Stellar Blade Review – Nier As It Can Get

I’ve never really given much thought to the differences between a labyrinth and a maze. That is, until I played Simogo’s Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. A labyrinth, as I know now, is a singular path, twisting and turning, constantly changing in direction. It invokes the illusion of feeling lost, despite the fact that its path always leads to a center. A maze, on the other hand, has multiple paths, filled with dead ends, wrong turns, and requires trial and error to reach its end. The former can be a meditative and reflective journey for some, while the latter is a trying experience that requires patience and perseverance to see it through. Despite these differences, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes brings them together through mechanics, themes, and narrative. The result is a gaming experience that masterfully interlocks storytelling with design, making it one of Simogo’s finest achievements, and one of the most impressive narrative puzzle games in recent memory.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a psychological horror puzzle game that sent me on a winding journey through a black and white, neon-red-accented hotel, to untangle a mystery that blurred the line between fact and fiction. It is dense with puzzles, heavy on story, but both are interwoven, and that is key to the way it unravels. I was consistently thrown off the path to the truth, led astray in what I perceived as a maze, when in actuality, I was being armed with knowledge that led me through a labyrinth to the game’s heart-wrenching conclusion.

With no setup or direction, the game simply begins. You take control of a suave, sunglasses-wearing, 1960s mod-style dressed woman, standing alone in the woods at night, just outside the historic-looking Hotel Letztes Jahr. Like its main character, you are thrown into this world with no knowledge of who or where you are, or why you’re there. The goal of the game is to find the truth, as said verbatim in the game’s manual, which is found within the world itself as opposed to being accessible by default. This obtuse direction set the tone for the game–foreshadowing that I was going to have to work to understand anything and everything on the journey before me. It pulled me right in, feeding into my natural curiosity and love for mysteries. The discovery of its hidden truths is tracked via a Truth Recovery percentage in the game’s menu. It isn’t long, though, until you find a letter with a vague and mysterious message signed by Renzo Nero explaining that you were invited to be at this hotel, on this date, in the year 1963.

You are left to your own devices to investigate, unlock, and unravel every aspect of the game, with your progress starting at 0% and tracked throughout the game. No piece of information is simply handed to you, but rather uncovered. The manual, for example, is locked away and requires a key to obtain it. However, the game can be completed without ever actually finding its manual at all. This is a small example of the game’s nonlinearity and the trust it instilled in me to find things on my own. Recovering every piece of the story is not necessary to complete the game, but doing so deeply rewards those who take the time to investigate every nook and cranny of its cryptic world.

As it turns out, Renzo Nero is a rather eccentric artist with a taste for theatrics and has invited you to partake in an artistic project. When entering the solemn hotel, you begin to slowly uncover the story of your larger-than-life host, who has seemingly prepared everything for you in a hotel that is as much a maze as it is an intricate puzzle box. But like all good puzzles, nothing is what it seems and you’re thrust into a sprawling and complex maze of mysteries. You must explore its labyrinthine halls and peel back the story of your involvement in this artist’s project one piece of evidence at a time. As this incredibly cool looking woman, you can freely walk through a series of scenes viewed through fixed camera angles, which depict a black and white world made up of vector-style 3D graphics through a cinematic lens.

Each piece of information is not only necessary to piecing together the story, but acts as knowledge to solve the game’s dozens upon dozens of puzzles. Whether it’s news articles, books on Roman numerals, strobogrammatic numerology, or the Greek alphabet (just to name a few), all serve as tools used to venture further into the hotel. Unlike most puzzle games that establish their own language and style of puzzle, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes instead uses real-world concepts and logic, like math and brain teasers, contextualized by story information that invites you to push forward. Where a puzzle game like The Witness uses its puzzle mechanics to teach the player about its world, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes leans on the player’s existing knowledge and understanding of basic problem-solving. In that regard, this game could be a barrier to entry for some players, but it also builds on the knowledge players have to expand their understanding, which greatly rewards veteran puzzle lovers like myself.

It’s a lot to remember, and certainly an education in a lot of areas like Latin terms or the meaning behind Greek symbols, for example. Thankfully, the main character has a photographic memory that saves everything you pick up, and can be viewed at any point in the game. But her photographic memory will only get you so far in finding the solutions to its puzzles, and your very own pen and paper (or a notebook, in my case) feels necessary in order to find and remember the solution for all its obstacles. In my actual day-to-day life, I’m already an avid notebook user. At all times, I have one on me to jot down notes and ideas, or plan ahead–sometimes I use my notebook to work through problems in my life. This need to use pen and paper to solve the game’s problems fed directly into how I manage my everyday life. It’s incredibly satisfying and cool to have real-life habits overlap with playing the game in a way that is tangible and sincerely helpful in progressing through Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.

As you move through the ghostly monochrome hotel, every door, drawer, gate, passageway, diary, and just about everything else, requires a solution to be opened or unlocked. Some doors are locked from the other side, while others require a specific key found elsewhere (often after solving another puzzle), or are padlocked with a code yet to be discovered. Sometimes the solution comes by way of the environment around you, so examining posters, or looking for riddles or brain teasers nearby is necessary. Other times it requires cross-examining information you’ve already gathered, like a specific year mentioned in a telegram, or scanning over astronomical objects. If it sounds dense, that’s because it is. But the game paces out information, and gives the players all the right tools to allow puzzles to be solved without overwhelming you. In most cases, if you can’t find the solution around you, or in any of the documents you have in your photographic memory, it’s safe to say you haven’t discovered the clues necessary for the solution yet, but this deduction is also left for you to make.

There were a few instances where I felt I had hit a wall, having found several puzzles that I simply couldn’t understand. It added several hours of experimentation to my journey, as I tried to find logic in anything, only to realize that I had forgotten about a note I grabbed at the beginning of the game that alluded to a small detail elsewhere in the hotel that I had completely overlooked. It was frustrating, but also a valuable lesson in realizing that if something didn’t make sense to me, I likely didn’t have what I needed yet. After I had that realization, navigating the maze became more of a meditative journey–it was a moment of self-discipline and a reminder to myself that I didn’t have to solve everything the moment I had discovered it. There was peace in that realization; in stepping back, being patient, and taking my time.

The puzzles are difficult, and while many of them left me scratching my head for hours sometimes, they never felt impossible. Thankfully, the game’s nonlinear nature makes it a practice in simply knowing when it’s time to take a break and move on to another puzzle. That also means keeping track of every bit of information you come across, which is one of many reasons why having a notebook is vital. During my 34-hour playthrough, I had filled 31 pages of my notebook with hectic scribbles, noting down any information of importance, such as dates noted in documents or names, which could be used to either decode one answer, or used to combine with another. My notebook became a companion in my playthrough, filled with numbers and equations and cryptic symbols, often involving Roman numerals, lunar phases, or astrology, and I loved every single second of it.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes bombards you with so much information, so many puzzles, and so many enigmatic problems, that having my notebook by my side only managed to pull me into the experience of the game further. Oh, and also, with a cup of coffee there too.

I consumed a lot of coffee while playing this game. This meant having to use the bathroom a lot. While this may seem irrelevant to the game itself, it’s actually an important thing to note. This game will require patience, and oftentimes, getting up and physically walking away from it to process its many puzzles, as many of the solutions will not appear magically. Sometimes all it takes is a break, clearing your mind (or bladder), and coming back with a fresh pair of laser eyes to have that satisfying eureka moment.

This reliance on writing in a notebook and cross-examining my own notes was alleviated by the fact that the game, if you’re playing on Switch, can be played with one Joy-Con. The control scheme is incredibly simple, as everything can be interacted with using a single button press, making holding a pencil in the other hand (or a cup of coffee), an engaging way to play the game. As a result, it makes playing on the Switch my preferred way to experience it.

As the game and story progress, you unlock more halls and areas of the hotel, and with it, a discovery that what you’ve been perceiving as reality is being bent and molded to drag you deeper into its chill-inducing horror. These moments and the revelations that come from them are better experienced than explained, so I won’t go into detail. But there are several scenarios in the latter half of the game that subverted my expectations so effectively that they had me pulling at my hair in shock.

The game’s horror is also emphasized by using the medium of games itself exceptionally well. Much of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes’ biggest themes center around the relationship between art and technology, and its direct correlation with the artistic medium of games. Through this lens, Simogo uses game development as a narrative throughline that guides you through different eras of games, like the low-poly horror of the first PlayStation or the lo-fi charm of 1-bit point-and-click adventure games. There’s a meta narrative under the hood of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes that will deeply reward those intimate with gaming as a medium, as well as Simogo’s previous works. Crucially, these aren’t necessary to understand and enjoy the game as whole, they just enrich it further.

Similar to The Ring’s use of VHS tapes, PlayStation 1-style graphics are used at times to evoke the rudimentary, degraded presentation of yesteryear to establish an unnerving tone–a jarring contrast to the game’s usual clean and modern graphics. Witnessing this whiplash of bygone style of games and seeing it recycled in a rather menacing way was awesome. It felt as though it was cleverly using my existing knowledge of PS1-era games to its advantage. Not just in a way that captures nostalgia, but to elevate the game’s more horror-like tones. Similarly, even the role of playtesting games becomes its own topic, extending its meta themes, and even acting as satire in certain parts.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a massive achievement in using the games as a medium and an art form to tell a story that can only be experienced in a video game. Over the course of my time with it, I was surprised and astounded at Simogo’s ability to subvert my expectations to convey a story that touches on art and technology, and the magical illusion of storytelling, all while using the foundation of puzzle design to not just arm me with knowledge, but use it to find the truth. It can often feel like a harrowing maze built on riddles and deception, but through perseverance, you can find your way to the center of this labyrinth and a truth worth knowing.

Crow Country is coated in a murky green veneer that gives the impression you’re playing it on a grainy CRT TV in one of your friend’s bedrooms back in 1996. The polygonal figure of its protagonist, Special Agent Mara Forest, with her visible joints and single block of purple hair, harks back to any number of PlayStation-era character designs. Similarly, Crow Country’s environments look wonderfully pre-rendered, lavished in extra detail that sits in stark contrast to its simple, blocky characters. These aren’t the static backgrounds of yesteryear, however, but fully interactive playgrounds that add a modern tinge to Crow Country’s distinctly retro sensibilities.

This affectionate nostalgia is in service of a game that pays loving homage to landmark titles of the survival horror genre while also boldly standing on its own two feet. Resident Evil is Crow Country’s most obvious influence, but traces of Silent Hill and Alone in the Dark also stalk the darkest corners of its ’90s-inspired horror. It can be a tad too authentic at times, featuring unwieldy combat that’s tempting to ignore completely, but this is still a true advert for the joys of retro-modern survival horror when executed well.

Set in 1990, your first taste of the titular Crow Country occurs when Mara pulls into its parking lot in a white facsimile of a Volkswagen Polo. Crow Country is a decrepit, abandoned theme park that’s both dense and labyrinthine despite its small scale–as if designed by the same architect who worked on The Spencer Mansion and Racoon City Police Station. Mara is here following up on a missing person’s report for the park’s owner, Edward Crow, but it doesn’t take long before she’s unraveling the park’s deepest secrets and most intriguing mysteries.

The story unravels out of chronological order as you discover notes left behind by employees, read old newspaper clippings, and interact with a small cast of relatable NPCs. It’s expertly paced, with sharp writing that’s self-aware and includes plenty of nods to both gaming and horror tropes without feeling corny. Discovering what happened in the two years since the park closed down propels the story forward, and it sticks the landing with a memorable ending. Crucially, Crow Country also doesn’t follow a familiar pattern despite being a pastiche of genre classics in almost every other facet of its design. There’s no zombie outbreak or missing wife, and the theme park setting is a refreshingly unfamiliar location, capturing the same kind of uncertainty that the first Resident Evil achieved in 1996.

There are monsters in the form of aberrant Cronenberg-esque designs that range from bipedal shamblers to amorphous blobs. Their origins are tragic, tracing back to human hubris and greed, but you can also play the entire game without them. Crow Country offers two modes of play: Survival and exploration. The latter removes any trace of the park’s enemies so you can focus on exploration and puzzle solving, which gives you a good idea of where the game’s priorities lie.

During survival mode, the park gradually fills with grotesque creatures as you delve further into the game’s story. In true survival horror fashion, you can avoid most enemy encounters by simply running past them, conserving your limited supply of ammo in the process. This has the knock-on effect of populating the park with extra creatures, but the presence of more enemies never feels problematic, and I only bothered engaging in combat if they were directly impeding a puzzle.

This is partly because the survival aspect of Crow Country is relatively easy. Unless you’re fighting absolutely every enemy or aren’t thoroughly exploring, ammo is plentiful enough, and the same is true of med kits and antidotes. There also aren’t a lot of genuine threats to your life. The small, skittish Pinochio-esque creatures are surprising at first because they’re fast, and the rattle of bones that accompanies the strangely elongated skeletons might tempt you to nope the hell out, but both are rare and simple enough to breeze past that they never pose much danger. You won’t find a pack of zombie dogs bursting through a window or encounter deadly frog-like creatures in tight corridors, so the sense of challenge is severely lacking. Inventory management–normally a staple of the genre–is also notable for its absence. Instead of having to carefully pick which items and weapons to take with you, you can go into the final boss fight with all four firearms fully stocked, further diminishing any sense of reward when it comes to the game’s combat.

Another reason you might avoid combat entirely is that it isn’t particularly engaging. Crow Country is played from an intimate isometric viewpoint with free camera movement, immediately making it more palatable than the games it’s inspired by. That said, aiming and shooting with an isometric camera feels deliberately awkward and clunky, especially because you’re aiming both horizontally and vertically. You’re locked in place when doing so, which at least makes you vulnerable and adds an element of tension as you fiddle with your laser pointer, but taking down enemies is still straightforward even when the controls are fighting against you. There’s a natural progression of weapon unlocks as you start with Mara’s service pistol before acquiring a shotgun, magnum, and flamethrower. Apart from some weapons dealing more damage than others, however, there isn’t a palpable difference in feel between each one, so their impact is largely dulled.

Despite these shortcomings, Crow Country still manages to establish a creepy atmosphere as you navigate the park’s various nooks and crannies. It might be an ominous low hum or the comforting–yet somehow still offputting–music playing in every save room, but the game’s score does an excellent job of building tension with music reminiscent of the era. The dilapidated theme park setting is also a significant part of the game’s overall charm, whether you’re exploring the aquatic zone with its imported sand and fake starfish, rushing past the fairy forest’s abundance of giant mushrooms, or skulking through the haunted town to reach a spooky mansion and underground crypt. The janky animatronics and pervasive crow-theming would be eerie even before introducing monsters, broken glass, and ominous blood spatter to the equation.

Each zone is distinct and memorable enough that navigating the park is a breeze. It also helps that the entire map’s layout is incredibly intuitive. After walking up a miniature version of Disneyland’s Main Street, you come to an open square that acts as the park’s centerpiece, with doorways splitting off into all three zones. The map is open-ended, encouraging you to slowly expand your access to different areas by venturing back and forth to find all sorts of clues and items. Interconnected shortcuts through staff rooms and back offices remove the tedium of backtracking, and the park gradually begins to fold back in on itself, revealing a hidden depth that belies its relatively small scale. It’s inherently satisfying to unearth a new doorway leading to a previous area where you now have the items needed to solve a puzzle and make even more progress, and Crow Country is teeming with rewarding moments like this.

The puzzles themselves are fun to solve, too, expertly toeing the line between befuddling and condescendingly easy. Employee notes and company memos sometimes provide hints, but most solutions derive from logic and common sense–even if the former is a distinct flavor of survival horror logic. The map’s smaller scale works in its favor here as well, with many of the puzzles being quite self-contained. The items you need to solve a particular conundrum are often nearby, and even if you have to venture further afield, it never takes too long to get back. The puzzle designs are also delightfully varied, tasking you with playing specific notes on a piano to open hidden compartments, uncover a key by melting an animatronic’s head with acid, and solve a riddle using the names on various gravestones while a skeletal arm waves a shotgun in your face.

Crow Country pays homage to a golden era of survivor horror without relying on simple mimicry. It’s simultaneously familiar and yet unfamiliar, touching on tropes and genre trappings while utilizing modern techniques to enhance the experience and make it more approachable for newcomers. It’s not a particularly challenging game, and combat is dull and unwieldy, but this aspect of the game is easy enough to ignore, especially when there’s an enticing theme park full of secrets and rewarding puzzles to delve into. The story is also surprisingly rich, telling a captivating tale with smart writing and a memorable ending. Crow Country is clearly lovingly crafted, resulting in a nostalgic throwback that manages to avoid feeling derivative. It does justice to the games that inspired it, but it’s also a fantastic game in its own right.

It’s usually pretty easy to predict how a 2D Metroidvania is going to play out. At some point, you’ll probably unlock a double or even triple jump to reach previously inaccessible areas, obtain an air dash that helps you traverse large gaps and pass through specific blockades, and acquire a weapon upgrade that functions as both a killing tool and a way to progress past certain obstacles. Animal Well contains most of these things, but never in ways that are expected. Created by solo developer Billy Basso and published by Bigmode, Animal Well is a surrealist puzzle platformer that’s delightfully surprising. Even if its pixelated art style and genre trappings make it seem familiar on the surface, it is a game that often eschews conventional wisdom and stands out because of it.

You play as a nondescript blob who emerges from a blossoming flower into a strange vibrant world filled with creatures big and small. You can move and jump, but that’s about the extent of your physical prowess. Upon awakening, you’re free to explore in any direction you choose. Animal Well doesn’t hold your hand and is exceedingly non-linear, letting you unlock items and abilities in whichever order you find them. There is an end goal that’s revealed once you discover a map and get a lay of the land, as each corner of the map contains a flame you need to fetch in order to light the four beacons at its center. Why, you might ask? There isn’t an explicit explanation for anything you do, but that sense of mystery is part of what drives the adventure forward.

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