Recent reviews by Kora_Redward

TL;DR: Mankind Divided is a modest step up from its predecessor with improved mechanics, abilities and gameplay options, but still shares a number of its flaws. It isn't hard to see why, at the time of its release, its positive qualities were heavily overshadowed by a toxic marketing campaign. Regardless, it’s a fun, but occasionally frustrating experience.

Narrative: Mankind Divided picks up two years after the events of Human Revolution with the superhuman cyborg with a prosthetic personality, Adam Jensen, now working with Interpol out of Prague. When Prague is targeted by terrorist bombings and an operation Jensen is involved in goes sideways, he is forced to uncover the culprits responsible, all while dealing with an increasing anti-augmented sentiment.

Admittedly, I was never a fan of the ‘anti-aug’ concept in Human Revolution. The distrust and prejudice felt underdeveloped with the few reasonable anti-aug arguments receiving only brief mention. Mankind Divided is in a slightly better position as (without spoiling anything) the events of the previous game served to provide more justification for the paranoia. It still comes across as forced at points, but less so than it did in the previous title.

The story does stumble when it comes to its cast of characters, but I can’t say that Human Revolution did a particularly good job on that front either. At worst, I can say the character writing has remained consistently mediocre, and, at best, I can say it has shown mild improvements. The game also avoids Human Revolution's bizarre problem of having the pre-rendered cutscenes actually look worse than the in-game ones. It's a strange feature to praise, but Mankind Divided didn't store its cutscenes in a ridiculously compressed format so... good on them, I guess?

Gameplay: While the core mechanics and abilities are still present from the previous game, they do receive some streamlining and expansion. Adam is provided with new experimental augments which include some fun new mechanics which work for all styles of play.

Prague is also a much more interesting location to explore than the locations provided in Human Revolution. There are countless areas to explore, and it’s a lot of fun seeking out new areas. If I had a gripe pertaining to Prague, it would be that it can be very easy to miss some of the side missions if you aren’t using a guide. I wandered right past some of them without ever guessing there was additional gameplay there, and only found out when I checked online.

This also does away with the frustrating boss fights that plagued the previous title. Mankind Divided allows players to pick from a multitude of play-styles, and allows for players to avoid killing anyone, if they so desire. Admittedly, it would be nice if the game provided players with information on whether or not they had accidentally killed anyone or ever been detected, in case they're going for the achievements.

Conclusion: Mankind Divided is a fun game, but it does still feel slightly lacking. The story of the bombings and the mission gone wrong isn't as captivating as it should be, and the gameplay is left to pick up the slack. Fortunately, the mechanics and environments are up to the task. This won’t go down as one of my favorite titles, but I can certainly give it a solid recommendation.

8/10

TL;DR: Vampyr is, for better and for worse, a rather unique experience. I won’t deny having gone in with a decent sense of reticence due to my previous experience with Dontnod, but I walked away from the game having enjoyed it more than I didn’t.

That’s not to say that there weren’t occasions where the game made it a challenge to enjoy it, but we’ll get to that. I had fun, despite some aggravations.

Narrative: Vampyr’s story follows Dr. Jonathan Reid, a prominent doctor specializing in blood transfusions who returns to England from WWI only to be faced with the pandemic of 1918. Upon arriving in England, he finds himself attacked, transformed into a vampire and thrust into the center of a supernatural war.
As settings go, the decision to make use of the Spanish Flu was an inspired one, even if it feels a bit on-the-nose in 2020. Still, Dontnod couldn’t have anticipated that factor, and it proves to be an intriguing environment as Reid struggles to counter the epidemic. The game presents a moral choice system in the form of who Reid chooses to feed on or if he chooses to feed at all. Civilians (i.e. named characters) can be fed on for a base amount of experience, but getting to know more about them and making sure they are healthy increases the amount of experience that Reid acquires. It’s an awkward system, but the concept of having to get to know your victims prior to killing them is a fun one.
That being said, the narrative isn’t without its problems. Often the decision on how to handle an issue comes down to the binary choice of kill or don’t kill. What’s that? You’ve discovered that there is a serial killer targeting innocent people? Well, I guess you’re either going to have to kill them or just let them keep murdering away. There is clearly no middle ground. Someone is extorting patients at a hospital? Well, it’s not like you can report them to their superior. I guess you’ll just have to get to killing!
The story also struggles from a front and back-loading of lore. Early in the game, you’ll find yourself swamped with information on various factions, creatures and individuals. This isn’t entirely inexcusable, as many games rush to familiarize the player with the intricacies of their worlds. However, the final chapters pick up this habit once again, with what I can only describe as a patience-defying onslaught of history and world-building.
Despite these issues, the characters are interesting, and, while the writing may occasionally miss a beat, (At one point, Reid becomes romantically involved with a character and I feel they skipped the courting process and jumped straight into “You’re my beloved,” leaving me thoroughly confused.) I ultimately enjoyed the story. Fortunately, the ending left me feeling far less sour on the whole affair than the final chapter of Life is Strange - Season 1 did.

Gameplay: The combat in Vampyr can be a little stiff, but I did find a lot of enjoyment in it. Enemies can be quite difficult if you’re going for a no-feeding playthrough, and it does a good job of incentivizing taking that step. On the middle difficulty, a defeated enemy will only provide 5 xp, while a devoured civilian will provide thousands.
Reid interacts with characters using a dialogue wheel system, and while I liked aspects of the writing, I can’t deny having a number of issues with it. Sometimes, the options for significant choices don’t clearly explain what is entailed, and this can lead to scenarios where you make a choice that ends up having the exact opposite impact of what you were aiming for. This led me to restart my entire playthrough at the end of the first act, and from that point onward I consulted online guides almost constantly. This may seem like a rather cheap way to play the game, but I found it much more favorable that staggering through blindly.
The problem here is that players are subjected to what I’ve come to call the tyranny of the autosave system. I understand what the developers were aiming for. By ensuring that players can’t just load a save every time something goes wrong with a dialogue tree, the developers have forced weight on your choices. The problem lies in the fact that many issues which would be minor otherwise, such as broken quests or vague dialogue choices are exacerbated by the inability to go back.
While I may be coming across as negative, I still liked a lot of the core aspects of the game. Investing in vampiric powers is a lot of fun, and while combat could be challenging, I did find it rewarding when I succeeded in powering through a difficult encounter or overcoming a sudden difficulty spike.

Conclusion: I recommend Vampyr with the caveat that players pull up guides when playing it. The game has a few peculiar habits which made my playthrough more frustrating than it needed to be, but it was an enjoyable experience, and I wouldn’t mind seeing Dontnod return to the Vampyr universe again in the future.

7/10

TL;DR: A case of distrust is a noir text adventure which, despite some simple trimmings, proves to be bursting with style and detail. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to try an string my thoughts together without coming across like a caricature of a hard-boiled detective. It will be a challenge.

Narrative: The story of A Case of Distrust is set in mid-1920’s San Francisco where the player takes on the role of female detective Phyllis “PC” Malone as she tries to pull the threads on a peculiar case involving a former informant for her late uncle.

The game allows for players to question characters using a dialogue process reminiscent of L.A. Noire, but due to the game’s tighter story it permits a more in depth approach. The dialogue trees are a lot of fun to explore, and asking about certain topics can award achievements, encouraging users to dive deep into the cast of characters.

Gameplay: The gameplay largely consists of examining the 2D environments to gather evidence, using the information you’ve uncovered to learn more from individuals, and employing that evidence to contradict lies whenever they arise. The silhouette art style is distinctive and will stick in the player’s memory long after they’ve unravelled the mystery.

If I had a single gripe about the game it would be that the white dialogue against colored backgrounds can wear on the player’s eyes after a while, but I’ve only recently started wearing glasses, so that may be a personal issue more than a gameplay one. Thus, that criticism should be taken with a healthy dose of salt.

The game itself only lasted me about 3 hours, not taking into account my tendency to wander away from the computer during gameplay. As a result, $15 may be a rather uncomfortable price for frugal players. I will admit that I would personally balk at that price tag, even if our tendency to focus on playtime as a function of quality is misguided. I’d easily recommend picking this game up if you see it on sale at a value of $10 or less, or if you are able to pick it up as part of a package bundle.

Conclusion: A Case of Mistrust is a great mystery game brimming with personality that proves to be well worth the brief time investment that it requires. I’m eager to see what Phyllis Cadence Malone might get up to in the future.

9/10

TL;DR: While not the best Fallout game, Fallout 4 does offer a highly engaging experience that taps into some elements of the franchise that have never been fully capitalized upon, even if others fall notably short.

On Twitter, I’ve described Fallout 4 as, “the worst Fallout game that I will probably spend more than a thousand hours playing.” The experience isn’t particularly deep with the narrative and gameplay often feeling at odds, but it’s certainly a fun experience, and well worth the discounted $18 I paid for the G.O.T.Y. edition.

Narrative: The narrative of Fallout 4 has some likable aspects, but there is a notable dissonance from the gameplay. The previous two modern titles in the franchise dealt with the main character trying to track someone down, and technically Fallout 4 is in keeping with this as it follows the lone survivor of a cryogenic vault as they try to find the individuals who kidnapped their infant child. The problem is that the urgency of trying to find your infant child isn’t actually reflected in the game itself. Proper roleplaying of your character would have you rushing through the main plotline as quickly as possible to locate your child, but proper gameplay of an RPG has you scrounging through side quests and exploring the world. This leads to odd moments where your character should arguably be searching for their son… but they just found this boathouse that could really use remodeling. The story itself is also pretty predictable, and while it is populated by some interesting characters the new dialogue mechanics are definitely lacking.
Much has been said about the limited nature of the dialogue trees, and, while it may seem overblown at first, as time goes on, the problems become more and more apparent the further you progress in the game. This is the first game in the Fallout series to feature full voice acting for the player character, so it unsurprisingly features more limited dialogue options than previous games. This is done by assigning a response to each of four buttons, and it generally ends up falling in the trap of their being a good option, evil option, sarcastic or rude option and finally the option to ask for clarification. Combined with the removal of skill checks, this leads to the dialogue feeling very shallow and the descriptions offered for what will be said sometimes don’t offer a clear explanation. In one instance I found myself loading a save because I thought I was going to ask a clarification question, and instead found myself offering to sell a child into slavery.
Despite these issues, there is still a lot to like. There are a lot of areas that feature Fallout’s classic contextual writing where, if you care to search for it, there are descriptions of beautiful pre and post-war lives and tragedies to be found. Furthermore, there’s plenty to love about the various characters you encounter along the way, and the iconic android/hard-boiled detective Nick Valentine is probably on my shortlist of favorite Fallout characters. If I were to summarize the world and characters of Fallout 4, I would say that it features a broad and expansive experience that unfortunately ends up lacking depth more often than not.

Gameplay: While I probably came across as notably mixed on the narrative beats of the game, I can’t deny being thoroughly enraptured by Fallout 4’s gameplay. There are plenty of rough edges to be sure, but Boston feels larger and more expansive than what is offered in the overwhelming majority of open world environments, and the game does a good job of taking advantage of its sense of verticality. The game also featured relatively few glitches for an open world game, but I may have been lucky in that regard. Over the course of a playthrough that lasted more than 150 hours, I only experienced a handful of notable graphical or audio bugs and only one or two crashes.
The character progression has been heavily reworked from the previous Fallout games, and it’s something of a mixed bag. The aforementioned removal of skill points serves to make many of the interactions in the game feel shallow as all you really need to get through any speech check are a few charisma boosting items, and things like lockpicking and hacking have been relegated to the new and expanded perk system. One key advantage to the new perk system is that it does encourage specialization in a way that Fallout 3 and New Vegas didn’t. When your combat ability with a particular weapon type was tied to a skill, it became relatively easy to be skilled in multiple different methods of combat by the midgame in those titles. Fallout 4 makes it so that, in order to improve your capability with a weapon, you’ll need to invest in combat perks, and this offers a fun new strategic edge to builds.
If I were to highlight Fallout 4’s biggest strengths, they would be the updated combat systems and the base building, which is good because those two elements can easily account for about 90% of the gameplay. That’s something of an offhand criticism, since the game throws a litany of “go here and kill this” missions at you, but if the game is going to have the player engage in a lot of repetitive gameplay, at least it has the decency to make that repetition fun. I’ll also admit that I found the base building to be enjoyable, but it’s a little hard to justify it outside of the “Look what I built!” factor as there are few significant benefits to building up settlements in the base game.


Conclusion: Fallout 4 is a very mixed bag, filled with tons of fun and frustration. As a Fallout game, the narrative and mechanics feel like the weakest of the modern titles, but as a shooter and base builder there is a lot to enjoy. Even with a shallower narrative than its predecessors, Fallout 4 is certainly worth checking out, and I suspect that I will pour many more hours into the Commonwealth, even if I ultimately feel the need to turn around and gripe to friends about its shortcomings.

7/10

TL;DR: Arkham Origins is a fun expansion of the Arkham franchise that does a good job of exploring its characters and improving the gameplay, but unfortunately inherits or derives a few notable flaws from the preceding titles.

As someone who enjoyed the first two Arkham games, but feels they haven’t aged particularly well, I was curious to see how Origins held up given that it received only modest praise when compared to its predecessors.

Narrative: Arkham Origins serves as a prequel to the two previous Arkham games with Batman having only been active for two years, and many in Gotham regarding him as an urban legend. When the gangster Black Mask puts out a 50 million dollar bounty on Batman’s head, 10 assassins are called into the city to try and claim it.
There is a certain underlying genius to this premise, as it allows the game to incorporate an array of lesser known DC villains from Firefly to Electrocutioner. Bane is probably the character who benefits most from this approach, as the previous two games had done little with the character. Here, he is presented as being arguably the most dangerous and most tactical of the 10 assassins, and, while I’m not entirely happy with how his plotline ends, it’s a far cry better than him simply being a mediocre introductory boss like in Asylum.
The downside to this narrative approach isn’t immediately apparent, but it makes itself known as the game continues along. With over 10 villains running the show, the game’s story can come across as meandering and unfocused, and I often found myself wondering how far I was in the main plot. With the player’s attention being constantly juggled from one antagonist to another, it is difficult to ascertain whether you are in the middle of the game or on the final stretch.
If there is one aspect where the game thoroughly outdoes its predecessor, it would be the strength of its side missions. Arkham City featured some particularly terrible side missions, and Origins improves upon the formula heavily. Aspects remain the same, with Origins even recycling a side mission that involved tracking down chemical tanks and destroying them, but the conclusions to these missions feel much more rewarding... though I still couldn’t be bothered to track down all of Nigma’s collectables.

Gameplay: The gameplay mechanics are largely consistent with the two previous entries in the franchise, featuring a balance between the iconic Arkham combat system and stealth takedown sections. Personally, I’ve never been particularly keen on the combat system of the previous games, but I found myself warming up to it a bit in Origins. In the past, I’ve found that, by the time I start getting comfortable with the nuances of the controls, the game starts expanding the number of enemies making the large scale brawls feel more than a little tedious. Origins introduces a mechanic midway involving shock gauntlets which ensures that as the brawls get larger Batman has the means of cutting them short by charging up his gauntlets. This is a creative way of circumventing an issue that had detracted from the combat in prior entries.
The stealth sections have always been a bit more appealing to me, and they remain roughly as strong here as they were in previous games. I did have a few issues with enemies getting stuck on terrain or glitching. In one instance, three enemies were all stuck on the same piece of scaffolding, and I had to start pelting them with batarangs just to knock them free of their love affair with that particular piece of ironwork. There were a couple visual and gameplay glitches but nothing thoroughly game breaking. The worst instance I encountered was a side mission that ended with Batman beating up a room full of goons. Once it was said and done, he was supposed to interrogate one of them, but I found I couldn’t trigger the interrogation and was forced to redo the fight. It was a minor inconvenience, but worth noting.
The game also seeks to focus more on Batman’s role as a detective by introducing more crime scene investigations. This offers a nice change of pace, but it doesn’t require much involvement from the player. You’re mainly tasked with clicking on a couple objects in an area and leaving it to Batman to figure out how it all comes together. Offering the player the opportunity to figure out how the crime had played out using a mechanic such as multiple choice questions could have allowed for a bit more engagement, with improved XP rewards for correct answers. As it stands, I appreciate the increased presence of crime scene investigations even if they still feel a bit too basic. I should also note that the game is technically impossible to 100% complete due to some achievements being tied to the now defunct multiplayer, so completionists should be aware of this problem in advance.

Conclusion: If you enjoyed the first two Arkham games, you’ll likely enjoy what is provided in Origins. On the other hand, if you weren’t a fan of the then Origins probably won’t be changing your mind. It offers some strong characterization for a number of often neglected villains and for Batman himself, but also suffers from uneven structuring and pacing. All in all, I’d recommend picking it up if you see it discounted.

7/10

TL:DR: Wolfenstein: The New Order takes the approach that many superb shooters and stealth games do, don’t expand too far and instead polish what you have until it is of excellent quality.

The New Order provides a fun and kinetic FPS/Stealth game which may favor the former over the latter, but neither aspect fails to be rewarding.

Narrative: The story of The New Order is something of a contradiction. At a glance, it’s a rather stale, “What if the Nazi’s won WWII via wizard technology?” plotline, but the game energizes these familiar narrative beats by infusing the game with fun and interesting worldbuilding, and follows it up by giving the player a ton of interesting characters to interact with in that world. Some characters, such as our lead Blazkowicz or our antagonist Deathshead, are brought over from the prior games in the Wolfenstein series, but no familiarity with prior works is really needed. It’s really through these characters that the story thrives. When viewed in a vacuum, the game can look like a collection of creative set-pieces that have been hastily stitched together with narrative sinew struggling to hold it all together. But add in characters like William, Anya and their ragtag group of resistance fighters, and the game really makes you feel that you’re fighting to protect something delicate from annihilation.
I’ve heard a lot of praise for this game’s story, but I think it is the execution of said story that is worthy of praise. With an impeccable score, great voice acting, lovable characters and stellar visuals, a good but not great story can get elevated to something more.

Gameplay: The New Order provides a tightly constructed campaign that lasted me 20 hours on the middle difficulty. The gameplay accommodates a number of methods of engagement. The stealth is relatively well realized, and it can be very satisfying to work your way behind an enemy and get that stealth takedown. Still, I wouldn’t argue that stealth is where the game is at its strongest. Sometimes enemies seem oddly unconcerned about the man built like a dump truck tiptoeing across open ground and other times they’ll spot you in no time flat. There was a rather amusing room in the final level where none of the soldiers in the room seemed unnerved by the fact that every time they turned around there seemed to be another newly deceased ally on the ground. Fortunately, when things go wrong with stealth, it doesn’t feel like all is lost. The combat is kinetic and rewarding, with the game encouraging different tactics via its perk system which permits you to gain improvements by completing certain achievements such as killing a certain number of enemies with a grenade.
The game seeks to increase its replayability by introducing a choice near the beginning which serves to shake the narrative up slightly and make a mild change to gameplay by offering two different timelines, but, frankly, the combat mechanics are fun enough to speak for themselves. The game is worth revisiting once in a while, though I suppose that, when I do come back to it, I’ll probably try out the ‘Fergus Timeline’ just to see how it differs.

Conclusion: I’m not the most avid FPS gamer, but I had a good time with Wolfenstein: The New Order, and may well choose to revisit it in the future. I’d recommend picking it up when it’s on sale, as it provides a memorable and fast-paced journey with really fun characters and the second best incorporation of Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” that I’ve seen in a shooter. (There's no point in playing coy. Spec Ops takes first in that regard.)

8/10

TL;DR: Cold Steel combines an immersive world and complicated characters with fun gameplay that is only occasionally held back by a few minor design choices.

-The Review is Spoiler Free-

Trails of Cold Steel is an interesting place to enter the The Legend of Heroes franchise. For those who are unfamiliar, this series was preceded by the Trails in the Sky series, and, while Cold Steel isn’t a direct sequel, it does take place in the same world with many of the same characters. As a newcomer to the overall franchise, I found the story to be very compelling, and the combat system is challenging, but rewarding.

Narrative:
Cold Steel follows the exploits of a class at Thors Military Academy as they carry out their studies and interact with the greater world. The environments are expansive, but this leads into a minor complaint as completionists will find themselves struggling to talk to every character, find every book, catch every fish, etc. There is a lot to do and a lot of characters to interact with, and it can be a little overwhelming for those who aim to get achievements during their first play though. The narrative is more than worth it though, as we watch Class VII deal with issues throughout the Empire, and the sense of learning about the inner workings of the nation of Erebonia in conjunction with our main cast is realized perfectly.
Like many JRPGs, Cold Steel takes a rather linear path, so, while you have the opportunity to roam around exploring areas and seeking out side quests, the story doesn’t feature much potential for deviations. This is nothing wrong with this approach, but fans of more branching and open RPGs should be braced for this. I personally experience what I refer to as “JRPG Fatigue” at a certain point, as playing through a linear story for dozens upon dozens of hours can leave me wanting to play something new. I spent about 100 hours on my playthrough of the story which consists of 7 chapters in total. If anyone feels they might experience a similar sense of fatigue when playing games like this, then I recommend planning one or two breaks, so that the gameplay remains fresh.

Gameplay:
The combat system feels like a fun blend of the system used in Tales of Berseria with the classic Final Fantasy turn-based system. You control a team of 4 characters in a 3D environment, and they are assigned a turn order based upon their speed. On their turn you have an array of options. You can use their basic attacks, you can use items, you can employ special skills called ‘Crafts’, or you can employ mystic ‘Artes’. Yes, I am very taken by the ‘Artes and Crafts’ idea. The combat has that, “Easy to do, but difficult to master,” quality to it, which can make it all the more rewarding to find an effective strategy. Interactions outside of combat also have an influence as the relationships between characters can impact their combat abilities with stronger relationships allowing for more cooperation.
Interactions in the overworld can be a little more straightforward, possibly to a fault. It makes sense for the game to be linear, but some of the side missions could offer more opportunities for interaction. In one side mission, for example, you’re tasked with delivering books to various teachers, but you don’t know which teacher requires which book. However, instead of having the player use the information available to them to guess, all you have to do is talk to each teacher, and the main character will figure out on his own which book needs to be delivered. It’s a minor complaint, but don’t be too disappointed if some of the side missions handhold a bit too much, or prevent sequence breaking.

Conclusion:
Trails of Cold Steel is a very fun game that is only slightly held back by a few stiff design elements. In that regard, it reminds me a little of the first Mass Effect. The story is worth all of the running around though, and the game makes it clear that things are not finished at the end, so be prepared to pick up Trails of Cold Steel II once you’re done. If you’re like me, you’ll definitely be on board for that. (HAHA! Got a train pun in there right at the very end!)

Score: 9/10

-A Bad Game Worth Learning From-

Let's be clear, I spent a good while trying to decide whether or not to 'Recommend' Only If. From a gameplay standpoint it's pretty mediocre. It is a generic 3D puzzle game built from Unity assets that often amounts to 'go to a number of objects and click on them'. However, I would argue that what actually makes the game bad is a relatively unusual combination of factors, but I can't recommend it to players who want an actual good game. There is a caveat to this in my conclusion, though.

Plot:
The plot is loosely strung together, and offers little of actual substance. The premise is that our main character, Anthony, goes to a party in hopes of hooking up with his crush. This is a rather uncomfortable premise to begin with, but then we meet Vinny. After the party Anthony wakes in an unfamiliar room with the voice of an unknown individual names Vinny guiding him through a number of the aforementioned puzzles. Vinny comes across as a frustrating, misguided attempt to cash in on the then recent breakout character of the Far Cry franchise, Vaas, but, where Vaas was a charismatic villain brought to life through Michael Mando's exceptional performance, Vinny is a nagging voice in your ear whose constant taunts grate on patience faster than the puzzles do.
I will not spoil the ending, though frankly, it might be worth looking up prior to playing to undercut the annoyance of the 'twist'. I call it a twist because the delivery seems to thing it operates as such, but it does nothing to recontextualize anything that did or didn't happen. Anthony came across as an obnoxious and bigoted creep prior to the twist, and Vinny makes just as little sense after the twist, so ultimately the 'twist' only exists for the sake of attempting to be mildly shocking.

Gameplay:
I alluded to the frustration of the gameplay mechanics, but it's hard to convey how much this game feels like a cheap excuse to string together a bunch of separately designed puzzles using the paper thin plot to hold it all together. The game doesn't implement any tutorialization, so it is easy to get caught off guard when the game wants you to do something like type out an answer to a question it asked when the game never suggested that was a mechanic. To put it simply the gameplay is a mess. One second you're trying to answer a ridiculously basic question before you get 'shot', the next you're running down a corridor pursued by darkness, the next you're trying to click on every trashcan in a park, and then you find yourself shooting pots with a handgun. It is all over the place.

Aesthetic:
I hated this game from the first achievement I received. It's an odd thing to nitpick, but there is an achievement in this game called 'Pervert'. When Anthony wakes up, he's in a room with a large painting of an anime girl taking up much of a wall. If you're like me, you'll find yourself wondering, "Isn't that a palette swapped image of Yoko from the anime Gurren Lagann? Doesn't that constitute copyright infringement?" However, if you stare at it for a few seconds it gives you the achievement. There is nothing like being insulted by a game for wondering if its creators were breaking intellectual property law.
The game does not look very good. It's cobbled together from Unity assets, and while it isn't the worst example of this out there, it still suffers from the problem where the game just looks uneven. I will credit the creators though. They at least tried to make it look like it was all designed to fit together. This isn't so much praise as it is tempering of a criticism, but it is something, at least.

Conclusion:
Only If is a frustratingly fascinating pretentious mess. However, as a mess, it is worth learning from. If you have an interest in game design, Only If offers an opportunity to see what not to do when developing a puzzle game or any game for that matter. It lacks a cohesive aesthetic, it jambs together disparate puzzles that have no connective tissue, and it tries to do all of this under the guise of offering some grand vision. If you read the product description, it is clear the game uses its pretensions as a means to try and obscure poor gameplay and narrative design and I feel this can be a useful learning tool on how to avoid these negative impulses when constructing a game.

So, yeah, Only If is really bad, but it can be learned from.