The basic idea of a hidden object detective game is really unique. The art style is interesting, it's fun to follow distinctive characters across a timeline and discover what they're getting up to. However, both of the game's modes suffer from implementation choices. In the main story mode, you are railroaded onto a string of clues, punctuated with child-level minigames. The inability to flip back and forth between ticks and piece the picture together for ourselves makes one disengaged really easily. It feels like I am just here to be In the fulcrum mode, we do get the chance to piece together the story ourselves....but there is nothing to piece together. I follow a guy making a shady deal and losing his suitcase to a monkey. The "sidequest" tells me the exact same thing with fancier words, and gives me an unskippable slow replay of everything that I already found. What is the context? What is in the suitcase? Who is this person as a character? Am I supposed to cheer or boo? The "investigation tools" that can identify names, read texts etc would have been great if we had chances in fulcrum mode. As is, they are more cutscene than gameplay, and we are constantly reminded that we are looking at a picture instead of a vibrant, lively world.
The music and art remain gorgeous, and there are new mechanics. I still had a lot of fun. However compared to previous games, the mechanics are more 'boxed in'. Ropes can only connect to rings, boxes/platforms have fixed sizes and always appear above the character's head, enemies spawn in a closed room with no possibility of environmental interaction. The difficulty has also been somewhat... fool-proofed. Travel abilities are now unlocked at fixed points in fixed chapters, and collectibles no longer have any practical benefit. Which keeps difficulty consistent for players, but drastically lowers the motivation to explore and collect.
Fun, but could use a fast travel at the end
