One of the best games that I never want to play again!
At the height of maritime trade in the Atlantic, an English craft dubbed the "Obra Dinn" sets out for the Cape of Good Hope with sixty people aboard. However, it never makes landfall at its destination, and it is assumed lost to the depths after a year without contact. Some four years later, the ship miraculously returns off the shore of its home port... With not a single member of its crew to be seen. You play the role of an insurance investigator working on behalf of the East India Company, who has been tasked with recording what might have happened to the unfortunate vessel. A less-than-enviable charge for just about anybody. Blessedly, a mysterious individual by the name of Henry Evans has given you a significant boon: A magicked timepiece called the Memento Mortem, which grants you the ability to witness visions of a person's final moments. In exchange, Evans has asked only that you remain steadfast in your investigation and not rest until you have unveiled the full truth of the Obra Dinn's grim fate.
Return of the Obra Dinn managed to do something not many games can pull off these days, which is make me refuse to budge from my seat until I had seen it to its conclusion. Granted it ended up being pretty much the perfect length for it, at least in my case - it's a runtime that I'm sure varies wildly depending on one's powers of observation and deduction. However, I think that is exactly where the bulk of Return's strength lies. It introduces the concept and the concern, slaps a journal and a cool pocketwatch into your hands and says "don't step off this boat until you've puzzled it out". The singular tool at your disposal would be any homicide detective's dream come true, but where such a powerful artifact would lead to a breezy day of work at Scotland Yard, here you are responsible for discerning the fate of sixty individuals. A daunting mystery, to be sure, but one that does compel: Just how does a crowd of that size disappear, and moreover, how does their ship make it home without them? Thus you will go to your task with that burning question in your chest, and will scour every inch and ponder every angle as you unravel this nautical whodunit. The lack of hand-holding and thoughtful design results in a riddle of logic that is deeply satisfying to solve, and you can rest assured knowing that each eureka moment you arrive at is well-earned.
Concerns? Well, the way each new scene is introduced did start to grate after a bit, permitting you to wander around your newly discovered "momento mortis" for a limited amount of time before kicking you back out to present day. Oftentimes this felt like an arbitrary imposition, as I would usually want to jump back in right away to continue taking notes. The soundtrack, while by no means bad and perfect for the setting, felt just a bit too same-y across the board with no real stand-outs. The retro computing-inspired visuals, which I'm sure will hold plenty of appeal for some, wore out their welcome for me by the end - if for no other reason than its monochrome palette not being a great choice for a game centered around careful observation of your surroundings. I admittedly cheated a smidge at one point just because I was completely lost on what to do next, only to realize the clue I needed was pretty much staring me in the face. If only I could see it! And while I know it's all in the name of establishing a sense of progression, the fact that the book will periodically confirm your findings for you feels a bit... Cowardly? A part of me wishes the game would force you to fill everything out and submit it with no way of knowing you were correct until the end, but that's probably just the masochist in me speaking. When I think about it, I doubt I would have been willing to go back through the full game just to correct one or two mistakes. This is the kind of experience that only hits with full force the first time around. To its credit, though, this mystery does have a bit of open-endedness in how you can resolve it, so that may be a bit of a draw for those seeking to dive back in.
I think if there's anything that truly hurts the experience in the long run, it's that the narrative at the center of it all, for all of the fantastical elements surrounding it, ultimately feels rather mundane. This didn't need to be a problem, mind; I would argue that the more grounded elements of the story are what lends it the gravity and intrigue that it does have. The failure, then, is making the more out-there aspects seem a bit shoehorned and unimaginative by comparison. I won't pick it apart here in case you intend to play it, and hopefully your opinion of the tale of the Obra Dinn will be brighter than mine. I simply felt that the conclusion arrived at was a little lackluster given the setup.
All in all, Return of the Obra Dinn is an excellent adventure in deduction that trims away a lot of the fluff typically associated with other games of its ilk. It knows the story it wants to tell and drops you right into the center of it, leaving it up to you to fill in the blanks. While I don't know that the ending will satisfy everyone, I think this is definitely one situation where the journey is more important than the destination. Hopefully I'll be able to give Lucas Pope's other claim to fame a proper shake in due time.
At the height of maritime trade in the Atlantic, an English craft dubbed the "Obra Dinn" sets out for the Cape of Good Hope with sixty people aboard. However, it never makes landfall at its destination, and it is assumed lost to the depths after a year without contact. Some four years later, the ship miraculously returns off the shore of its home port... With not a single member of its crew to be seen. You play the role of an insurance investigator working on behalf of the East India Company, who has been tasked with recording what might have happened to the unfortunate vessel. A less-than-enviable charge for just about anybody. Blessedly, a mysterious individual by the name of Henry Evans has given you a significant boon: A magicked timepiece called the Memento Mortem, which grants you the ability to witness visions of a person's final moments. In exchange, Evans has asked only that you remain steadfast in your investigation and not rest until you have unveiled the full truth of the Obra Dinn's grim fate.
Return of the Obra Dinn managed to do something not many games can pull off these days, which is make me refuse to budge from my seat until I had seen it to its conclusion. Granted it ended up being pretty much the perfect length for it, at least in my case - it's a runtime that I'm sure varies wildly depending on one's powers of observation and deduction. However, I think that is exactly where the bulk of Return's strength lies. It introduces the concept and the concern, slaps a journal and a cool pocketwatch into your hands and says "don't step off this boat until you've puzzled it out". The singular tool at your disposal would be any homicide detective's dream come true, but where such a powerful artifact would lead to a breezy day of work at Scotland Yard, here you are responsible for discerning the fate of sixty individuals. A daunting mystery, to be sure, but one that does compel: Just how does a crowd of that size disappear, and moreover, how does their ship make it home without them? Thus you will go to your task with that burning question in your chest, and will scour every inch and ponder every angle as you unravel this nautical whodunit. The lack of hand-holding and thoughtful design results in a riddle of logic that is deeply satisfying to solve, and you can rest assured knowing that each eureka moment you arrive at is well-earned.
Concerns? Well, the way each new scene is introduced did start to grate after a bit, permitting you to wander around your newly discovered "momento mortis" for a limited amount of time before kicking you back out to present day. Oftentimes this felt like an arbitrary imposition, as I would usually want to jump back in right away to continue taking notes. The soundtrack, while by no means bad and perfect for the setting, felt just a bit too same-y across the board with no real stand-outs. The retro computing-inspired visuals, which I'm sure will hold plenty of appeal for some, wore out their welcome for me by the end - if for no other reason than its monochrome palette not being a great choice for a game centered around careful observation of your surroundings. I admittedly cheated a smidge at one point just because I was completely lost on what to do next, only to realize the clue I needed was pretty much staring me in the face. If only I could see it! And while I know it's all in the name of establishing a sense of progression, the fact that the book will periodically confirm your findings for you feels a bit... Cowardly? A part of me wishes the game would force you to fill everything out and submit it with no way of knowing you were correct until the end, but that's probably just the masochist in me speaking. When I think about it, I doubt I would have been willing to go back through the full game just to correct one or two mistakes. This is the kind of experience that only hits with full force the first time around. To its credit, though, this mystery does have a bit of open-endedness in how you can resolve it, so that may be a bit of a draw for those seeking to dive back in.
I think if there's anything that truly hurts the experience in the long run, it's that the narrative at the center of it all, for all of the fantastical elements surrounding it, ultimately feels rather mundane. This didn't need to be a problem, mind; I would argue that the more grounded elements of the story are what lends it the gravity and intrigue that it does have. The failure, then, is making the more out-there aspects seem a bit shoehorned and unimaginative by comparison. I won't pick it apart here in case you intend to play it, and hopefully your opinion of the tale of the Obra Dinn will be brighter than mine. I simply felt that the conclusion arrived at was a little lackluster given the setup.
All in all, Return of the Obra Dinn is an excellent adventure in deduction that trims away a lot of the fluff typically associated with other games of its ilk. It knows the story it wants to tell and drops you right into the center of it, leaving it up to you to fill in the blanks. While I don't know that the ending will satisfy everyone, I think this is definitely one situation where the journey is more important than the destination. Hopefully I'll be able to give Lucas Pope's other claim to fame a proper shake in due time.