LogFAQs > #969598670

Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)

There are 2 kinds of Puzzle games. One is a game that was made to make you feel clever that you beat it. The other is the opposite---it makes you feel stupid by never holding your hand and forcing you to challenge it. Obra Dinn is in the latter camp and it is a badly designed one at that. It disguises itself as intentionally hard by being badly designed. This mire of challenges only adds to my frustration. I literally just finished Voyage, a game that showcases ambiguity as a strength, rather than adding artificial difficulty to things.

I came into this thinking it was going to be some god tier puzzle adventure. But it's not even a good adventure. Like for one the payoff is totally not worth it and takes the cowardly explanation of "It's all ambiguous, you figure it out." in an attempt to be avante-garde but I did not just sit through hours of deliberate pacing just for the conclusion to fall flat. Did I have fun with this? I guess, yeah (once I figured how the game wanted me to assume things). Could it have done things better? Definitely.

Design decisions hold this game back: the lack of an ingame note taking feature, the inability to quickly swap between memories from anywhere and anytime, the deliberately monochrome aesthetic which while adds some mystique to it, makes for observing things intentionally difficult. So, I ended up not noticing a clue not because I couldn't make sense of it, but because I couldn't fucking see it at all even as I was staring into it.

The way the game is paced expects that you somehow memorize key events (some hidden within other events) and to be able to backtrack all around the ship to find the exact moment you're looking for. And I know I could just physically write things down but that's not the point. The point is the game is designed that it doesn't want you to do this. Playing it as intended and you'll get frustrated by how the game is and not the game itself.

There are better games like this: The Painscreek Killings, Kona, Quern: Undying Thoughts, Ether One---these are games that were designed to make you feel stupid, but they were legit challenges. Enjoyed the sea shanties though. And some of the character's deaths was worth watching like that asshole 2nd mate. But yeah, waste of my time honestly.