Recent reviews by Estranged2

The remake is pretty, the music is wonderful, the world feels bigger, it's done with a lot of attention and effort, it's more accessible... but remakes are almost always


and this one is not an exception.


The original LBA felt like an immersive sim even though it wasn't. This was misleading but felt great. The remake is more fair but but this fairness comes at the cost of a sense of richness and depth, making it feel less engaging:

• No more stealth whenever you want (I understand they did this because stealth mostly didn't work in the original, but it was nice to have the illusion that you can do it). Right now, it is reduced to a few very limited, scripted events and that's it.
  
  
• You can talk to LESS guards than in the original. Talking to enemies led to funny situations where you'd ask a clone about your arrested girlfriend and he'd tell you "This is none of your business" or directly hit you in the face, or guards that tell you to calm down or literally explain what they see as wrong with you (wearing an incorrect uniform). Some wouldn't react other than attacking but the fact that you could still tell them something was great.
  
  
• Missing NPC Routines Similarly, in the military camp there are some scripted NPC behaviours that are gone (the soldier looking for a toilet), which previously added humor and life to the setting...
  
  
• Broken NPC Routines ...while other NPC behaviours are broken just like in the original (the soldier that is afraid of you runs away from you and in the end gives you money to leave him alone... then immediately goes to his "normal" state, which is... shooting you. This was broken in LBA1 but here, it could have been fixed).

All these decisions were made because LBA is not as detailed as modern action-adventures such as Hitman, Red Dead Redemption 2, Dishonored, Kingdom Come: Deliverance. But ironically this approach ("we can't do it well, so we won't do it at all") now makes it even poorer in its mechanics.

• The Good - What drove me to the original LBA was how well it showed the oppressive world. The remake does it well, too, even more so, because the dialogues are much better. People are still afraid to help you, some betray you.
  
  The terror is expressed better (abandoned houses, destroyed in war). There's gradual descent into darkness (as it's done in LBA2 - your normal life is changed by the dictatorship without you noticing it at first) and also, the universe of LBA1 and LBA2 are made more coherent and connected - landmarks from LBA2 are retroactively and masterfully put in LBA1.
  
  
• Missed Opportunities - The surveillance machine on Citadel Island, which is similar to the flying cameras in Half-Life 2 but even more so, to the marching surveillance scene in INSIDE (where you have to do the same movements as everyone else while being watched), was not communicated well in the original LBA. It wasn't clear that it was forcing people to stop in their tracks, including you. Now this is even less clear.
  
  
• Less sexual truth - Because the game has become feminist in the most modern sense, Zoe is not a damsel in distress anymore, she's (as the trailer shows) leader of the resistance - this is perfectly okay, but guess what else? That lady that used to seduce the big clone so that you can sneak past now... doesn't, instead, this scene is replaced with something childish and unconvincing. So empowering women means denying the reality that they can use their sexual powers to solve problems. You'd think a French game wouldn't succumb to this, but here we are.
  
  
• Less mystery, more absurdity - In the old game it wasn't clear that (when getting in prison) the person slapping Twinsen is Funfrock. Now it is. I don't know how this makes any sense.

Also, there are


which, sadly, is the typical state of a modern game and modern, bloated software. Some bugs are dialogue related, others are visual, some are physical (collision / proximity to interact with something), some are broken scripted NPC events (like the ones I described above), some are even showstoppers (can't speak with a key NPC unless you're lucky).

I'll report dozens of those that I found to the team but that's not what truly matters. Let's look at the


How has the overall game changed? I'll give you just a few examples:

• Less Secrets To Unravel - The horse in White Leaf Desert / Principal Island didn't transport you anywhere in the original game, but he was there to show you the metroidvania aspect of the game - not being able to speak to animals in the beginning vs being able to. It's removed - and the game has less depth (again).
  
• Less Unique Surprises - no flowers saying "ouch" when you step on them. Another funny surprise that the player can figure out is gone. Was it too "low-tech" to stay? Fine, but nothing replaces it.
  
• Bad delivery - the NPCs that run away from you because they don't trust you could have disappeared behind a building / obstruction instead of you being able to reach them. Yes, the environment now works differently (they can't run to another "zone"), but they could go behind something, disappear and respawn later instead of the clumsy thing we have now.

I don't want to fill this section with nitpicking, so I'll just summarize with:

The main problem is that the game is less rich.

Some clunky mechanics, some things that may look ridiculous or underdeveloped, have been removed. However, a lot of depth has been removed with them, with nothing to replace it, and as a result the game feels more bland.


I bought the game three times (on GoG, Epic and Steam) to support the devs and I don't regret it. I'll probably buy it on Switch, too.
Steam doesn't provide a "meh" option, which would better represent my mixed feelings. Instead, I have to choose between thumbs up or thumbs down. I find it hard to force myself to continue playing. I also wouldn't recommend the game to friends because the moments I consider magical are botched. So I guess it's a thumbs down.

This is the second best game of the 21st century! Amazing mysterious adventure like no other.
Strong praise, huh? Let's try to break the gameplay down:

1) You have some optional chores such as taking care of a garden (like Don't Starve but without being as punishing. It's very chill and relaxing. The chores are strangely motivating you to keep trying to accomplish the truly important things.

2) You have "runs" and time limit that encourages you to explore things again (as in Outer Wilds, Elsinore, The Occupation, The Forgotten City) - but in my opinion it's more motivating than in any of these games.

3) Strange world, filled with mysterious puzzles (they remind me of another masterpiece - 32 apples)

4) Unique 3D graphics made of sprites - so in a way, this game is a better Ecstatica.

Why is it so good, though?

1) The puzzles make sense, but they also have many alternatives, and many of them are not obligatory. (In this sense, the demo of the game is misleading because the puzzles in it seem more restrictive then they are in the context of the full game). There's a lot of feedback on when you do things wrong and subtle hints.

2) The fact that you still have systemic tools (your gardening gear) makes the whole gameplay way more convincing but it also gives you something to do when you feel stuck.

3) Unlike many adventure games, you can die and your actions have consequences - but it's not too hard or too scary, just enough to show you there's something at stake.

4) Very strong atmosphere with surreal effects and different weather conditions. The game manages to put together emotions that you wouldn't expect to see at the same time: calm, relaxing life and horror, humour and dark mystery.

And, for the retro gamers, this is where the legacy of Sierra's games from the 80s would have gone if Little Big Adventure and Ecstatica have been more accessible in the 90s. This game, while being challenging, can also be played and completed by many people. The time loop and the chores are actually very motivating and solve many of the problems these types of games have. It's also relatively short (even if you go for the achievements) so it doesn't waste your time. It surprised me and got me thinking a lot about game design. It's worth every cent and I gifted it to many friends.

The game is a masterpiece, for several reasons:


I don't like very much detective games because they seem cynical - but this one is very different. It made me care for its characters, and it hit me hard emotionally when bad things happened to some of them. The first death made me cry every time I went to examine the dead body. It's difficult to say why it's so good at this - is it the abundance of closeups and talking portraits, the fleshed out motivation and personality everyone has, or the gradual progression of things getting worse for them but in any case, it's very well written.


The Crimson Diamond isn't trying to just tell you a story like most story-driven adventures. It is an actual game.

1) There are a lot of hidden conversations and evidence that you may fail to find. This makes the exploration and the conclusions that you make really meaningful. At the end the game points you in the direction of the things you missed, so this also makes it replayable. But you may get a satisfying end of the story even if you weren't perfect.
2) There are layers of problems, small scale (personal) and big scale (political). There are moral choices at the end, again, a small scale and a big scale one, and they both made me reflect and clarify decisions in my own life.

The elegant storytelling and design can be seen even in the movation of the protagonist (she's a mineralogist that has to turn into a detective). This is great, because initially I cared about my own goal (scientific exploration of minerals, finding diamonds) until I found some injustice that I cannot easily ignore. It means the player can identify with any motivation he or she likes:
1) fame and riches,
2) advancing science or
3) setting things that are very wrong right -
and then express this motivation.


I've played a lot of LucasArt style adventures from the 90s and there was something distorted, fake, lifeless and wrong about them that I could never explain. The Crimson Diamond demo (released several years ago) acquainted me with Sierra's style of adventure games. I was 42 at the time and because of this game, I played through half of Sierra's catalogue without any nostalgia. But they were made just for the type of person that I am and I felt excited as a child again to discover something so fresh and so wonderful.

Even though in TCD everything is scripted and relatively static:

1) there's "stealth" that feels "systemic", eavesdropping that can fail and situations you can miss. NPCs move around and do things. Let me repeat, this is relatively static and scripted compared to even more advanced adventures such as Elsinore, but it is super important that it's there and unlike the rotten 90s trend.
2) Dangerous situations may result in death, just like in real life. It's nothing unfair, just an invitation to use common sense, which raises the stakes and makes things more immersive.
3) At the same time, the game feels modern. It has very nice onboarding, an optional tutorial, it has a lot of quality of life improvements and won't be as frustrating as some people find the 80's games that inspired it. Very elegant design that manages to both lean into the design pillars of the 80's games and at the same time translate them for a modern audience.


The game is:
* dramatic
* immersive (secrets, choices, consequences, even some action)
* authentic but accessible

It's amazing, and it's done by someone who just loved something a lot and wanted to share this love with us.

THE GOOD NEWS:

1) The *music* is fantastic.
2) The *art* is fantastic - I was skeptical about it but in-game it looks great and rich, with nice animations, too
3) The game still captures the *oppressive*, and at the same time, *charming* spirit of the original LBA, with more refined storytelling.
4) Very *accessible* and *modern*. People who couldn't handle LBA1 will finally be able to play it. Very nice design decisions, where little things (like the teleports being unusable by Twinsen) are signaled in much more subtle and efficient ways.

THE BAD:

1) I don't like that *stealth* is completely *removed*. I see why it was decided to cut this feature (there are no actual stealth mechanics in the original LBA, so including them would mean making good stealth mechanics from scratch, which is hard and beyond the scope of a small indie game). However, their existence as a *verb* at all times contributed to immersion and the game being unpredictable.
The original LBA was so surprising, that you never knew what you'll find or experience next. Part of this were the simple but varied "verbs" you had. Examples: You escape a psychiatric hospital by disguising yourself as a nurse (similar to Hitman), discover an artifact in an ancient temple filled with traps and animated skeletons (Tomb Raider), steal something that technically belongs to your family from a heavily guarded museum (any Thief game), and complete various missions in the cities (any quest or RPG).
Making stealth scripted and contextual (because it already was) is fair but this way, part of this richness is lost.

2) I don't like that you can *talk to less guards* then you could in the original - for the same reason. Being able to talk even to guards made the game richer and unpredictable.

3) I don't like that *Funfrock is explicitly shown* as the one throwing you in prison. In the original LBA this was way more subtle and made more sense. Here it's in your face and a bit ridiculous.

SUGGESTIONS FOR POLISH:

1) It would be great, for *keyboard* controls, to have the *OPTION* to attack in the direction that Twinsen is facing (just like with the gamepad), and not in the direction of the cursor. I don't like to see the cursor in my games, it's less immersive.

2) When *reading the posters*, Twinsen should *turn to face them*.

3) The *looking glass* in the UI looks like *the letter Q*, which is confusing and makes you (incorrectly) think that you interact with "Q".

SOME BUGS:

1) The ladder at the dock doesn't work.
2) The animation for climbing into the pipe that leads back to the prison doesn't match the pipe. Either the pipe has to be reworked or the animation has to be updated.
3) Z-fighting on one of the portraits at the top left corner of the second floor of the tavern.
4) Z-sorting problem with a poster in the storage room with the crates.

Arranger is a game that focuses on its weird world and story, filled with philosophical ideas and deep metaphors. I love it (so far). The puzzles are not hard, as many reviewers have noticed, but if all you look for in puzzles is challenge or epiphany you are missing out because puzzles may be just about presenting interesting new ideas to you and this is also a very worthwhile experience that I can share with more people.
THANK YOU to the creators of this game for the wonderful art, world, story and fun gameplay ideas. I'll update my review as I approach the end of the game (won't be soon because I'm busy and I love the fact that the game is allegedly short).

THE ULTIMATE ACTION-ADVENTURE

Little Big Adventure is a unique game. Your tasks vary greatly: escape a psychiatric hospital by disguising yourself as a nurse (similar to Hitman), discover an artifact in an ancient temple filled with traps and animated skeletons (Tomb Raider), steal something that technically belongs to your family from a heavily guarded museum (any Thief game), and complete various missions in the cities (any quest or RPG). It is so rich and surprising - you never know what you'll find or experience next.

But LBA also gave me a feeling that I've always appreciated when I had experienced it in a movie or a book: the feeling of being a fugitive. The feeling that I can't shop in peace, use the library, or travel without being recognized and turned in to the police. That my girlfriend gets arrested because of me, and later, I lose my own home as well. And all of this is woven into the gameplay. On the one hand, people can be afraid of you and distrust you; on the other, you can't know if the person before you will betray you or if they are simply a pawn of the regime.

You also find yourself in a living, breathing world. Like an archaeologist, you learn about this world and the past of your own people. You learn to speak the language of animals (animals can help you reach inaccessible places and tell you what they've seen). You learn to read ancient runes, which you previously couldn't understand. You acquire your own means of transportation - a catamaran, powerboat, dragon (the setting, like BG&E, combines modern technology and magic). So the feeling of becoming stronger and changing the world for the better intensifies as you progress in the game (your enemies, however, also change the world for the worse...).

In my opinion, LBA is the game of all games, embodying the best of their essence. The only other similar game I can compare it to is its spiritual successor, Beyond Good and Evil.

COMPARISON WITH BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL

Yet, even that isn't a fair comparison. BG&E has a more exciting story, a real companion who helps you during the adventure, and better level design in its "Tomb Raider" section. Many things in BG&E were done much better and more accessible, but it simply couldn't surpass the bar set by LBA.

Here's why I think so: unlike LBA, BG&E doesn't have a true world - with all the diversity and interconnectedness one could expect from a world. There's no real conflict with the government (the creators of BG&E probably wanted to avoid having the player kill police officers misled by the same government), there's no conflict with the people themselves (no one turns you over to the police), and you aren't a fugitive despite working against the authorities (while playing BG&E, I expected my in-game credit card to become illegal at some point, but it never happened). As a result, all this didn't convince me that I'm really in a paranoid society ravaged by war and manipulated by propaganda. LBA, on the other hand, effectively portrays the random evil of a dictatorial regime while, in contrast to its dark setting, is filled with energy, optimism, and humor.

TOO FRUSTRATING FOR MODERN PLAYERS

That said, the control scheme and save system of LBA will be very confusing and frustrating to modern players. It is a challenge that's not for everyone. That's why you may have more luck with the more friendly gameplay of Little Big Adventure 2 (it has much better onboarding, too), or with the upcoming remake of Little Big Adventure 1, or with Beyond Good And Evil, if you haven't played it. And if you're already a fan of LBA, you absolutely must try the last masterpiece of Frederick Raynal, the immersive sim 2Dark.

Don't buy it. After all the hoops you have to jump through, you won't be able to run the game you bought.

A very original and smart puzzle game; a true masterpiece. I was so lucky to find it.

- PORTALS: Just like portal, the game uses portals but goes much deeper into this idea in ways in which the Portal games never dared to do. For example, the portals can have very long objects stuck inside them (including yourself - being a snail, your body is also a bit long); they can be moved and rotated around WITH the objects sticking out of them, and the portal's interaction with liquids makes much more sense than the one in Portal 2; causing interesting floods and rivers that can extinguish fires.
BUT WAIT! Portals can even go inside other portals! You can put a portal in a portal in a portal and the game will not break! It's insanely good and answers all unanswered Portal questions in its own unique way.

- RUBIK'S CUBE: Just like "Stephen's Sausage Roll" and "Pipe Push Paradise", objects can be rotated in space and their surfaces matter. For example, make the portal on a block face the ground and you have effectively blocked the portal. Objects stack and interact, allowing you to build interesting structures.

- SNAKEBIRD: Some of the charm of "Snakebird" is here, too: you can slide your 2 tile long body underneath some objects, or you can block your own body if you put yourself into a situation that is too tight. This is one of those few Sokoban puzzles that truly feel 3D not just by using several floors but by really giving you more options.

- ALTERNATIVES: Similar to Pudding Monsters, some puzzles have multiple solutions; the less actions you do (especially using or pivoting portals), the more "efficient" the solution is. These solutions feel very different but their existence not exposed to you so you're not told explicitly how many solutions a level has. Unlike some other players, I personally don't have trouble with this and it makes the game even richer for me.

Playtime:
My playtime here is just 2 hours here because I bought it on itch and actually played it there. I bought it here as well just so that I can write this review because it seems A Slug's Dream doesn't get the attention it deserves in the Sokoband community. That said, judging by the world map, it feels 1/3 to 1/2 shorter than Snakebird or Stephen's Sausage Roll but for me this is actually a plus. I don't like games that drag on too long. IMO it has more than enough puzzles to give you a wonderfully rich experience.

Challenge:
The game is on the challenging end but I find it slightly easier than "Stephen's Sausage Roll" and "Snakebird" (the difficult version) - but not by much. What's more important though is that A Slug's Dream never gets old and always surprises you with its ideas and the epiphanies you have. It is brilliantly designed. What is very notable is that its author just nailed it, he did this wonderful design in a way that hints at a strong natural talent.

This is a great metaphor for what I did for women in my 20s. It's an even more accurate metaphor for what I do now for my bosses in my 40s. That's the bummer about it – it takes me back to all those slip-ups I made and keep making in my life. :( Pathetic and sad!

[awkward silence]

So, uh, Puddle Knights is a very well designed puzzle game but keep in mind it's similar to (and even harder than) Snakebird! That said, it follows the latest (positive) game design trends in Sokoban style puzzle games, including emergent interactivity, composite objects, etc. It's... uh... it's really good.

[exits sloshing through the mud]

Tunic is somewhat similar to Fez. It's eye-catching and it'll take dozens of hours before you realize that you have been cheated. What is the problem? Tunic's puzzles are very, very boring - just like the way in which the puzzles of Fez are bad.
I liked a bit one of the twists, but overall, when you solve them instead of "Aha!" all you will feel is "Meh".

I'm saying this as a person who likes and solves difficult logical puzzles (Snakebird, Stephen's Sausage Roll, English Country Tune, The Witness) and also likes exploration and environmental puzzles (the earliest Tomb Raiders, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, the puzzle driven Zelda games, Project Eden, Ico) and of course, good 80s and 90s adventure games.

From one point on, you are basically asked to "decipher these weird patterns and symbols, or figure out this one little thing in this enormous world". If you like cryptography, interpretation and deciphering for the sake of it, with no other justification... you'd better pick up a better game that does exactly these, like The Witness (patterns) or Heaven's Vault (language). Solving them isn't hard, it just feels like a chore, even less interesting than what I do at my day job. The puzzles are also pointlessly contrived; they don't follow from the emergent properties of the world. Obfuscation and red herrings for the sake of it. And the worst part - some puzzles have clear instructions once you notice them or obtain them, but the author has no idea in how many ways his "clear instructions" can be validly interpreted (in one particular case, it's hundreds).

It's notable that Tunic sells very well because of false advertising, or, more accurately put, because of the impression of "Dark Souls meets Zelda" it creates. In reality, it is "Fez but with added combat". Both Fez and Tunic feed on the nostalgia for exploration and discovery that old games provided and do it badly.

The worst part is that you can't figure out a game like this before you have wasted your money and, more importantly, A LOT OF YOUR PRECIOUS TIME. A demo wouldn't tell you enough; someone else's opinion may be irrelevant because they may be just dumb or not into that kind of thing. This is what bothers me the most. I'm used to exploration / puzzle games being rare and good. Now I have to be paranoid about my favourite genre. Maybe that's what I paid for: I paid for this bitter lesson. But you don't have to.