Recent reviews by Faustian Man

▪ The Blackwell Legacy is an old Adventure game. It was a pet project made in the early 2000s in AGS (Adventure Games Studio) and it shows. It's not that there's naught to like in the game, but it is pretty janky, short, often annoying, and rough around the edges.

Gameplay:
▪ It is your standard Adventure game fare. Point here, click there, solves puzzles. It's overall fairly plain and intuitive. I never really felt particularly challenged or puzzled except for one or two points in which the mechanics, or rather controls, of the game weren't clear. The game uses a note-based deduction system which is cool but wholly under utilised.

Story:
▪ As revealed in the outline this isn't a game for big expectations. There isn't so much a story as there is contextualisation for what is going on. Meeting the characters and so on is fine enough, but don't expect an actual story to sink your teeth into.

Characters & Writing:
▪ I think it's clear, especially after listening to the developer's commentary that a good deal of thought went in the writing. However, as the developer would admit, mistakes were made in his early learning period. The characters and the writing are one part serviceable, one part interesting, and one part tonally weird and off-putting.

Visuals:
▪ It's something of a mixed bag. All serviceable graphics. Some more pleasant or interesting that others.

Music & Sound:
▪ Easily one of the biggest drawbacks of the game is the sound. The music is just awful in every way. The pieces are unpleasant compositions, they're levelled very poorly (I hope you like kick drums!), they are on another planet tonally speaking to the scenes they're used in, and they're mixed so high in the output with no way to adjust the level. It's hard to make out a lot of dialogue because you have this obnoxious, bizarre music blasting at you. Some very strange choices here.

Also the dialogue is very rough around the edges. Not only in delivery but in recording and production.

Achievements:
▪ Half progression, half meta goals. Fine enough. I will add that one involves replaying the game with the developer commentary. Something that would be very annoying typically, but it's such a short game that it's no big deal and listening to the commentary was actually quite entertaining.


▪ This was a small AGS game from what feels like a life or two ago. So it's hard to criticise it all that much. I tend to be pretty generous with my positive reviews. Even games that have rubbed me up the wrong way I'll often give a positive review if there's some redeeming quality. My conception is that if I consider the title to be in the top 50% of games of its genre, I'll give it a thumbs up. This game is not that, which is why I've chosen to give it a negative review.

I bought the entire Blackwell series in a bundle and intend to play them all through. There must be something more to enjoy if they ran on for five games in total. If when I get to the end of the series I consider the series to be in the top 50% as a complete experience, I will leave an edit and change this to a positive review to compel others to give it a try.

You can ignore my playtime. With great anticipation I followed the development/release of this game closely since it was announced, and have an intimate understanding of the games issues and successes.

With that said, the game commits a few cardinal sins which means I cannot recommend it until these issues are resolved. I will outline the major issues below. As and when Frontier resolves these issues I will scrub this review for a positive endorsement.

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First off, I was the target audience for this sequel. I love waterpark features in Theme Park style games. During the life cycle of PC1 I hoped very much for an expansion in the vein of RCT3 Soaked. Considering that this is the studio that brought us RCT3 Soaked, it is bewildering to me some of the errors that have been made. But it doesn't end at the waterpark features. There are numerous missteps that any given videogame pedestrian could have spotted.

1. MAJOR ISSUE (Non-simulated water slides)
- Half of the fun of RCT3 Soaked was in the construction of the slides. When puzzling out their designs, having to worry about whether a rider would fly off the side of the slide on a turn, or get thrown in to the stratosphere going too fast over a bump. Having made waterparks the core selling point of this sequel and not having understood the significance of this shows a serious deficiency in the minds of the direction team at Frontier. Not to mention, that it's not just the gameplay but the visual faults of current canned-track system. It just looks awful.

2. MAJOR ISSUE (Console priority)
- If there are any genres of videogames that are intrinsically PC in pedigree they are Strategy & Management games. A powerful computer, a mouse & keyboard, and a more 'serious', i.e non-casual, kind of player were intrinsic in the formation of these genres. So the first, and embarrassing, misstep in logic is here.

- The second misstep is in base historical knowledge of videogames. I ask Frontier, how many games - specifically traditionally PC games - have failed or had their success stifled by their development team prioritising console play or for otherwise wanting to unify development between the PC and console versions? The past decade or so is an endless parade of such releases. It is a fools errand, and it is additionally foolish given the history available. What is the definition of insanity, Frontier?
The better question is the contrary, How few titles have managed success despite doing this? Skyrim? Any others?

- Essentially, Frontier, as professionals, had every opportunity to sidestep this obvious trap, and yet they walked right in to it. Limiting performance and features for PC players at the expense of console players? No, no, no. Ruining the user experience of PC players to accommodate a unified user interface? No, no, no. These things ought never have even been an issue, and that they are is what gives me the most concern about the degeneration in professional quality at Frontier. Which leads on to my final major issue

3. MAJOR ISSUE (A rushed release)
- It is quite clear to all who have paid close attention that this release was unnecessarily rushed to meet the desired, presumably pre-christmas, released date. Is this the Frontier I know? I wouldn't have thought so. To string us along their with their pre-release materials and streams. Conning us in to thinking everything is fine, when in fact the game could have done with a serious delay, and a community test period. This is quite intolerable and I suspect has struck off a good deal of goodwill Frontier has built up over the years.

Let's go back to PC1, and just how open Frontier were. The community involvement in the development. The long alpha/testing period, etc. Who is at Frontier now? Has another party bought a dominating share in Frontier publishing? Are they even a public company? It makes no sense.

There are bugs, details & expected run-of-the-mill features missing everywhere. They even pushed a build with a game-breaking bug that prevents peeps from getting on waterslides to their early access influencers. The people who are supposed to be showing off how great the game is. It's bananas, and completely unnecessary.

All this bad reputation for nothing. Just look at the Steam reviews. Is this what they wanted? Is this what they expected? I hope they were expecting it, because the team must have a screw loose otherwise. Had they just pushed back the release date to properly finish the game all of this could have been avoided and they would have had a stellar release on their hands. I just can't understand it.

- - - In Closing - - -
I really want to love this game, and it is clear that there is an amazing core ready to be utiliised. However, as it is now I have no desire to play the game, and worse-still I feel taken advantage of. This is the first pre-order I've made in over a decade, breaking my rule because I trusted in the solid reputation of Frontier based on their past conduct, and they've made a fool of me. Shame on them.

I'm writing this review because I believe in the game. I believe in Frontier. I hope that they read it. I want them to succeed and I want the game that was promised. However, until these issues are addressed, I'd rather spare myself. I'll come back and play the game as it was intended. As it was marketed. As it was sold to me. Not whatever this is.

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I had to load the game up just to leave a review. Since I had no desire to actually play the game I thought I'd just check out some other peoples creations. Good lord, was that another horrendous shock.

First off, console focused development strikes again. The Frontier workshop is a clunky nightmare to get around, and only eight blueprint boxes are shown on screen at any one time. Great if you're sat back on a sofa I presume, not so efficient on PC, though.

Secondly, if I wanted to sort the blueprints by rating: workshop crash. Scroll through the blueprint too fast: workshop crash. Select a blueprint the game wasn't happy about: workshop crash. This really is outrageous.

Thirdly, once I finally got in to someone's park I noticed some other things that had not been highlighted by others.

1. Ride attendants teleport to their stations as soon as they reach the queue-line for that ride. Is it really beyond Frontier to have the attendants walk all the way to their stations or is this another product of a slap-dash development?

2. Slide riders, when next to go, run (ice-skate) to their slide and then teleport in to the riding position. Again, I do not believe that it is beyond Frontier, in ability or will, to animate these actions properly. As they stand they're ugly, off-putting, and immersion breaking. This is supposed to be a simulation game. You can't cut corners like this, and again it just seems like another thing that had to concede to the ridiculous release schedule.


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Edit: 1 - It seems like Frontier have taken onboard more or less everyone's criticisms. I think that the majority of my criticisms have been addressed and should be fixed or otherwise implemented. Time will tell but it's looking good.

▪ The Room 3 is another series of puzzle filled rooms, with a haunting and mystical theme. Atmospheric, cryptic, and compelling. However, where this entry advances in one respect, it falls down in another.

Gameplay:
▪ It is in this category that the game feels like a step back from its predecessors. While there are still myriad interesting puzzles to complete, the overall quality of the puzzles has diminished substantially. Many of them are incredibly simple. So simple that they verge on rote busy work. Turn this crank, press that button. Some accidentally solvable, and some solvable via meta deduction not intrinsic to the puzzle design itself. Pretty disappointing.

A big issue here is that the puzzle box focus has mostly been left behind due to the now sprawling hub-based nature of the level design. While this new format bring some benefits, unfortunately much of the puzzling suffers.

Another big issue is the overall interfacing with the game world. The controls haven't changed at all, but the layers of interaction seem unnecessarily clunky in this entry. So many extra double-clicks to focus on an area of interest which don't seem necessary, and then at other times when it did seem necessary it was absent. Worse still, of all the times I was stuck on what to do, a majority of them were due to my having tried to interact with something, and nothing happening, when in fact that was the thing I needed to interact with but the interface just didn't respond as expected.
Another issue on this front is the mouse. I'm an old Counter-Strike player, so I have my mouse at a low sensitivity by default, and for some of the interactions it was just not possible to complete the movement without changing my DPI. An issue I didn't have with the previous entries.

Lastly, as with the other entries there are a ton of forced camera movements when going to and from areas of interest. However, in this game there are many more forced movements, they are much slower, and they take a long time to end. So you're locked out waiting for the animation to end a great deal which becomes frustrating. Given that they moved to a freely navigable hub, I think it may have made more sense to just switch to a free move system.

Other than those issues, the hub system does open some new doors. It feels a little bit more immersive I suppose, and there are reasons to re-evaluate areas you've past previously and so on. Which, was a nice surprise.

Story:
▪ This is one area in which the game has advanced. This entry finally makes sense of the impenetrable story of the last two, and also brings a new perspective on what's going on. It even brings some closure on matters, and as I said introduces multiple endings. The writing is good and despite the game not being quite as spooky the last game, the story component gets pretty dark.

Visuals:
▪ Graphically the game looks the same as the previous entries. Which is to say very good. However, this time, there is a lot more going on, and a great deal more spectacle. It's overall less spooky, but still a visual treat.

Music & Sound:
▪ Not a lot to report that I recall. All serviceable stuff. Probably could have built a better atmosphere with the sound.

Achievements:
▪ Again, purely progression related achievements. This time with the addition of achievements for each alternative ending.


▪ The third in the series delivers more spectacle but at a cost. That which is added is negated by that which is taken away. It's still a decent puzzle game, but perhaps just not as solid as the first two. However, I'd still recommend it for those who have played the previous titles.

▪ The sequel continues in the exact same fashion as the first entry. A series of moody, puzzle-box filled levels, dressed up with a rather esoteric and impenetrable narrative theme.

Story:
▪ As impenetrable as the first. Each room has it's own self-contained story, which is great and implemented fine. However, the overarching tale comes at you so fragmented it's hard to really getting a grip of it. Perhaps that's supposed to be the point, though. It's mostly just the ramblings of a mad man.

Gameplay:
▪ As I said, it's more of the same. A series of rooms filled with, mostly, first-rate puzzle-box style puzzles. The interface and general flow are exactly the same. Again, the puzzles are mostly intuitive and well designed. There was plenty of challenge but little need to refer to the in-game hints. Only one or two rather obscure road-blocks in which I wasn't even sure what I was supposed to be doing next.

Visuals:
▪ It's been a while since I played the first, but this entry feels as though they amped up the spook factor. There's some quality visuals throughout, and every levels is a new setting keeping it fresh.

Music & Sound:
▪ There's very little music, but a heavy does of environmental ambience. It can get pretty spooky. All the sound effects for the contraptions and so on are also great.

Achievements:
▪ Straight forward progression related achievements.


▪ As with the first I strongly recommend it for anyone interested in a puzzle game.

Outline:
Mystwood is a straight-forward Escape Room style puzzle game. It's a pretty short but solid experience. A series or 6 rooms or so, each containing numerous puzzles. Each room is pretty well thought out. While some puzzles were a bit easy, plenty had me scouring the room for clues or things I may have missed.

The paramount point in the games credit is that I don't think I ever had to refer to a walkthrough (Apart from a missing achievement I couldn't solve). As I said, some of it isn't easy, but I always found it intuitive.

Graphics & Music:
The art style is pretty, the music is nice enough if a bit overly melancholy and repetitive.

Achievements:
There are no nonsense achievements. Just a series of progression and added objective achievements.


Verdict:
For what it is, it does it well. It's not aiming to be a big experience, but for puzzle-heads it's certainly worth a go. I think it could be especially great for those who have younger, school-aged players in the family they'd like to get in to puzzling and problem solving.

Outline:
The degree to which this exceeded my expectations is unreal. I picked it up at a big discount on a whim thinking that maybe it'll have some redeeming qualities. I'm a big Adventure Game fan and do appreciate mature content, but I find almost all 'mature' games to be pretty trash. This is a serious exception.

As with any of these kinds of games I would hesitate to call them mature, but this game compared to the others is. While it gets pretty full on in places and may push too many boundaries for some kink-wise, everything it does is tastefully lit and clearly treated with care and attention.

Most of these kinds of games are shot and lit like a cheap soap opera with no attention to the art of it all. Everything being a flimsy excuse to push out some shoddy XXX scenes. This game is entirely different. The scenes are beautifully rendered and we're not rushed to get there.
The game is a slow burn. We're put in to what feels like a living world, with tons to explore, surprises to be found, endless puzzles and secrets, tons of characters, scenes, comedy, and so on. It's something of a mashup of the old saucy New Grounds games and mid-century Cinema Erotica. Like the works of Tinto Brass and so on. It's prefect.

Gameplay:
It's not particularly deep per se, but there is a lot going on in this game. It is essentially like a super premium version of the old New Grounds games. Lots of running around, meeting people, finding things, collecting this and that, solving puzzles, etc. This style is probably a bit divisive, a love it or hate it thing, but I loved it.

My first playthrough, which is also my 100% playthrough, took exactly 50 hours. This was without any walkthroughs, which were absolutely not needed until the very end for one or two matters. The game is well structured. I almost never felt lost despite the sprawling nature of the game. It's very well designed. Every next place to visit, or re-visit, each new thing to find, and so on will lead you to some scene or another. It's perfectly paced and it just keeps going on and on in the best possible way. A number of times I thought the game was about to end and it just opened up even further.

The only vaguely serious gameplay criticism I have is of the 'Temple Puzzles'. A somewhat Paganitzu series of extra challenges which overall felt pretty messy, rushed, and sloppy. It was for quite a few of these that I required a walkthrough.

Story:
It's pretty great. There are numerous plots going on, and an over arching story that evolves wonderfully. Overall the game is pretty grounded. At least it starts off so. You're just a young guy, trying to make it, looking to follow in his fathers footsteps. This opening - well the first third of game perhaps - is what really sells the rest of it. As eventually things are not what they seem. There are conspiracies, secrets, and otherworldly goings on. Starting from this little slice-of-life-esque adventure, the game ups the ante over and over again. It never gets stale and always has something new to surprise and titillate with.

Characters:
The cast of characters are also excellent. The one sticking point for some may be the player character. He's a bit of a cringe young man, but in a sense that's true to young men, and pretty quickly I found him to grow on me. Particularly by the end of the game he really comes in to his own.

As for the ladies, they are quite varied and each are excellent. I don't think there is a single bum note among them. Each are unique personalities, with unique voices in the dialogue, well written, and each of their personalities are woven in to the story of the game appropriately and with fun and excitement put first.
This is one factor in which this game is just light-years ahead of the competition. These characters aren't shallow mannequins existing just to show some nudity. They're fleshed out. They're interesting. They're surprising. They propel the plot. Of course, this isn't comparable to great works of fiction but in this scene, and perhaps in all of Erotica media, these ladies are first rate, and the variety of antics they get up to, and in particular get the player character in to, was like nothing I've played before.

There are also many extras. Some of whom are there throughout the game, and some who are featured briefly. Again, they're all great additions. They're mostly well written, usually serving as comedy or plot checkpoints. The care taken with them really help sell the world.

Erotica:
As I've said previously, I think the quality and tone of the game is up there with the Erotica greats of cinema past. Every scene is beautiful, the actors are well lit, and the overall artistry clearly had proper time spent on it.

The erotica is also varied and well delivered. Much like the plot the erotica develops, mostly, at a slow burn. That doesn't mean that you're left without any of that kind of fun at any point. Even as the player character is developing his relationships and so on the game manages to sprinkle in some form of titillation or another. There's always a surprise around the corner.
Speaking of which, the sexual scenes and scenarios are pretty varied. Each lady brings some new flair or context to each situation, and as I said it can get pretty kinky, but thankfully it never veers in to bizarro territory. No Futa, Furry, or that kind of thing. It's just men and women getting up to hi-jinks and pushing a boundary or two. Still might be too much in some areas for the more vanilla-minded.

Music:
The soundtrack is great and tastefully selected. Each theme fits the areas and scenes perfectly.

Achievements:
Thankfully there are no nonsense achievements. Just quality narrative, do all the things, collect all the things achievements.


Verdict: On a sad note, I think this game has spoiled me for any other game of its kind. I can't see anything living up to the fun and thrill of this game and its compelling characters and exciting scenes. Even the sequel, which looks like it should be good, seems tonally very different. Opening immediately with the magical and so on. I'm hesitant to try it, as what I really want is just more of this. A direct sequel or to play it again for the first time.

Needless to say that this is the best game of its kind. I've played it for three times the playtime than I could stand to play of Starfield. By that right, it is a better game than Starfield by far. There is no competition (if you think there is, drop it in the comments). This is a must play.

Outline: The tag and all those calling this a 'Metroidvania' in the comments are pretty misleading. This game is pure Castlevania. An intently tunnel-vision spiritual successor, and love letter to the series and in particular 'Symphony of The Night'.

As for the Metroidvania, I think I lean more towards the 'Metroid' than the 'Vania' side of things. In my opinion the greatest Metroidvania ever made is hands-down 'The Messenger'. No other game has ever come close, and as such is my benchmark for the genre.

- In classic Castlevania style, everything in the game is over the top. There are a ton of different enemies of which by their design alone it is impossible to gauge their strength. Big, imposing, mini-boss looking enemies are just common mobs, and so on. This crossed with a kind of incoherent, kitchen-sink design philosophy to the art style, items, crafting, level design, etc is one of the main reasons that put me off the Castlevania style.

- The overall level design and puzzle elements left a lot to be desired. The areas of the game world and the room-to-room experience felt rather arbitrary and forgettable. With no meaning, no context behind much of it. Made worse by every room, regardless of area, being highlighted in blue on the map. A needless carry over from SoTN. Preferably, as a quality of life update, the rooms could been coloured by their area zone.

The puzzle/ability-progression-gates were shockingly minimal. There are very few in total and of that which there are they're either incredibly simple and obvious or terribly indicated.

- Which leads me on to gameplay. Again, the Castlevania kitchen-sink is at play but turned up to eleven. There a hundred or more different spells to collect. One from each enemy in the game. Over 90% of which you won't use. There is endless redundancy in the combat spells and of the utility-esque spells very few are really made use of throughout the game. Nothing is particularly inventive or the-like.

The same is true of the weapons. A hundred or more. Many of which are made redundant before you can even find or craft them, and of the rest you'll likely never find or craft them by the time you finish the game (and that's coming from a player that explores every nook).
I enjoyed trying out the different weapon classes at first, but it's all quantity over quality. Ultimately, there are no real differences between the weapon classes. Hit faster or slower? Slightly more damage or less? This isn't meaningful game-play differentiation.
There are weapon skills to collect, but they are just a handful, ultimately inconsequential, and are gated behind the acquisition of specific weapons in order to learn them. Which overall killed the feeling of progression. Nothing gave a positive feedback of character development other than increasing my HP and MP pools. This is a cardinal sin in the Metroidvania. A style of game in which the player character should go from a relatively weak, one-dimensional, immobile scrub to some kind of demi god (in-so-far as the player's skill have developed as well).

- The story is boiler-plate with nothing to comment on. The characters are generic, and often very silly. They are fine but don't expect to build a rapport with any of them or to get invested in the story. The story and characters are all just set dressing.

- Of the rest of the game elements, the home-base is under-utilised. There is a shop which is more or less useless until the end of the game. There is chap who will grow one of three seeds you collect, either potatoes, rice or corn. A very strange addition as none of these ingredients are particularly sort after. The crafting station, which is a pretty decent addition but I'd say failed to live up to its potential, and a few quest givers. One that seeks certain items, one that seeks certain meals, and the last giving enemy quarries. From what I recall, the rewards are lacklustre. Maybe one or two unique items not found elsewhere, and the rest just miscellaneous this-and-that you'll find throughout the game anyway. Again, missed potential.

- The soundtrack is a mixed bag. There are a few real bangers, but the production of the music fell flat to me. The mix on them is very thin, lifeless and clean. A bit of retro character, grit and a more aggressive mix-down would have been better in my opinion. Also sadly, the area themes just get worse as the game goes on.

- The achievement list is fine and serviceable. With the exception of quite a mindless post-game grind filling out the items archive.
However, the game insists that you play on normal difficulty to begin with. Only unlocking hard after completion. As a person that always begins a game on the hardest setting I found this disappointing. Particularly as the game can be '100%d' on the normal difficulty. Unless a player really just loves the game, what incentive is there to replay on the harder difficulty? As I said, I'm somewhat luke-warm on the game, so once I got the 100% I was just done. I'm not compelled to have a go at the harder difficulty, which is why an achievement or two should have been in the game for completing the hardest setting and so on (or even better additional game-play content). Again, missed potential seems to be a running theme.

Verdict: All-in-all it's not a bad game. It would be ridiculous to give the game a negative review. For Castlevania fans especially this seems like a blessing of a game. It's just not my cup of tea.

For any Castlevania fans it's a no-brainer. For Metroidvania fans broadly, yes I still recommend it, there's fun to be had. However, you should go play 'The Messenger' first if you haven't already (and go in blind!).

Outline: It's a retro-style adventure game. Of which, it's decent and competently made game. However, I am surprised by the 'overwhelmingly positive' review score.

- The format is unusual in that it is a series of self-contained levels, as opposed to the one long adventure most typical in these kinds of games. In some ways it works, in other ways it doesn't.

- The writing is pretty mediocre all-round. Some highlights but nothing enthralling. Most of the jokes are tired, but the variety of situations keep it engaging, and the main characters did grow on me.

- All but a few of the puzzles are logical, perhaps to a fault, as they are overly easy. Worse still many of the solution items are in the very next room, and so on. I suspect this to be the result of the self-contained level structure.

- The art is very nice. The style is used to great effect, although the particularly low resolution means that the characters, world, and objects, do not have enough detail to convey feeling or other cues. Something that should have been shored up by animation and writing but wasn't.

- The soundtrack is nice and fitting.

- A nice achievements list, with none that are nonsense time-wasters. However, many of the extra-curricular achievements are 'hidden' achievements. Meaning one much refer to a guide to discover what they are. I understand wanting to surprise the player, but conversely no-one will play the game over and over to hunt for that 100%. It would have been much better to have had the achievements visible and consist of cryptic clues to add that additional level of meta-objectives for those that wish to hunt for the 100%.


Verdict: It's good, but simple. A middle-of-the-road inoffensive title. A bit of fun for anyone into adventure games, but moreso perfect for youngsters, or anyone's first adventure game.

I will update my review a few times as I play though the game. Giving it a preliminary recommendation for now.

7 hours played:
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I've done essentially the intro and a bit. The opening takes a long time, with a lot of dialogue to get through. I've had all of two combat encounters so far. Not that it is a criticism by itself, but it is a somewhat painfully slow start, and that's with skipping a lot of the optional exploration, chat and reading on offer.

I did start off reading most logs, computer, and books I was finding, but a lot of it is genuinely lacklustre, so I've stopped for now. I'm still early in the game, so I'm withholding judgement as much as I can of course, but so far this seems like a very generic vision of science-fiction. It is nothing like picking up an Elder Scrolls game for the first time. That sense of wonder and mystery is not there yet.

I am not compelled to learn more about the universe. Particularly not when the contemporary left worldview is plastered all over the game. It is genuinely impossible to ignore, which I would love to, as I would love to immerse and enjoy the game, but it is 'current year' from top to bottom. With an inability to decide on a tone to boot. When the game is trying to be serious we're getting quippy Marvel-like attitude from someone. So many people have a response that is comically themed to the game, giving it a feel of a stage play. Or having been noticed doing a bad deed, the leader of a prestigious faction, someone who is very keen to use me for something, now responds with the most contemptibly childish nonsense every time I end a conversation with her. We can be in a fire fight and she'll respond with; "I'd rather be alone now", spoken in the most churlish attitude you can imagine.

Then there's the technical issues. Keyboard input is terrible for me. Having to jam buttons to get them to register for many interactions. Jarringly disparate environment texture resolutions side-by-side to see. Poor facial animations, a laughable run animation (inferior to decades old games and years old Skyrim mods), a few bugs, some locked controls, a couple of floating/ascending NPCs, the atrocious companion following system that has them either walk right up on you so that they're vibrating or waiting off 20ft away and then running up and past you in to a wall for them to just stand there starring at the wall.

Oh, and the character creator sucks. They made some very odd decisions with the creator, the way it works, the extremely limited options, and as expected for a game compromised with leftism, obvious highly feminine traits are practically non-existent. It is genuinely difficult to make an obviously female character, near-on impossible to make an attractive one. To boot everyone is either fat, black/brown or androgynous. Likely a combination. Speaking of which New Atlantis seems to be the next coming of Wakanda. It and other places seem to be 95% black/brown. It's bizarre. Also vitiligo is in the game. I laughed when it came up in the character creator, as I knew some small-minded, mediocre busy-body got it put in the game for 'representation'. Fine, but I met 2 or 3 NPCs with vitiligo in the opening of the game. I think it is under 1% of the population that has this condition. There is nothing representative about this games portrayal of human beings.

The overall art direction is largely ugly too. The game can look very nice on occasion when the stars align, but even when the graphical engine is on point the assets hold it back. The clothes are pretty ugly, the spacesuits are basically all the same. There are posters and things up all over the place that look like they were made with clip art back in the 90s. Absolutely does nothing to sell your disbelief of this being the far flung future. I would genuinely love to know who made designed these posters and how it passed QA.

I haven't much to say about the core gameplay as it's just beginning, but as expected the console focused UI kinda sucks. The spaceship controls are even worse in their obvious design for a controller. All clothing items are a single piece now. Even the amount of customisation they allowed in Skyrim is gone. Oh no, excuse me you can interchange hats with body pieces. Amazing. The quest to ever simplify reaching apex here.
The dialogue system however is a good step backward from Fallout 4. Though still feels pretty simple so far. The gun-play I guess seems fine. It's weird to have a Bethesda gun game without V.A.Ts, and I hope they bring some depth as the game goes on.

So far, it doesn't seem like any Elder Scrolls game. It is much more like Fallout 4, but I hesitate to say a better Fallout 4. I didn't find that game to be very good to begin with, but I think I would say that this game is better in someways than Fallout 4, and worse in others. Not terrific praise, but I'm hoping once the game really gets going things will improve. I just can't help feeling like Mr Howard the wrong decisions.

Outline: Puzzle Agent 2 takes off from the end of the previous instalment, and it's just more of the same, almost to a fault. Nothing has changed, and what is delivered is the continuation of the mystery in Scroggins, more of the great characters, humour and puzzles.

For fans of the first game, you know what you're getting, but with a caveat, that the first game is better overall. The story and it's mystery are more compelling in the first game, the writing is tighter and the puzzles are better. Which is why I said it's more of the same to a fault, in that more of the same was highly welcome, but only in so far as the quality was kept at level or improved upon.
While the difference is not all that substantial, it was a little disappointing. They did add achievements, which are all good with no nonsense though, so that's a plus.

Verdict: The Puzzle Agent games are great, funny, quirky, short adventure titles, but anyone interested should play the first game before picking this up.