Anyone else playing this?

It's very very weird (see trailer). Which is good because otherwise it wouldn't be worth talking about IMHO. The "open-world investigation" concept is kind of neat but falls a little flat because the world is so static (strangely enough I'm getting Myst-like vibes from this). I do like that you have to decide when to trigger the final trial (can even do it after doing no investigation).

Tons of rough edges but I'm pretty satisfied overall and wanting to see the story through (~3h in).

Protip: don't be shy about using footbaths.

I know Austin was raving about this mostly because of the great character names. It sounded like an investigation visual novel type of deal and ehhh I’m not sold on that concept all that much. Is the gameplay loop satisfying or is it a necessary evil standing between you and the story?

Just started it. Not sure about it so far, I love the style but it's been heavy on the writing in a way that makes me think it'll work more as a visual novel than a detective game. For me it'll be hard to beat Obra Dinn as a game that makes you feel like you're deducing stuff, but I'm still eager to see where it goes.

@humanity: Indeed the character names are...something ("Doctor Doom Jazz"). "investigation visual novel" is a pretty accurate description. Though at the stage I'm at I haven't gotten to the trial part so I'm not sure if there will be any Phoenix Wright-like logic stuff around chaining facts together to present an argument. I'd love that but I'm not expecting it...the way the investigation part works leads me to believe that it will boil down to "did you find these clues or not".

If roaming around the island looking for clues, and talking to characters to get their takes / leads / reactions isn't an appealing pitch it's probably not worth picking up (or at least wait for a deep Steam discount). There isn't much gameplay beyond that, and the discovery of story / lore are pretty intertwined with those activities.

@fear_the_booboo: Definitely the style is a big part of the attraction. I also can't imagine this topping Obra Dinn.

I've been waiting for this for months and bought it at launch. And honestly it's exceeded my expectations. It's probably my game of 2020 thus far.

I've played about 12 hours thus far and I'm really only now starting to have to do large amounts of travel to speak to the specific person I want. Even then, there are at least 2 other major areas of the map, I've not done anything in and at least 1 other are alluded to that I haven't found. And I have 3 pieces of unsorted evidence that could be a part of an entirely undiscovered plot point/crime.

Even the collectibles are fun and genuinely interesting and help to flesh out the weird pseudo-gnostic cosmogony they have going on.

@humanity: Visual Novels are a clear influence. But then so are Quake 1/2/Counterstrike (you can bunny-hop and surf) but nobody would call it an FPS. IMHO It owes more to Japanese adventure games in general and the early works of Suda 51 (up to and including Killer7), + stuff like Diary of a Spaceport Janitor, Crypt worlds or those weird queer twine games that end up with a lesbian carving bespoke cursed sigils into their arms in order to become some sort of crystallized tentacle capybara.

There are a lot of conversations, but it's your exploration, evidence gathering and interventions that drive the plot forward. And it's definitely possible to miss stuff (I missed an easy clue because I turned right instead of left at the start of the game and didn't rediscover it until ~7 hours in. And the game handled it reasonably gracefully)

@fear_the_booboo: Early on it definitely feels like you're tripping into new clues just by doing every possible conversation with someone, purely due to the sheer volume of evidence. But as you progress the exploration and crime scene investigation become more important. And towards the end you definitely need to discern "If person A was here at this time, then that implicates them for crime X, but exonerates them for crime Y, meaning I need to find a new working theory for evidence B" problems.

It's also possible to "fail" conversations through poor dialogue choices and screw up your chances of getting specific pieces of evidence out of a character. I only realised this relatively late in the game when I had 3 choices on one line of enquiry with someone, but offended them on the first option and the other 2 disappeared. With hindsight, I realise I'd probably done this previously and not noticed.

Its on my radar. Definitely my kind of game.

I finished the game off last night.

The trial is a very good way to end the game. But it does kind of mess with the flow of the story, and the interface for interacting within it is not great. Minor, non-plot specific spoiler: The way they designed the trial to work also seems incompatible with how some of the story resolved

I should note: I'd completely exhausted all notes/leads/collectibles available to me and got all characters to max friendship level (The game determining click location on Mousedown vs Mouseup cost me getting the gift from Henry I think) by the time I went to the trial.

Overall though it's a superb game, with a sufficiently bonkers, but strangely consistent, plot.

I got it during the ongoing Steam sale based on seeing superlative praise for it here and there, and finding the concept interesting.

I am almost 5 hours in and so far I've found it to be a mess of a game. I knew that the character art was ugly and the environments lifeless and drab based on seeing some clips, but I expected the gist of the game to be solving environmental puzzles, investigating scenes to make deductions, going through maze-like conversations — you know, fun exploration and detective stuff. But I've found myself solving literally zero puzzles so far (unless you count the braindead computer hacking procedures, but calling those "puzzles" is an insult to actual puzzles), and character interactions have consisted mostly of "just exhaust every dialogue option". Instead, the vast majority of the time has been spent traversing hideous environments with awful layouts using some of the worst platforming mechanics I've experienced in years, and picking up all kinds of collectibles while doing so. And the collectibles seem to actually be essential, since finding garbage around the environment is tied to many goals, e.g. beating sidequests, buying information from the secrets merchant, unlocking upgrades for the investigation computer and your character's mobility, and unlocking fast travel points.

So instead of what I was hoping for (something along the lines of "Ace Attorney meets Disco Elysium in a 3D open world with almost completely non-linear structure") it turns out I've been tricked into playing what seems to be above all a collectathon platformer where both the collecting and the platforming are truly awful.

I will say that the music is nice, that I like how creative they got with their fantasy world which is in many respects cool and unique, and that their approach to story and lore is great (dropping you in with little explanation and having you piece things together through fragments in conversations, item descriptions etc). The writing is pretty bad though, especially Shinji.

I kept playing and finished it today. The trial you conduct at the end is neat but the game is basically 90-95% scouring ugly and lifeless environments for clues, items and collectibles, where moving around entails constant annoyances due to awfully designed traversal mechanics and level geometry (e.g. the jump lacks air control for no good reason, you can get stuck on tiny edges you'd expect to simply walk over etc. etc.) and 5-10% mediocre visual novel with subpar writing and an extremely shallow dating sim component. There are times when you might not want to simply exhaust every single dialogue option, but multiple times throughout the game the player character literally says "I shouldn't confront [insert character] about [insert new clue] until I know more because it might make him/her clam up" so it's not exactly subtle.

Given all of the problems I would say that despite having a fantastic concept at the most abstract level ("completely non-linear open-world crime investigation game"), a unique world, a story that's kind of neat at the end when you've put all of the pieces together and some good music, it's a pretty bad game. I would not recommend it to fans of adventure games, puzzle games, visual novels, dating sims, open-world games or platformers.

^^^

Man I just started this game a few days ago but I'm gonna have to disagree with you on most things, especially the art style. I think the game looks absolutely amazing and I like that you're able explore pretty much every inch of its weird vapourwave world.

I haven't really noticed anything wrong with the writing either but I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea

I'll say that I liked a few pieces of character art (specifically Carmelina, One Last Kiss and Judge) but generally I found the artwork pretty repulsive. To compare it to another game that came out this year and uses similar artwork of sexualized fantasy characters during dialogue, Hades has way better art. As for the world itself, it might have looked better if it was more animated and stylized with some nice shaders or something. In many respects the game looks like something from 15-20 years ago (although you can tell from things like resolution and draw distance that it's much newer) and lacks the style that makes certain games from that era hold up well to this day, e.g. Wind Waker, Okami etc.

It reminds me a lot of Danganronpa 2.

Games like this rely heavily on writing so trailers like this won't do them justice.