I replay Return of the Obra Dinn every couple years and each time it's great fun and training for my deductive skills. It is a detective game in which you have to deduce the exact identities and fates of entire ship crew. There's mystery, there's detective work and there's interesting sory. I highly recommend to anyone who likes the "who did it?" type of play.
This was a very good rogue-like game when it came out. However think twice before you buy it today. After the DLCs came out, there were patches in the game that introduced changes making the game much harder without the DLC content. I enjoyed playing this game and came back to it now, after months of not playing it. I didn't buy any DLCs, so imagine my surprise when in my supposed-to-be vanilla version I got to fight a new enemy with a hint window at first encounter saying that one of the best ways to defeat him is to use Shieldbreaker abilities which is a DLC character. This is outrageous politics from the developer at the level of EA. If you want to buy this game, know that you need all DLCs, and even then be aware that you are supporting shady practices that we as gamers should not allow at any point.
What Remains of Edith Finch is of the same breed as Everybody's Gone to Rapture or Vanishing of Ethan Carter - a walking simulator with intriguing story. Fortunately the game did not repeat most common mistakes of other titles from this genre, the pacing although relatively slow, is steady and does it's job of keeping player engaged well. Story itself is quite interesting, leaving some open questions for you to answer yourself. That said many reviewers criticize this title for it's ending and I must agree that I have also expected something more revealing. Along with original narration comes good graphics and world design - in fact, sheer number of details placed in the game's world encourage to replay it, because only after you know the story, you are gonna be able to appreaciate all the little details placed literally at every corner. When it comes to gameplay, What Remains of Edith Finch does an interesting thing with incorporating a series of minigames, each quite original and in itself engaging. However those minigames are a bit inconsistent in length, some of them are relatively long and decidedly better than other, way shorter and less polished ones. All in all though, when compared to other similar titles, What Remains of Edith Finch does a good job of being something more than just a 'hold down the forward movement button' game. To sum up, What Remains of Edith Finch is a very good walking simulator and narrative game. However, as with all titles in this genre, it's not for everyone. The pacing is relatively slow and it feels more like reading a novel than playing a game. Also it's a bit short - I've finished the game in 2 hours. So if you're a fan of that type of video games, this is one of the best narrative title out there. Do remember though that even if you decide to do a second playthrough, you're gonna be done with the game in about 4 hours. It will leave you though with some thougths about life and death, so there's that.
