Recent reviews by Thomas 'Vimes' Bousquet

If you've ever wanted to be Agent 47's handler or part of X-Files' The Lone Gunmen or a member of that NSA hacker group in Enemy of The State; The Operator is kind of the closest you can get. And it's a good fantastic time: it's good, pop fun with a particularly intense sequence in the middle; and some super inspired decisions in the realization department.
It could be a bit more freeform, but hopefully a sequel will remedy to that.

This is a "No, but..." review


Riven 2024 keeps the content fundamentals - the look, the plot, the iconic puzzle (the D'ni Numbering system!) - but like most abridged editions, loses some of the specific tone and design voice that lived in the less approachable elements and stylistic details.

So despite this version's stellar environments and more modern navigation, the original remains quite a bit superior in its puzzle design and its environmental storytelling.

And those were the chief reasons I loved it when I finally truly played it in 2019; and why it's still worth playing 25+ years after its launch.


There are a added touches here and there that feel at home with the original design sensibility (e.g. the animation that makes the light in the secret tunnel Fire Marble for instance; or the mine underneath Gehn laboratory linked to his experimental apparatus above) but the changes in flow, puzzles and the new areas take away from how integrated, consistent, justified but incidental everything was in the 1997 version.

It sadly feels more inline with what Firmament offered: the new elements are more than often mechanical, repetitive and fairly arbitrary to the point of feeling gamey (e.g. the magical lense and perspective puzzle, the repeated action in the starry expanse that makes it feel so small)... an approach that doesn't live up to the design of Riven '97.

But a lot of it is still very good, albeit, in a fragmented, incomplete way... like in an abridged version.


So here's my suggestion: buy the 1997 original for a few bucks and play it for a few hours - using Riven Universal Hint System page where necessary.
If, after that, you still bounce hard off its navigation scheme or low resolution or no hand-holding integrated puzzles, but want to explore more of its world, come here and buy this one to play; you'll have a very decent time.

If you end up liking the original, buy this one as well to support Cyan a team seemingly punching above its weight with fascinating new hires; and thus potentially very cool projects on the horizon.

And go play Obduction, it's almost as good as Riven 97.

I wish it was longer, with maybe a slightly more systemic approach, but Botany Manor is extremely lovely as it is, with its internally consistent puzzles, rewarding deductions and playful solutions. And its epilogue is tone perfect!

Basically it's Cyan's best game after Riven: the discovery flow is amazing, the story is smart and the environment art is MA.GNI.FI.CENT
If it wasn't for a couple of contrived puzzles, a strange one-stop-lore-dump, it would be perfect.

Firmament has a couple of novel interactive mechanisms, and one realm that is interesting to unravel in places, but the majority of puzzles feel abstract and arbitrary rather than emerging from historical functions that make sense.
The adjunct tool doesn't help in that regard, since its linear update path highlights the arbitrary gating of certain puzzle.

Overall the game feels thin, with storytelling nearly exclusively delivered in scripted audio-logs before a final text-lore dump at the end; and with environments particularly sparse in terms of meaningful details.

This sparseness is narratively consistent (this being a highly regimented society), but if a design choice, it feels like a big miss, as it prioritize the neatness of the story space over making that space interesting to explore for players.

The art is really well executed, but the direction itself feels very rehashed for the studio and the genre.

Sadly, Firmament is a huge step down from the idiosyncratic richness and thoughtfulness of Obduction - curiously, it had a similar Kickstarter budget, and a one more year of dev time than its predecessor... it's very strange.

TinyKin is a glorious platformer that, for me, scratches an itch similar to Mario Sunshine and Psychonauts 2.
The controls are butter smooth, the level design is flowy af but marries extremely well with an environment art and a vignette-like storytelling that populate the world meaningfully and in detail without being overwhelming or didactical.
Bottomline, it's all very good.

This is a delightful game, that threads nicely the path between a relaxing flow and head-scratching course puzzles to the perfect score.
The visuals are on point and there's enough meat on the mechanics to carry the game without it feeling too repetitive.

A couple of advice to get the most out of it:
1. Find and try the secret courses as you go: they contain some of the nicest puzzles and interesting variations on the main mechanics and keep thing fresh.
2. Play in shorter session: each courses flow really well into the next and I've caught myself looking up after an hour or so, wondering where the time had gone. However, I must say that I got the most enjoyment when doing 20 to 30 min sessions; with the chill feeling persisting beyond my play time.

I think I'm a little less that halfway through the game and can see myself completing in the coming weeks then going back in a month or so to get those better scores

Beyond its atmosphere, its art, its animations and the incredible feel of its movement mechanics, the masterful thing about Omno is how it stays within itself: it understand what makes it special and focuses on that.
No element overstay its welcome and each of them (the fauna!) feels unique and detailed; making it one of the leanest, best paced game I've had in that genre; and a joy to play.

There's only a handful of thing I wish would be eventually tweaked:
1. capacity to deactivate scripted cameras when discovering areas: I feel the music swell and the area title would be accented enough; and the environment definitely stand on their own.
2. make the transition from dash/glide into surfing more fluid/less strict, to make long traversal across different terrain even more satisfying.
3. I think glide is interrupted when colliding; which made a couple of platform segments involving teleport and glide not very satisfying.
4. make the ending scene a gameplay scene instead of a cinematic. It feels very divorced from the rest of the game
5. support turn on the spot better, for the most finicky platforming bits

It shouldn't come as a suprise but here is a truth Kimmy exposed me to: I do not know what Bloody Knuckles play like and it took me 2 attempts to get the right rules for Kick the Can.
Kimmy is very pretty and engaging to play, but more importantly, I found it displayed great sensitivity and restrain in its writing of kids dialogs: they are of the right complexity and they manage to be very evocative of unseen situations, in a way that is neither sappy or overwritten.
The pacing of the overall experience and the sense of closure were on point as well; givin the aftertaste of a game that found its perfect shape.

Epistory isn't flawless: the framing writing is uninspired and one of its early prominent mechanic - the ice sliding - is clearly not conceived for its control scheme.
BUT, these two things quickly fade in the background of what is a very well crafted, as well as deceptively big and varied light metroidvania.
The typing mechanic is used to nails the tension of dangerous fights and does a good - and at times amazing job - at creating a real sense of exploration, of uncovering unseen part of the world.
Finally - and it's a great thing for a game whose mechanic could be use to infintie and gimmicky end - it doesn't overstay its welcome.