Strong start, meandering middle, crappy conclusion. Return of the Obra Dinn has neat ideas and striking visuals with no follow-through.
The best part is the transition from the early- to the mid-game, when you start seeing cool sea monsters and have enough info to solve a big chunk of the core identity/cause-of-death puzzles. Once those are exhausted, it becomes clear that the game is just throwing all of its designer's ideas at you for the visual appeal, with no rhyme or reason behind their inclusion besides the nautical theme, and no plan for how they all fit together narratively. My working theory went from "this boat has been particularly dickish and the sea is fighting back" to "it's just cursed I guess." The 3 right answers = confirmation mechanic goes from a little bit of leeway for struggling players to mandatory guessing, e.g. for the 4 Chinese guys who are all visually distinct but provide no evidence of which name belongs to which person.
The ending/epilogue is a particular let-down, between the multiple redundant "how sad, the cruelty of Man" vignettes with no puzzle-solving, and the British telegram about what was done with the wages still owed to dead crew members. The latter repeats itself a lot, mostly saying either we tracked down this Brit's family and paid them, or they're a foreigner so we just gave their wages to a British charity. This sleazy practice is presented entirely without commentary, so it fails to be a criticism of easily criticizable Britain, and instead it's just... a depiction.
The best part is the transition from the early- to the mid-game, when you start seeing cool sea monsters and have enough info to solve a big chunk of the core identity/cause-of-death puzzles. Once those are exhausted, it becomes clear that the game is just throwing all of its designer's ideas at you for the visual appeal, with no rhyme or reason behind their inclusion besides the nautical theme, and no plan for how they all fit together narratively. My working theory went from "this boat has been particularly dickish and the sea is fighting back" to "it's just cursed I guess." The 3 right answers = confirmation mechanic goes from a little bit of leeway for struggling players to mandatory guessing, e.g. for the 4 Chinese guys who are all visually distinct but provide no evidence of which name belongs to which person.
The ending/epilogue is a particular let-down, between the multiple redundant "how sad, the cruelty of Man" vignettes with no puzzle-solving, and the British telegram about what was done with the wages still owed to dead crew members. The latter repeats itself a lot, mostly saying either we tracked down this Brit's family and paid them, or they're a foreigner so we just gave their wages to a British charity. This sleazy practice is presented entirely without commentary, so it fails to be a criticism of easily criticizable Britain, and instead it's just... a depiction.