[h2] Atmospheric game with unfortunate flaws and weak puzzles [/h2]
tl:dr I have three major complaints with this title: non-sale price is too steep for what is offered, puzzles are mostly of the lock-and-key variety or otherwise very simple, and there are many minor and some bigger non-gamebreaking bugs.
[h3] Atmosphere, music and graphics [/h3]
The greatest strength of this title is the level of detail put into the manor. Each and every nook and cranny seems to be littered with books and papers, almost all of the cupboards and drawers can be opened and contain something, making it feel alive and lived in. Sometimes one may find a readable news article or private letter foreshadowing some of the happenings around the Strange family, or simply the Lord's intrigueing taste in literature.
Especially the Lord's portrait in the entrance hall leaves quite the impression, along with other original artwork.
The music serves as an accomodating backgrond note, never too noticeable, but fitting for the vibe.
Graphics are fine I guess, but feel a tad dated at times, and some assets are noticeable blurry and stretched. There are no reflections at all, making for some sad looking mirrors, and the lighting never gets an opportunity to truely shine. There's a missed opportunity to make the manor not just look good, but grandiose. I've played on Ultra graphics, however I didn't notice much of a difference compared to Normal settings tbh.
[h3]the puzzles (or lack thereof)[/h3]
In my personal opinion, the best early puzzles are [spoiler] finding the desk key [/spoiler] and [spoiler] the library light puzzle [/spoiler]. Both of those puzzles have an accommodating hint nearby hidden in the environment, thus rewarding exploration, while also being able to solve them without finding or using the additional hints. Unfortunately, there are many lock and key puzzles, many literal keys, some equivalent, like a combination to enter, that sometines yield just another key again. Most of the challenge is remembering WHERE to use it. I should note positively that most(unfortunately not exactly all) relevant clues get added into a journal automatically, and unsolved puzzles or contraptions get marked on the map. Also, the hints point you to your next objective if stuck. About one(or two) puzzles per room are ones that requires actual thought to solve, however three are trial-and-error combination locks, one ball maze with a front instead of top view for some reason, and some contain just enough clues so the last part can be inferred by guesswork, which may leave you searching for a last clue that didn't exist. The [spoiler] Lens [/spoiler] is underused, two times in the beginning and then another time when you may already forgotten about it. Overall the puzzles feel simple and easy, even for point-and-click or adventure type games, with a handful of interesting puzzles.
[h3]I'd fire my maid if there're so many bugs in my manor[/h3]
Yup, bugs aplenty. While I didn't find any hard-locking bugs or crashes, there're too many bugs I stumbled by accident, including: grabbing stuff through the walls of a closed safe, trunks refusing to close, buggy door behaviour, a dial of a puzzle that was somehow offset by a couple degrees, making it unsolveable until I restarted. Said restart also resetting the options to defaults. Being unable to close the tutorial message on controller. Add on top some of the jank in some puzzles, like not registering inputs properly with mouse or if you're too quick, not being able to reset puzzles to default, as well as very non-diagetic (and also unnecessary complicated) design show a lot of flaws that really could (and should) have been avoided.
[h3]should you buy[/h3]
I cannot recommend this title for it's asking price while you could get almost 3/4 entries of a series that I believe is both far superior and will give you about as much playtime (~5h) PER TITLE as this one. If you really like the sound of a relaxing adventure game with the atmosphere of a (slightly creepy) victorian mansion, don't mind some flaws and bugs here and there, and it's on sale, sure, go for it.
