Once Glorious Artahk

I loved Once Glorious Artahk, it's my favorite game released in 2025 by a wide margin. It's a puzzle metroidvania with some metroidbrainia elements too. It does something interesting with combining puzzles and narrative, where each puzzle gives you a word that unlocks a chapter in a book. The key is that both the puzzles and the narrative chapters are very solid, it doesn't feel like you are getting shortchanged on either, and they also intertwine somewhat. It is worth doing as many puzzles and thus getting as many chapters as you can, both because the puzzles are genuinely fun and the chapters all reveal something interesting. Without spoilers, I should say that the game has an epic fantasy story that reminded me the most of Richard Adams' work (I think I spotted a reference too), and also Lois McMaster Bujold's Five Gods series to an extent, with some cosmic horror elements. It also has a wonderful antagonist. When it comes to gameplay, there is very little hand-holding. You get shown the controls and are set loose in a large maze-like forest. You need to take notes by hand and probably also screenshot stuff a lot (I did both). I absolutely had to draw a map of the initial area, and I also drew one other map, but some of the areas are quite easy to remember, so I didn't map everything. Taking notes in a game is my catnip, so if you enjoy that, you'll be delighted! If not, this game might not be for you? It is like Blue Prince without the randomness, and with a story that ultimately comes together and makes sense (sorry Blue Prince!). Or I could also compare it to Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, but with a very different setting and ambience. The same goes for Heaven's Vault. These should hopefully give you an idea what kind of game this is. The art is nice but not spectacular. I actually liked that it did not distract from my imagination when I was reading the chapters, this is truly a bookish game. I thought the music was surprisingly good! But I wished it had some more tracks, because near the end of my gameplay it started feeling repetitive. I completed the game in about 27 hours without looking anything up, and I didn't get desperately stuck at any point during those hours. I'm still trying to 100% it with looking up at least some hints of where to find some of the puzzles, because I did get desperately stuck after completing the game while trying to gather the last remaining chapters. (I'm at around 40 hours, but almost done, I think.) I played on a Steam Deck docked to the TV, with a PS4 controller, and this worked very well. There is no official layout, but I just bound every keyboard button to a controller button as they came up, and this worked without any problems. When you put in words, you'll need the onscreen keyboard, but this is minimal and can easily be done with the controller too. Accessibility-ish information: There are some optional late-game puzzles which I found a bit hard to see, but you can complete the game without them. There is one puzzle that requires sound (I think this one is also optional) and some others where sound can be a clue you're on the right path. There are some timing-based puzzles including one where I had a bit of trouble, but eventually managed. There is one enemy, who can be turned off from the settings menu. One thing I was missing is the option for a hi-res font for the text, as I was playing with one of my family members, who prefers that for accessibility reasons. I ended up reading the text out loud (yes, all of it), which is, let me just say, not equally fun in every game, but here it was great. This probably added a bit to my playtime, but I still think you easily have at least 20-25 hours of puzzling here to get to the ending, and at least 10 more hours to find everything. Is it a metroidbrainia?: There are some metroidbrainia elements, specifically mechanisms of the game world that you can figure out before you get to a puzzle that demonstrates them. (Some examples of this are [spoiler] how you can use different color fire and how you can travel on the light beams.[/spoiler]) I often sequence break in these types of games, largely accidentally by bumbling into a game mechanic, but here that didn't happen and I was like "....wow, I could've figured this out so much earlier". Which is awesome. BUT the bulk of the game unlocks are not knowledge-based but ability-based, as in a more traditional metroidvania. Still, this game should be a lot of fun for people who like metroidbrainia types of games. (REALLY, JUST GET IT) ____ Source of the game: Bought with my own money, with the launch discount because I'd seen it mentioned on the puzzlevideogames and metroidbrainia subreddits.

Just got the credits, very neat game! Very exploration focused, and impressive for a one person dev team. It does lean heavily on its writing, so you'll need to enjoy reading to get the most out of it, but the writing's interesting enough and does a good job building the world. You'll also most certainly want to take a lot of screenshots and write notes for yourself. The puzzles for the most part are about observing your environment, there's a little bit of block pushing involved but as you progress and unlock more of your verbs the things done with that are pretty interesting. The least interesting thing was probably the couple times the game made me do a lights out puzzle, but those were pretty low in number. Most of the puzzles are instead based around observing your environment and using the cues there to figure out a word to put into your book, which in turn fills in the games backstory. It's not without flaws, I found myself getting lost a lot in the first areas of the game because of a lack of distinct landmarks, and like a lot of puzzle games it does make you retread old ground a lot, which in turn makes it hard to remember what I had and hadn't already gone back to. On original release this was further exacerbated by there being a beast that rotates through the initial areas that will hunt you down if you're in the same area as it for long enough, thankfully the developer added in an option to turn it off partially through my playthrough, it was particularly annoying with my playstyle, since I'd look at my notes and figure out an area I wanted to do things in, occasionally having the game tell me I couldn't go there right now wasn't really what i was looking for. There was also one audio puzzle i was not able to solve without using some more advanced tools; i simply couldn't distinguish well enough between the notes by ear to put in the answer. Overall i'd recommend the game though! Had a really good time puzzling it out.

Just a brief impression to help boost something interesting: It seems well made and intriguing, moody writing and art. I think it's worth checking out! 2 gripes, it's a bit dark, I know that's the game but I set my screen quite low on brightness and it's hard to see even the torchlight. Second the text typing sound effect is a bit grating.

[h2] Puzzles [/h2] They are difficult. Combination locks where constructing the code is an entire obscure puzzle, riddles and using your abilities in unexpected ways. There are lots of secrets, and also looking out for clues to puzzles in a way that feels very similar to secret finding. I've had tons of moments where I suddenly make a novel realization either with how the game subtly communicates with you or how your abilities can be used. And all of that experience feels very relevant because the same concepts will be built upon by future puzzles. There will be many puzzles that you can't figure out on the first time, but there are almost always other puzzles you can take a look at and come back with a fresh mind later. If not, there's the in game hint system and friendly people in the official discord who can give small hints that explain as little as possible. [h2] Story [/h2] There is pretty much a full book's worth of well written short stories to unlock. You slowly increase your understanding of the city and the worldbuilding around it, which feels similar to slowly connecting the dots in Outer Wilds. Just that there are many more small details and philosophical themes along the way. For me as someone who enjoys doing thorough lore analysis to make sure I'm seeing all the connections there are, reading and analyzing the lore is like half of my playtime, and I really enjoy it. I'm also a slow gamer in general so most people will probably get the same progression in like half the playtime, with lore reading making up a smaller portion. [h2] Quality of life [/h2] Any complaints from negative reviews are either fixed or have an option to turn them off now. The map update is great and the markers in it let me note down tons of different things very precisely to keep track of things. I've slightly used the in game hint system twice, and it's very good at narrowing down where to look in order to progress, but doesn't explain anything which is good. There is no fast travel, but when you know exactly where you're going the world is pretty small, despite having so many puzzles. Nothing else to really comment on in my opinion. It's good.

this game scratched an itch that has developed from playing games like blue prince and tunic. it provided a ton of light bulb aha! moments that felt amazing sus out. great lore and world building, each new entry into the tome made me race to find the next. some of the music tracks might be stuck in my head for the foreseeable future was truly captivated by the mystery of it all (the text scrawl sound was my only real gripe with the game) very loud and fast

Amazing game, loved the puzzle design. It's really well balanced in terms of difficulty curve. I did often start to feel a bit lost on where to go next, but every time it started to near a sense of frustration I would find a tidbit that made everything click and made the payoff that much sweeter. Definitely scratches that metroidbrania itch (for lack of a better term)

Highly recommend this game. The game's greatest strength is it's fantastic atmosphere that is only deepened by the unbelievably well written lore entries that motivate you to keep going. Speaking of the lore entries, they allow you to occupy a fully imagined and lived in world. The feeling that you are being watched and followed the entire game is palpable, and it only grows as you learn more and more about this city. Game play is simple and driven; very easy to get the hang of. The language and recurring mechanics keep the game challenging but don't make it so it is impossible to progress.

Surprisingly deep and engaging game that has a lot more content than you might expect. If you enjoyed figuring out the secrets in Animal Well you’ll probably enjoy this, as it draws a lot of inspiration from there. Some of the puzzles are very in depth, and almost all of them felt very intuitive to solve - just challenging enough to require some critical thinking, but not so hard as to be frustrating. I turned the beast off end ended up ignoring the lore entries because I wasn’t finding them to be very interesting but it didn’t really affect my enjoyment of the game. The other area for improvement is that some of the areas (especially royal parterre) require you to redo the same puzzles over and over to switch between traversal paths, which ended up being a little tedious. Aside from those things I really did enjoy this though and would highly recommend this for anyone who likes deep puzzle games.

This is a *wonderful*, 9/10 game for me. This game nails the atmosphere, making it feel like you're an archaeologist who is trying to decipher the mystery of the city of Artahk. The music is gorgeous, the writing is superb, and I was enraptured for the 20-some hours it took me to beat the game. No game is for everybody, but this game is more "not for everybody" than most, so lets go over the things that might prevent you from enjoying this game, to see if it is for you. 1 - There is no combat, only exploration, story, and puzzle-solving. 2 - This game will not hold your hand. There are no immersion-breaking tutorials. It believes in you, and your ability to decipher the puzzles in front of you, possibly more than you believe in yourself. I had to look up an answer once, but the clues were all there in front of me, I had just completely misinterpreted what they meant. 3 - You will need to be observant and take notes. Screenshots were sufficient for me, but having a small notebook in front of me would have been useful. 4 - There is a lot of reading. You are discovering the lore of the city of Artahk, and this lore is presented as wonderful, well-written stories which you unlock as you solve puzzles. The lore is the reward for solving puzzles, so don't expect an engaging gameplay loop if you don't want to read about the (extremely interesting!) events that led to Artahk's ruin. Still onboard? Great, because this game is a treat. It is split into 3 acts: the first act sets expectations and the stage for the story at-large. The 2nd act is phenomenal, one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had while gaming. The build-up to the climax of the 2nd act is just *chef's kiss*. The 3rd act suffers for this: I was not nearly as engaged by the story, and the final climax definitely could have been presented better. The shaky 3rd act is the only thing preventing me from calling this game a masterpiece, but it was still an extremely enjoyable finish to a wonderful game. Strongly recommended!

Amazing game! Up there in the same tier as return to the obra din. I loved the exploration and secret finding. The puzzles weren't too difficult. The lore was soooo fun! I was worried reading all the passages would get tedious but everything was written in such an interesting way that I found it a joy. Here's hoping you make more games!