3 1/2. A really beautiful construct and interesting to play. Until you hit the ridiculous concrete maze thingie. From that point on, everything you've accomplished (I connected only two trees at that point) in the game is just a waste. The maze may be solvable - I did switch out a piece and find a path from tower thing where you look down at the maze to the device directly across (which seemed to open something else unattainable) - but wresting with the idiotic switching back and forth became appallingly tedious and far too time consuming compared to the rest of the game. And as the game seems to have some linear play plan that I missed, there was nothing else I could do once I reached the maze until I completed whatever was supposed to be the objective of the maze. The maze killed the fun. Happy to say I got this on sale here on GOG. If I'd paid full price, I'd want my money back.
I love playing this. The first few levels are simple but it does get more difficult as you progress. I think the machine requirements may be a little understated - I had no success getting it to run on my older i7 PC, but it works just fine on my new Legion laptop (using a wired Xbox controller.) Not an Adventure game really. I suppose Simulation and Exploration are ok for descriptive purposes but it's some kind of hybrid genre. (It does have it's own strange universe. I'd just call it Completely Different.) Anyway, it's fun, very satisfying if you don't give up on the higher levels, and is well worth the current asking price on GOG.
Splendid! ABZU is a lovely experience that can last as long as you want! I've seen the reviews here, but this is far from a 2-hour "game". It's more a "swim-through" and it really works as a meditational tool if you need a break from your day and it can last as long you want - I played it off and on for a couple of weeks and just reached the end and I'm pretty sure I'll go back to it a lot in the future. ABZU may not work on machines with low-end graphics. I tried it on a relatively new machine (a 2015 Dell desktop, Win 10, off-the-shelf i5) and it stalled out, but it was smooth as you could want on my 2009 Gateway FX (early i7, dual quad, ATI, Win 10 upgraded from Win 7, Xbox controller) and even though I got it here on sale (GOG) for $10 off, I'd say it was worth the full price. (Or wait for a sale if you're cheap like me.) Beautiful job and hats off to the many folks that brought it too life. I was moved enough to write this, my first game review on GOG and I'd recommend ABZU to anyone. BTW, the screen shots don't do it justice.
