This game is... very pretentious, but it's absolutely my kinda thing. The closest thing I could compare it to would be Scorn; you spend your time exploring this vast, uncaring and alien landscape and, while there are occasional puzzles or platforming sections, the main reason you are here is just to drink it all in. Again like Scorn there is no real story to grasp on to, it's more about vibes and a nonspecific sense of dread, and the experience comes off more as an art exhibit than a video game (see also Yume Nikki and, for a bad example, Agony). In my experience games like this can feel a little aimless or content-poor in terms of actual gameplay challenge, and I get why many would find this boring... but it turns out these kinda of game are absolutely my kind of shit.
Naissance is absolutely beautiful and, despite basically nothing happening in the whole game, utterly terrifying. The use of massive scale, harsh lighting and pitch blackness make you feel like an insignificant mote of dust drifting through a world that wasn't made for you, doesn't care about you and mostly doesn't even realise you exist. The use of darkness in particular is very bold... parts of this game are so dark that it's extremely difficult to see anything, which sounds like terrible design on paper, but it really hammers home the feeling that this is not a world that was built for you to explore. Later on in the game it feels like the world 'notices' you somehow and begins to fuck with the player character more directly and... well, it lost me a bit there, and I much preferred the feeling of loneliness and lostness that came in the earlier part of the game.
Overall, though, I did find this game weaker than Scorn. The art direction in NaissanceE is, don't get me wrong, austerely beautiful... breathtaking, in fact. But it just can't compete with the overwhelming detail of the world in Scorn. There are also a few parts of NaissanceE where it opens up into a quasi-open world, and honestly these feel pretty aimless (and not the good 'aimlessness' of the explorative parts of the game). The area I'm going to refer to as 'the Desert' is the worst example of this; just a huge area with a few random points of interest in it. Each of those landmarks is interesting in its own way, but they all come across as just randomly placed set pieces that were dumped here because the devs couldn't figure out where to put them. Also... yeah, won't lie, that ending made me roll my eyes pretty hard.
Still, the overall experience I had with NaissanceE was a strong one. I particularly liked the more maze-like areas where it felt like there were dozens of different paths you could take; I'm sure that video game magic ensures you get to where you need to go anyway, but the illusion of choice really helped sell this game as an exploration of an unfathomably large place in a way that few other games can. Definitely recommend trying it if it's your kind of thing (it's free!), but do be prepared to bounce off as this is definitely not everyone's cup of tea.
Naissance is absolutely beautiful and, despite basically nothing happening in the whole game, utterly terrifying. The use of massive scale, harsh lighting and pitch blackness make you feel like an insignificant mote of dust drifting through a world that wasn't made for you, doesn't care about you and mostly doesn't even realise you exist. The use of darkness in particular is very bold... parts of this game are so dark that it's extremely difficult to see anything, which sounds like terrible design on paper, but it really hammers home the feeling that this is not a world that was built for you to explore. Later on in the game it feels like the world 'notices' you somehow and begins to fuck with the player character more directly and... well, it lost me a bit there, and I much preferred the feeling of loneliness and lostness that came in the earlier part of the game.
Overall, though, I did find this game weaker than Scorn. The art direction in NaissanceE is, don't get me wrong, austerely beautiful... breathtaking, in fact. But it just can't compete with the overwhelming detail of the world in Scorn. There are also a few parts of NaissanceE where it opens up into a quasi-open world, and honestly these feel pretty aimless (and not the good 'aimlessness' of the explorative parts of the game). The area I'm going to refer to as 'the Desert' is the worst example of this; just a huge area with a few random points of interest in it. Each of those landmarks is interesting in its own way, but they all come across as just randomly placed set pieces that were dumped here because the devs couldn't figure out where to put them. Also... yeah, won't lie, that ending made me roll my eyes pretty hard.
Still, the overall experience I had with NaissanceE was a strong one. I particularly liked the more maze-like areas where it felt like there were dozens of different paths you could take; I'm sure that video game magic ensures you get to where you need to go anyway, but the illusion of choice really helped sell this game as an exploration of an unfathomably large place in a way that few other games can. Definitely recommend trying it if it's your kind of thing (it's free!), but do be prepared to bounce off as this is definitely not everyone's cup of tea.