FANTASTIC concept, executed prototype-playably. But it's buggy (e.g. my gene editing level dropping to zero when I restart the game - not when I start a new Save, but when I close out and reopen the game itself), not well balanced (esp. in terms of timing)... I love the idea of the genetics panel, but it's hard to use and not well explained, plus you lack all the mass-data comparisons that real geneticists rely on (I should be able to stack 3-6 genomes atop one another to make comparisons to isolate the traits I want, not just two). If it's on massive sale and you're into this kind of thing then give it a try, but otherwise probably not worth most peoples' money.
I LOVE this game; as a fan of all the Myst games this scratched a big itch for me (especially since it came out before the Riven remake). The puzzles are imaginative, diverse, and span a range of difficulties. The music and visuals are incredibly atmospheric - always a huge plus for me - and I enjoyed the story; it even prompted quite a debate between my sister and I since we each preferred different endings. If you like puzzle games like I do then this was an 11/10 and you should definitely try it.
Is this a *fantastic* game? Not necessarily. But it's full of nostalgia for me, still very fun to casually play, and I adore the concept even if the sprite art is too dated for some peoples' tastes (not mine - I love the classic 80's/90's look and feel to games).
It was a fun game with an interesting story, but the puzzles were, for me at least, fairly easy and straightforward (that said I'm a puzzle gamer, so perhaps I'm more familiar with the kinds of logic and deductions needed than the average gamer). A good time-kill, and definitely nice to "play with plants" at the end of a cold winter when I'm craving some green to enjoy. Would recommend.
Do I wish the gameplay were a tad more structured/algorithmic? Sure. But it's a deceptively engaging and complex game for how simple the gamepley loop is and I've been enjoying playing it (new player) over the last few days.
As a huge fan of the original game I was amazed by the remake: a fresh takes on several existing puzzles, *new* puzzles that fit the atmosphere of the original game, and an environment that exceeded all my expectations of fidelity for a 3D environment - the sense of realism the original stills gave was retained even in 3D, which is a hard feat even for newer games to pull off. My only two criticisms were the characters: they were flat, both the animations and some of the new voice performances (for all I love Rand, his original performance of Atrus was better - also the model needed to be more emotive), and also the new fissure fast-travel system - it wasn't all that fast, and while I found the lore additions fascinating and the globe rotation mechanic intriguing I didn't think the music blended well (I listen to the original soundrtack all the time and the fissue music feels out of place by comparison - not bad, just mismatched) and I felt the globe rotation was unnecessary. Overall the new fissue felt very Obduction-like, not as much Riven-like. Criticisms all said, I still *loved* this remake; I will be playing it again once I forget how to do half the puzzles, and I loved the lore additions, both novel (e.g. the powermarbles in the fissue) and additions from the novels. I specifically want to call-out Anna's portrayal; the one character model that I thought was believably emotive, and the actress did an amazing job making me feel the emotions in her lines as well - exactly how I'd imagine Anna sounding after walking Gehn out of the volcano at the end of her book.
