Managed to finish the game over the course of three days, with roughly 10h playing time. It looks absolutely gorgeous, the sound design is a very good match, and the story is compelling. The controls are OK for a 3D platformer, a bit finicky sometimes, but since you can't die and won't be forced to redo large chunks, that's fine. The metroidvania elements are handled pretty well too, except right before the finale there are a number of doors and one unseen NPC that it's possible to talk to that have no resolution. There are quite a number of sections that are heavy on the railroading which maybe could have been handled differently, but that doesn't end up to bothersome either. What the game sorely lacks, though, is challenge. Not being able to die is one thing, but at no point in the entire playthrough did I have a feeling my skills were being put to the test. It's either 'I can solve this right now' or 'there are enough clues to understand I need to come back later with upgrades'. It's impossible not to find enough components for the upgrades, you don't even have to try hard. Or at all. It's a beautiful sandbox exploration journey, but it veers towards 'interactive video' too much to truly call it a proper game.
I was gifted this game before I realized it was part of the Heretic Kingdoms lore - years ago I enjoyed playing Kult, for its minor flaws, so I was really looking forward to this. I have to admit the game looks gorgeous, but beyond that... - The puzzles and challenges are extremely repetitive - There are big chunks of Walking Simulator segments - There's little incentive to explore the various Puppets capabilities (at least on default story mode) - Scaling goes equally poorly for silver (when you need it at the start of the game, you don't have it - by the time you have it you have very little need for it anymore) and combat (not a single challenge from chapter 3 onward, or so) - There's at least some incentive to replay and choose other quest paths, but the amount of repetition far outweighs the urge to play it again - Neither the dialogue (which is admittedly voiced well enough) nor the written lore had much appeal - And the Quest Tune plays Every. Time. You. Switch. Areas. In the end, I finished it purely as an act of OCD completionism, as I had long run out of interest in what the game had to offer. This could have been so, so much better.
