I'm fascinated by linguistics, and the process by which people acquire language, so this is right up my alley. I really appreciate how the developers anticipated players' actions (or inaction...or lack of attentiveness) and provided a means to replay NPC actions and dialogue in case they missed it the first time around. There is also a fair amount of foreshadowing for some of the more obscure puzles (which, in most cases, you won't even realize until after you've encountered the puzzle, but still). My four gripes with the game are: 1) a lot of thepuzzles can be solved by simply rotating each element systematically until you get the right combination (think of the Eagle/Snake/Whale steles in Skyrim)...although, in some cases, that would require 64 (or 512, in one case) combinations to try; 2) some of the drawings that go with the symbol you're trying to decipher are really off (for example, SPOILER: I already knew what the symbol for "pot" was, and there was a slot in the translation book that showed hands on a pot...but it would not accept the symbol for "pot". Turns out, they wanted you to put the symbol for "make" there, as it was a drawing showing someone MAKING a pot; the drawing really should not have shown the entire pot, and better yet, just shown hands with motion arrows); 3) the geographical layout is really hard to nail down; I've played this three hours, and—except for a courtyard with a stele having symbols on it that tell you where you'll go if you head east, west, or north (and yes, you have to translate the symbols, but that's the cool part)—I really cannot get a grasp of how the different locations are connected; and finally, 4) You can't choose to save the game whenever you want; you either have to trigger an auto save, or use the one save kiosk in the whole game (which doesn't even tell you it saves the game!). Still, overall, a good experience I'd recommend if you like feeling like a master translator!
