100% completed in 4 hours and 40 minutes, though I needed a guide for the very last part. The level design was clever and layered. At the very end of the game there's a part that felt really cheap, which dragged down the experience a little for me. Other than that this was an evening well spent.
I'll start by saying that I was completely hooked by this game from start to finish. I have some complaints about the ending, but when reflecting on it while writing this review I didn't feel it was enough to drop the game to 4 stars. It's quite simply a well put together game and I wholeheartedly recommend it. Lucas Pope has made a puzzle-game with some superb mechanics that keeps the game from devolving into a trial and error-affair (though admittedly I did get away with doing this once or twice). By only showing the correct answers once you've correctly identified people and their fates in batches of three, guesswork is made hard enough for you to want to go about things the proper way; and after having to look up some hints on how to progress I was surprised with just how many hints are sprinkled throughout the scenes. As a jaded gamer that has gotten too used with lazy world building and attention to detail from too many games I caught myself dismissing things that turned out to be vital clues, so I recommend keeping an eye out! The presentation is excellent, the simple graphics go a long way to help you focus on important clues, which is a common complaint I have with modern games that add too much detail compared to interactivity (a good example of what I mean is the modern Deus Ex games that need item highlighting to show you what is actually manipulable in the environment) As for my complaint about the lackluster ending, I won't deny that it's possible I am missing something, but it felt like the story never really wrapped up in a satisfying way. It's hard to hint at what I mean without spoilers, so I'll leave it at that.
I remember falling in love with Darksiders 1. It was essentially Legend of Zelda with more blood that borrowed neat gameplay-mechanics shamelessly from everywhere. With the sequel the developers let themselves be inspired by action RPGs like Diablo, including a loot system. Personally I found this to be a bit of a letdown. I've long since grown tired of shuffling through tons of items to find minor upgrades and prefer the Zelda/Metroidvania-style of looting where items are much more meaningful. Looting woes aside, this is still a pretty great game if you're in the cross-section of people like Devil May Cry, Diablo, Zelda and a setting based heavily on religious themes (angels, demons, horsemen). The artstyle is lovely, the music is amazing at times and the controls were competent (gamepad recommended!). The storyline was interesting for the most part, but you'll probably need to have played the prequel to really appreciate it.
My playthrough took me around 3,5 hours. From the outset the game kind of comes across as a cheap indie title that lacks a significant amount of polish. Starting up the game advertises it as a Unreal Devkit-game, and there's hardly any option menu to speak of. Changing resolution is done via cycling through available resolutions. Certain areas can have some weird clipping (so you sort of get stuck in slopes occasionally), things you carry around obscure almost your entire vision, options could be more extensive. When starting the game you immediately see that it's no graphical powerhouse, as most indies are. However that does not mean it doesn't look amazing. Great use of light, color and level design makes the world feel as surreal as you would expect from a game about a guy dreaming. All in all the game has great and interesting presentation. You often need to change the weather, time of day or even season in interesting ways to come up with a solution to puzzles, and watching the world change is fascinating. Now, the game is advertised as a puzzle game, and it certainly has some complex puzzles that tripped me up a little. Sadly it feels as though a lot of the time I spent playing the game was spent recovering from failed attempts at those puzzles. For instance I at one point put an orb in a spot that triggers a hurricane of sorts. It turned out to be the wrong solution, but the large area and my obscured vision resulted in me spending around 5-8 minutes trying to recover the orb. Even without messing up like that you still often need to walk some distance to get new orbs if you mess up. All in all, my experience playing the game was that it's both beautiful, fascinating, and frustrating. Even with all the annoyances I still enjoyed the game and was hooked all the way. It often feels like a game worth 3 stars, but I personally enjoyed it so much that I'm bumping it up a star. I definitely recommend it at a sale if you feel the price/hour is too high!
