Taiji

Neat little puzzle game. Not particularly innovative in any of it's mechanics or themes but what's there is mostly fun. It feels like a pastiche of The Witness though Taiji is far from attaining those heights. The pixel art overworld is gorgeous with lots of little details and a variety of biomes. The soundtrack is short but delightful and was never obtrusive. The game runs well throughout the entire playtime with the sole exception of the final cutscene. As for puzzles, they are fine. There are very few new ideas here for puzzle game veterans. Very few puzzles had me delighted after discovering the solution. A lot of puzzles feel more like filler, rather than deeply exploring the consequences of the mechanics, to the point that the solving process became repetitive rather than engaging. This is especially offensive considering that some mechanics weren't even taught well. The gallery and final area of the game felt really refreshing. Some of those puzzles had me really enjoying my time. The former took the familiar mechanics for a spin but got close to overstaying its welcome with a heap of puzzles that have the player guess at what the puzzle even is rather than reasoning through the then simple solution. With the single exception of the god forsaken Owl, I never had to consult a guide to solve any of the game's 400+ puzzles. Overall Taiji is a great game for a weekend if its on sale. But even at that discounted price tag, there are better puzzle games out there. Taiji is beautiful in its world but mostly unimaginative in its puzzles and left me wanting to replay other greats rather than spend more time with it.

Ok so it does scratch the itch. There's the new-age vibe. There's the inference-based learning. There's the subtle, environmental clues. There's the overall challenge. I wholeheartedly recommend it to the puzzleheads out there. Some caveats: there is a heavy emphasis on spatial logic in Taiji's grid-based puzzles. The procedural brain-twisters of Baba Is You seem a more apt comparison than the more relaxed, observational 'being-there' of The Witness, Obra Dinn, Tunic, or Blue Prince. Taiji is clearly a labor of love -- and I wanna love it too -- but it suffers a bit from lack of polish. Some puzzles lack visual clarity and others (in the late-game) feel joylessly cluttered. There are some really good puzzles, but there are others that feel like they were built at random (i.e. solution-first). The free-roam, 'open-world' ethos isn't particularly well-executed either, which leads to potentially bad pacing, depending on your initial direction of conquest. To be clear, I did enjoy Taiji. Its design approach (no hand-holding), its plethora of puzzles (from intermediate to galaxy-brained), its pixel-art aesthetic (fantastic when its not complicating the puzzles!). But it didn't grip me in the way the best of the genre does.

Perfect puzzles to overload your brain for 200%. Child of the Witness

this game witnessed me

有无相生 优雅困难的解谜游戏

i would say this game is better than the witness but some people may disagree

小巧惊艳👍