Eclipsium

Аудио-визуальное наслаждение с интересным сюжетом, строго рекомендуется

Angoissant, joli et plaisant à jouer 10/10 je n'y rejouerais plus jamais

This game gave me a feeling I'd never felt with a game before, and hope I never feel again; about two thirds of the way through, it occurred to me that I wished I was watching someone else play it instead of having to play it myself. Most of the game's visuals are an absolute feast, and a small handful of the puzzles were pleasant surprises, but the majority of the game felt so very tedious, the movement was so very slow and dragged out, and the story felt like a lot of "and then THIS happens!" rather than meaningful threads weaving a coherent tapestry. Many sections felt like non sequiturs, and some of the cutscenes feel largely irrelevant by the end of the game's runtime; a shame, because early segments lay a lot of excellent groundwork that goes underutilized by a game somehow paradoxically too abstract AND too straightforward. Speaking of underutilized, a lot of the hand mechanics, and so many of the set pieces! Sincere attempts to engage with the game's design and explore the art in front of you are never really rewarded. It's unfortunate when a game feels, in hindsight, best played as an amusement park ride; walking where it wants you to walk and touching what it wants you to touch. The hand transformations had so much potential, but minimal application outside of the very hammer-meets-nail intended uses to progress in the story. I ended up wasting a LOT of time trying to apply them (particularly the vision ability) in creative ways. The same can be said for exploration at all; several of the game's areas are just large enough to imply there's something to explore, but if you actually wander around the full scenes, there's often just... Nothing. Reading other people's reviews a while after playing it myself, it looks like a faster movement option was added after my playthrough. I'm not sure it would have saved the experience for me, but I'm glad to hear that was addressed, and I do hope the Dark Tar update further enriches the experience for those who liked what they played here. If there's one overall commendation I can offer Eclipsium, it's that there were enough interesting pieces in here that I would happily give the team's next horror game a try; a lot of potential and great ideas in here.