The more this game sits with me the more I realize it should be hailed as a brilliant masterpiece. Such intelligent game design on display, such masterful level design, unparalleled environmental story telling. This game carries on much of the design philosophies that made Riven special, and while that game basks in its "classic" status, I feel like Obduction might end up being forgotten, which it doesn't deserve. I honestly consider this an improvement over Riven, and the crowning achievement of Cyan.
Think of this as 1 1/2 stars. MDK 1 is an awesome little shooter. Focused and succinct. The sequal only has faint traces of what made the original fun. It's a boring, frustrating attempt to flesh out the formula. The game is DESPARATE to increase playtime. Extending playtime for the sake of it has ruined many games, and this is no different. The game loves tedium, making you do the same things over and over again, making levels big and tedious to navigate around, making objectives unclear, infinitley respawning enemies. I can't emphasise obfuscated objectives enough, so often while playing this all I could think was "What am I supposed to do???" A lot of the objectives seem intentionally obtuse and unintuitive, making the game range from boring to extremely frustrating. The idea to have all 3 main characters be playable isn't bad on paper, but in practice the game feels unfocused. The Doctor feels clunky to play as and his main gimmiick is undercooked. Kurt is pretty much the same as he was in MDK 1, but is given less time to enjoy all his mechanics. Max the dog is way too simple. Maybe if the game let you swap between characters mid level it would be cool, but forcing you to play entire levels as one character was a huge misstep. The game has pockets of fun, then it decides to stop, then it decides to be fun again, then it decides to stop. Couldn't stand it.
(slight spoilers) Really fantastic stuff in this game, preserving everything that made the original special while enhancing it/adding to it. Some seriously brilliant game design decisions on display in this game, and stunning visuals. On the topic of character animations, I think people are a bit unfair towards them. First of all, the character animations in this game are a huge improvement over what was seen in Myst 2021, and are never *distracting* like the ones in that game were. Secondly not all the animations are of the same quality, it's more of a spectrum. Some are a bit wonky but still ok (Atrus falls into this category imo) Some look pretty good and well done (Gehn) and some look downright fantastic, I think of the imager recordings for Aitrus and Anna. Anna especially, that one looked borderline live action. As for issues with the game, it's not really the games fault but it is more tedious to get around in this version than the original. The Starry Expanse is obviously an attempt to mitigate this, and while it's super cool from a narrative context, I actually found it more tedious than just going by foot to where I wanted to be.
Better story, better writing, more focused, better than Coteries in pretty much every way. Glad to have a predefined character that gets some depth instead of picking from a few shallow options like in Coteries, those kind of pseudo RPG elements like picking a bloodline really have no place in short visual novels like these. Shadows embraces its identity as a simple visual novel and is better for it. While it is better than Coteries, I don't think you should skip the preceding game. Pretty much the entire cast returns from Coteries and it helps to already know who they are.
I don't really understand some of the hate this game gets. It's a solid little shooter, as was the first game. People talk about the first game like it's an incredible classic, and this was the terrible sequel that ruined everything, when to me they're both at nearly the same quality. Just simple, fun little shooters. Much better games you could be playing that inspired them, but they're enjoyable. I prefer the first game but not by a landslide or anything. RF2 is more simple and repetitive, but it's fun so I didn't mind doing the same thing over and over. One thing this game absolutely has over the first is the vibe. The first game was nothing but brown caves and brown corridors. It wasn't bad for a game that relied almost entirely on that, it did squeeze a nice mood out of it, but this has a much stronger feel. When you're down in the sewers and the subway tunnels, it almost evokes the same feeling as playing SiN. It does sometimes rely on duller environments, but it has its strong points.
I don't even care that it's an asset flip, what's worse is that none of the elements come together, Visually, sonically, the game design, the enemies, none of it has any cohesion to it. Having absurdly fast movement with precision aiming that you need to slow down for... isn't a great mix. It kind of came together at the end with that giant boss enemy, because you can actually aim at that kind of target while moving super fast. I'd bet this was more coincidental though rather than intentional and good enemy design. Enemies just run at you in a train fashion, making it easy to drop them one by one. I guess I appreciate the sub challenges which sort of encourage you to play in certain ways. The absolute worst thing about this is the price. This game should be free, or maybe MAYBE a dollar if they added just a bit more content. As it is, this price is a borderline scam. I beat the game in around 20 minutes, that's including the sub challenges. No incentive to replay it, nothing other than the six levels, just absurd pricing. Thank god I got this in a bundle.
In game textures and skyboxes simply do not load. All the geometry appears as plain white and grey, on top of a pure white background. Nothing in the settings affects the textures, but turning the Clouds option to off does make the skyboxes load (???) And speaking of the graphics settings, going into that menu can break the game. The options will appear as empty boxes and suddenly none of the buttons do anything, can't back out, can't change anything, I'm forced to close the game entirely. The game itself isn't frozen, it's just that the menu locks you in. The only way I've found to fix this is by playing the game at certain resolutions, 640x480 is the only one that lets me into the graphics settings without locking me down.
Know by heart is a lovely, beautifully told story. The game does have some jank, some things could have been a bit more polished, but none of it truly takes away from the wonderful experience Ice Pick Lodge presents with this title. The game is a wonderful addition to the IPL catalogue, and I’m excited to see what other projects they release in the future.
This game is fantastic, if you like narrative, atmosphere, and innovation, play this game. Just go into it with a point and click adventure game mindset rather than an RPG mindset, because while there are Role Playing elements there isnt any combat or anything like that. I consider it an Adventure game.
A lot of reviewers seem to think the game was too difficult or too vague with its mechanics. Frankly I have no idea what these people are talking about. Its very easy to get a grasp on all the mechanics and systems. The game is also easy as hell. its kind of challenging in the beginning when you have few supplies, putting you in bad and stressful situations, which is what you want from a survival game. But quickly you start to gather an excess amount of supplies, you always have everything you need. if you get all the backpack upgrades and raft inventory upgrades (neither of which are expensive to make) you can hold even more supplies, ensuring you always have what you need in a SURVIVAL game. The game has a rain system, its bad to be out in the rain so you should seek shelter once the storm comes. this creates some neat moments when a storm arrives and you quickly have to get back on the raft and search for an island that has some shelter. but you can get an upgrade which is very cheap to make that puts a tent on your raft, meaning that you always have shelter all the time whenever you need it. The rain literally stops being a threat! and resting barley eats into your hunger and thirst, and I mean barley. but it restores tons of your exhaustion meter, there is literally no point to exhaustion once you get the raft shelter! I realize I have been horrifically negative, but I do like this game. it looks wonderful, decent music, and while the gameplay wasn't challenging it was still somewhat enjoyable. I recommend it if its on sale.
