do keep in mind I rated it 4/5 for a reason, despite all of this they're fairly minor complaints except the first one about the endings. +Ending+ This is the one part I wish they had cut entirely. There's a choice at the end, and not only does the game feel cut short, the choices feel arbitrary and non-fitting. One of the endings, the "good" ending, should have been the only choice with a bit more expose and interactions. Alternatively, another of the endings should have been the sole outcome if nothing else were to change. +Abruptness+ Not really terrible - the game is fun as it is - but you can notice that things seem to get "pushed along". +Puzzles+ It's a minor gripe but considering the setting there were always other set objects around which I felt could have been used for a solution, easily. +Sprite scaling+ A very minor graphical weirdness, when Amy walks into the background, her sprite is scaled down in size instead of both size and pixel count. Other than these things, the game is really great. The artwork is amazing, the voicework is spot-on, the characters are nice, the idea behind the government is something else and I love some of the little nuances (not going to spoiler anything). Can recommend. Even with the weird ending, it's a really good game.

First, the good. The craftsmanship of this game is on par with other Wadjet Eye products. It's solid. No bugs. The graphics are artful. The voice acting is very good. I'd give this game five stars if I was rating it on the art & technical points alone (well, maybe 4.9 stars: some animations felt a bit rushed). However, I was quite disappointed by the story of this game, and the way it was told. The story feels artificial and shallow. Many characters are unconvincing. Sometimes the cartoonishness of the plot twists and the belaboring of obvious reveals create an impression that the game was intended for elementary school children. Some things the POV character does, and her reaction to them (or lack thereof), break the consistency of the character. The gameplay part doesn't shine, too. The puzzles are mostly "linear" and obvious. There are a couple of choices near the end, which feel as if they were bolted on just Because Modern Games must be About Big Moral Choices. If asked for a buying advice, I'd say buy it on a discount if you want to complete a Wadjet Eye games collection. If you have to choose, pick any other Wadjet Eye title instead. If you're looking for a good sci-fi story, you won't find one here. Please note that I play games mostly for their stories, whatever the game mechanic or genre. If your priorities are different, you may get more from this game than I did.