Return of the Obra Dinn
Finally got round to playing this one, it was very cool! The art style put me off but it grew on me eventually, still not a fan but I imagine a more detailed style would have possibly made some of the puzzles too easy.
The concept is super fun and original, and the execution is mostly great, although it does become a bit repetitive after a while. You're tasked with identifying every member of the crew through flashbacks of the moment of their death, as well as who's responsible and how it happened.
At first you rely on obvious cues, like someone calling another's name or rank, but it quickly becomes much harder to identify people and you need to pay attention to the most seemingly insignificant things to make the correct guess. You've got a journal which automatically updates with every clue you learn, and where you must fill in the blanks.
In order to prevent brute-forcing, you must have a set of 3 correct answers at once for them to be confirmed by the game. Given the amount of possible combinations, it mostly makes it impossible to make completely random guesses. But in some cases I still resorted to it, because I had no idea how else to progress. "I know this guy is one of the 4 Chinese topmen, but literally no way to know which one exactly" As I advanced and locked in more and more identities, the remaining ones became easier to guess by process of elimination, which made it engrossing.
Some of the fates are sometimes too unclear and the game compensates this by making multiple solutions acceptable in these cases, but it's still a bit frustrating when the manner of death looks like one thing but is considered another.
Not a perfect game, but there's nothing else like it. If you enjoy puzzles and whodunits, go for it.
