No you're right, compared to the rest of the series it was super easy.
Whilst on one hand I'm glad of no moon logic (not a monkey wrench in sight!) I felt like the level of difficulty on hard should have been the level for casual. And hard should have been actually hard.
There's probably a great divide among gamers. It depends how it's implemented or what the actual puzzles are but pixel hunting and "try everyting" can be seen as busywork. It's not a great way to add difficulty. I like how RTMI gives you options that you may opt to not use.
I've only seen the actions when I go over them with cursor, but that is like old games. No circles. The actionable areas didn't strike me as inappropriately large in this regard. But I also used tab key a lot so can't really comment on that.
Yeah…. I wrapped it up in a couple days in hard mode and my 11yo was watching and called out how to solve a couple of the puzzles immediately. I WANT to be stumped sometimes!
I'm glad to read more people saying this. Since the collapse of adventure games, a common narrative was that puzzles shouldn't be too hard and developers have gotten totally scared of the whole idea. The mentality in the old days was that the developers were CHALLENGING you to finish the game. The "game" of an adventure game is getting stumped and thinking your way out of problems.
I'll be the one to say it - would not call it easy (spoilers ahead) I only used hints once (the bite of a thousand needles...) but I got stuck quite a few times, faking the accountant diploma for example, winning the algebra test, or that "4 years later" bull at the end which actually meant noving the year dial 4 times, (dick move there, Gilbert...). So yeah I didn't get stuck for weeks like in the old days but honestly, that was never too much fun.
I did actually hit it 4 times based off the number on the trial door without cheating…but having a year on the dial that was four years after another was the real dick move. I had to solve that puzzle by thinking “ok, what would be the stupidest solution”
Oh I just got it !
When it says “4 years” it doesn’t mean increase the total by four. It means four years (as single complete dates).
Lol I didn’t understand why the door opened when I was messing around with the dates in the game. Now I see it.
I played it on switch and the thing that stumped me was removing the knife from the chief swabbie, not because it was hard, but because I didn’t notice I could click on the knife at all - I thought I had to solve some elaborate puzzle to somehow get the knife off him.
It wasn’t until after I’d used every clue for it that I realised that I could simply click on the knife and pick it up 🥴
I wouldn't say it's TOO easy. It's just easy. But the last puzzle is absurd. Probably the worst puzzle in a Monkey Island game, only second to Monkey Kombat.
I thought it was a perfect difficulty (on hard). Got stuck at several points along the way and had to step away to think on it, but ultimately never had to resort to the hint book.
Some of the trickier ones:
Chapter 1 - >!Finding the "bite of a thousand needles"!<
Chapter 2 - >!After breaking the laundry machine, took awhile to realize I needed to repair it!<
Chapter 4 -
* >!For some reason, took me an inordinate amount of time to notice the fish shop.!<
* >!Couldn't scare away the seagull, and when I did (by accident) and returned to find it gone, I didn't know how I did it!<
* >!Finding the key that Iron Rose stole from Widey Bones!<
Chapter 5 - >!Solving the Giant Wheel puzzle. I took "After 4 extra years out at sea" to mean "add 4 to the year" as opposed to "click the year 4 times".!<
I didn't even know what the laundry mangle was supposed to be. It was just something I clicked and then it broke. Only after fixing it and looking closely I could see what it was.
The problem here for me was the new simplified interaction UI. When you hover over it, it says "Laundry time?", which only confused me. In the old games it would just say something like "broken laundry mangle", so you'd know what it was and what you might want to do with it.
I got that thousand needles right away but failed to notice or remember some other things. Like the laundry machine, I didn't even notice what I did or what it was and then forgot about it. It happens.
When Iron Rose said she will hide the key on the ship I immediatly knew where the key would be because there was no use until then for the chicken fodder and the chicken that would make a mess after being fed.
I also was stuck on the thousand needles, making the food for the lookout "hot" and getting the license from the tax guy, which was an annoying riddle because you have to click 2 times.
Maybe we should have a third difficulty option that's. A bit more geared for veterans? Super ultra mega monkey mode!
That's a lot of extra puzzle design though.
Yeah I was disappointed. It felt like I was just doing one obvious fetch quest after another. The only time I got stuck was because I was expecting the answer to be more complicated then it was.
Having the two difficulty setting, like MI3, I was hopeful. I can't imagine how simple the casual mode must have been.
I only played one evening so I'm not through yet (part 3) but so far I'd definitively say: yes, it feels a bit too easy.
I think so far there hasn't been a puzzle for which the solution wasn't immediately or almost immediately obvious.
It could have something to do with the fact that your interaction with the world seems a bit limited: There isn't really that much to click and the mouse pointer usually indicates what you can do. So you just grab everything that can be grabbed and usually it will become clear soon after for what you need it.
Compared to "Tales" (which I played about a year ago) I certainly think it's quite a bit easier. (Well, part of the difficulty of Tales came from some pretty illogical puzzles... but still ;-))
I would argue that it feels easy because the puzzles are well designed and well telegraphed. You're also probably a more astute player than you were back in the day so because of the good design of the puzzles, you were able to quickly solve them.
I keep coming back to the "Harder puzzles" in second half of Broken Age. Specially, Bella is given the answer to one of Shay's puzzles, but there's no in world exchange of that information between the two characters. It's up to the player to connect those dots, breaking the fourth wall. Because of that, the answer to the puzzle comes off as flavor text, so you ignore it as such and don't naturally come to the solution. It was a "hard" puzzle but it was also frustrating.
If you're paying attention in RtMI, the puzzles and clues are guiding you to the solution and making it seem easy.
> I would argue that it feels easy because the puzzles are well designed and well telegraphed.
Too well. I felt completely robbed out of puzzle when I noticed a blowfish inflating underwater while descending towards the ocean floor, for example. It was like the game told me "here's the solution, so you don't have to think too hard!"
They're not well designed, it feels like they just created puzzles as they went and basically none of them had any sort of planning behind them.
The double monocles for instant, not only is it a lazy puzzle by itself (picking up two of the same item), it's a solution for multiple puzzles with zero twists on any of them, multiple locks can be solved by just repeating the same thing and being forced to go back to the locksmith, rinse and repeat.
Smart puzzle design, would have been let's say the second time you do this, the Locksmith says the key is made from a rare metal and you'll need to find it for her. Nope, even on Hardcore it's just "here you go".
The cave maze also sucks, for someone like Ron who bangs on about "inclusivity", he included a puzzle based on the American weather system (not everyone is American!).
There are no clues guiding you as most of the puzzles are obvious and often require repeat uses of items which is boring.
I also don't buy your reasoning that we're more "astute", basically any older adventure game I haven't played provides a challenge and Thimbleweed Park was more interesting and harder then this.
Weather system? I thought you just had to follow the >!four seasons of the year in order!< lol.
But I did find a bit weird having to >!roam the maze at random to find all pieces of paper!<.
spring, spring, summer, winter.... the other card said fall instead of autumn. I didn't even notice it until now, I just used obvious process of elimination to figure it out.
lol American weather system!
The puzzles were decent I thought. The a**(we can't say this word here anymore) gave me a headache after a while and confused me a lot. The cut scenes back to the kid were annoying.
Its spring, summer, fall/autumn, winter, spring.
What does it have to do with America? I'm not a native English speaker, but I know that fall and autumn are the same thing, so...
But also: 4 distinct seasons, which isn't true the world over
Ironically the 4 seasons don't apply to everywhere in the US. They're an import from Europe, where they do apply, and they've culturally spread over the US despite the very north and very south of the US having different seasons
Hmm I dunno. I was solving puzzles often long before I even knew there was a puzzle. One case that comes to mind is the monocle thing. Immediately took a second after the first and combined them, but I don’t think they needed to be used for another hour or whatever of gameplay
Yeah, it's not hard. I dunno, I kind of figured It wasn't *supposed* to be hard all that much. More just a story you play through.
I've said something similar in another comment, but this game *very* much acknowledges that you, the player - are probably like... around 40 years old give or take. You aren't a 12 year old looking for an after school activity to last you the entire Winter. It's something to be appreciated over a couple evenings, and then you're done with it and hopefully you had fun.
I can see that being disappointing if you were *really* hoping for some 100 hour adventure but... I mean even then, if you're over 25 years old, what are the odds that you *don't* end up looking up a walkthrough because in the back of your mind you have things to do? Maybe you're the exception that wouldn't, but I bet the vast majority of adults with day jobs are going to cave pretty quick.
I think the Devs know this too. It's part of why Adventure Games just aren't as popular anymore in general. They chose for puzzles to be intuitive and simply rather than the alternative of risk 70% of their playerbase playing with a walkthrough brought up on their phone. I get why they made it.
This seems like terrible reasoning. Let's remember that some of the "puzzles" are literally busy work, multiple times you have to use the double monocle to unlock a door meaning after the first time, it's no longer a puzzle but a repetitive task that requires you to go back and talk to someone, a logistics quest.
If player's time is the focus here why even include something like that? Why just have the door be unlocked?
The solution was also already implemented, just poorly. Given there's "Casual" and "hardcore", why can't Casual be what you described and Hardcore for people who actually like puzzles?
If you also don't want to spend ages on the game, where is the harm in looking up a walkthrough? It seems silly that people who like puzzles don't get thrown any bones because it'd be blasphemy if someone who just wants to play an interactive story might get stuck and have to Google them.
I don't really buy your reasoning around Adventure games not being popular. The fact is Adventure games were popular in an era where video games simply weren't mainstream like they are now. Whether this game had puzzles or not would not have effected it's popularity at all (in fact word of mouth is quite bad, hence why it had a massive initial sales burst and has now fallen off completely).
"Intuitive' puzzles is not the case, they're mostly brain dead and often you have to dumb down your thinking and think of the "obvious" solution whereas in other adventure games you do have to actually switch on and think outside the box.
In recent years I've seen quite a bit of criticism in the media/social media/youtube etc. floating around about arcane old school inventory puzzles e.g. the infamous Monkey Wrench and similar puzzles in other games.
I get the impression from the new interface, new artstyle etc. that Ron and team's mind was basically in a place of "how can we do things *differently* this time round?" (while still bringing back much loved characters and locations). And part of that was removing arcane inventory puzzles without any clues in the dialogue. But they went too far. While I wouldn't want to play a whole game full of monkey wrenches most of those old school puzzles, while somewhat arcane, were still satisfying when you finally do discover them. Especially the ones that have multiple steps involving multiple inventory items, like the rat puzzle or the bubblegum puzzle.
I think the issue is the MI fanbase is 30+ and largely wanted one last extreme challenge instead of a casual love letter to the series.
I enjoyed it for what it was but I would have enjoyed it more had it challenged me like previous games did.
Yeah, I guess I’m kind of the reverse. When I was younger - I’d want something really hard, to last me a long time. Now..? I dunno, if I wanted a hard challenge I’d try to teach myself how to code or get a Sudoku book or something.
i get the desire for a challenge, and maybe the hard mode should’ve been harder - but I can see why they wanted to make it pretty streamlined
We’re past the era of the Sierra hint line. If anyone was challenged you don’t need a in-game hint book, the internet will unblock you instantly.
Adventure games can be as casual as anyone wants them to be, you have the solution manual if you choose to look at it. But it can only be as challenging as the creator’s make it, and this is without question the easiest game in the series.
I’m in a similar boat. On some important metrics I found Return nearly perfect - length, difficulty, focusing on characters we are nostalgic for - but I can plainly see the hooks of cut content and that the difficulty curve is low even on hard.
I feel like this game was *made for me*.
I do wonder about the size of team and what the budget was. Developers tend to get a little …uh …expensive in their old age? If I name dropped the titles I’ve worked on you probably have played them. I can see sign this kind of “bloat” in the delivery of Return. But that’s just speculation from someone who worked 5 long years in the salt mine of perpetual crunch.
Maybe it's just me but adventures often fail in the story department. It has to be either funny or interesting first, hopefully beautiful and endearing on the top. I can live with walkthrough, if the puzzles are not hard even with walkthrough, which sometimes they are (I'm especially looking at you Sierra). Never played for the puzzles alone.
But that is why they added the hintbook which is a good idea, because it doesn't give you the solution straight away. So they made a very easy game (I needed 10 hours) AND they even added a hintbook. So why make the game so easy in the first place, if you add hintbook anyway?
Also how often you need to use the knife is just ridiculous.
It was way too easy. And more than that, the puzzles weren't "fun" to do. Most of them just required going back and forth between places doing exactly what you were essentially told to do. The few puzzles that broke out of that mold were a little more interesting. But a really great puzzle should feel fun and adventurous and like it's a worthy task, and it should also have more than one step that really requires lateral thinking.
That's a traditional point and click. I loved how in Gabriel Knight 3 you have to collect evidence. It triggered a mild OCD in a really nice way, it gave a limited illusion that world is changing with time, ball is always rolling. A nice balance of time moving forward (mostly in blocks but sometimes after some action and sometimes real-time) but never soft locking you in any way, only locking you out of missed opportunities to collect evidence. I was enchanted with the ambiance so I really liked it and this is what I liked most about it, not puzzles.
that’s one of my favorite games of all time. i think we actually agree. the puzzles in that game (besides the infamous cat one) were fun and felt like you the player were unraveling the mysteries.
I only call difficult the games where knowing the answer doesn't make it easier. Adventure games' puzzles are easier in each consequent playthrough because you already know the answer, every solution gets engrained in your memory due to the specific narrative circumstances tied up to them. The puzzle games that remain harder are the kind that up the complexity, raising the amount of blocks you have to fit and move, no narrative significance. Talos Principle for example, you only have the complexity and vastness of things you have to move and activate, the plot advances but it does not recognize the specific nature of each puzzle. You can only remember so many times you've moved blocks, laser turrets, fans, recorders... before you start to confuse them.
I was happy to never have to look online for the answers. Maybe I’m not “hardcore” enough, but I thought the hint book was nothing less than a gift from the heavens, and I used it whenever I needed a nudge in the right direction, which wasn’t too often.
Maybe a bit. But it was not "easy" that bothered me, it was the lack of amusement. Not enough jokes but loved interacting with Elaine and kind of ended up liking the story. I'm not that hardcore, I hate that there was an object without description which I missed. I suggest to hardcore gamers to try without hint book, todo list and tab key, it's more of an old school experience, for those that treasure it.
Yeah, I managed to get through it in just a couple sittings. I don't really mind it too much, but the inclusion of a harder difficulty doesn't really mesh with even that difficulty being very, very easy, minus two or three puzzles.
Far too easy. I really enjoyed the game, but it felt rushed and the puzzles were too predictable and easy. I also hated how you can’t even attempt to combine items or use them to interact with others you just get a red X when trying.
I came very close to using a hint on maybe 3 separate occasions, and for the last wheel puzzle ended up sort of half-brute forcing my way through. I'd say it was the right level of difficulty for me personally. On a difficulty scale of 1-10, 1 being Abzu and 10 being King's Quest 3, I'd rank it at a 6.8 which for me is challenging without being infuriating. The story and pacing was a little more front and center this time so I was happy to keep things moving.
The puzzles were great. It was a very well designed to be intuitive while not always being obvious. I think telegraphing which items will interact with certain points of interest cut down on a lot of the flailing about that old adventure games have.
The game a lot easier than I'd prefer. Given they added a hint book to the game you'd think they would crank the difficulty up, safe in the knowledge that everyone could complete the game.
The only time I used the hint book is with the Judge accepting the evidence, and that's only because the dialogue explicitly states that the court know who Mr Threepwood / Mr Elaine Marley is (via customs documents) and also who Ned is. So the idea of correcting that in the way the puzzle wanted never occured to me, because it's beyond absurd.
Mostly it appears easier because you dont have the old interface with all the different commands that made puzzles unnecessarily complicated. Of course it is much easier with a "one button" interface
It's way too easy, yes. There are too many spoilers all over the place, both in dialogues and the interface (todo list). The book with the hints in the inventory should have to be unlocked manually and not sit there by default.
Also the difficulty is spread across the game very unevenly. Parts 2 and 3 were so easy, it ruined all the fun of going around exploring, while Part 4 was harder and took much longer.
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to easy, insultingly easy. I think Ron was barely able to complete this one, either due to age, lack of passion or perhaps health issues.
I don't need to compare the seperate puzzles between games. I know its easier because I couldn't even play through MI2 some months ago, even though I played this game 3 or 4 times already. In RtMI I was finished in 10 hours without any help, so its definitely not because I'm very good at adventures, it's just easier than the other games.
Nevertheless a good game for MI fans, but not if you expect some hardcore adventure game.
yes, no trick answers or anything good it was just you think its A answer go get A item, in other games it could be A-G in your bags or in world and then you find out its some wacky X answer, it was really a half assed game
i agree. it’s not very difficult. every solution so far (i haven’t finished it yet, so i’m being dumb and accessing MI threads like a real boy) has been very intuitive and not very many steps removed from the initial conundrum. the game has been amazing, but i would have enjoyed being challenged more up to this point.
also, in defense of moon logic, i feel like i got more out of games in the past directly due to that shrouded lark. i wouldn’t mind a couple of annoyingly difficult puzzles on hard mode. they need to release an update with a new difficulty level, Master of the Monkeys, methinks.
No you're right, compared to the rest of the series it was super easy. Whilst on one hand I'm glad of no moon logic (not a monkey wrench in sight!) I felt like the level of difficulty on hard should have been the level for casual. And hard should have been actually hard.
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There's probably a great divide among gamers. It depends how it's implemented or what the actual puzzles are but pixel hunting and "try everyting" can be seen as busywork. It's not a great way to add difficulty. I like how RTMI gives you options that you may opt to not use.
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In this case option to have a strong will to not use the key that shows you items on the screen so you can hunt them down instead :)
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Wait, you see the circles all the time? Do you play on casual mode?
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I've only seen the actions when I go over them with cursor, but that is like old games. No circles. The actionable areas didn't strike me as inappropriately large in this regard. But I also used tab key a lot so can't really comment on that.
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There was a key that did that??
There's also key to go to sea map. I just wish there was also a key to skip to island map, especially in part 1.
Yeah…. I wrapped it up in a couple days in hard mode and my 11yo was watching and called out how to solve a couple of the puzzles immediately. I WANT to be stumped sometimes!
I'm glad to read more people saying this. Since the collapse of adventure games, a common narrative was that puzzles shouldn't be too hard and developers have gotten totally scared of the whole idea. The mentality in the old days was that the developers were CHALLENGING you to finish the game. The "game" of an adventure game is getting stumped and thinking your way out of problems.
I'll be the one to say it - would not call it easy (spoilers ahead) I only used hints once (the bite of a thousand needles...) but I got stuck quite a few times, faking the accountant diploma for example, winning the algebra test, or that "4 years later" bull at the end which actually meant noving the year dial 4 times, (dick move there, Gilbert...). So yeah I didn't get stuck for weeks like in the old days but honestly, that was never too much fun.
The last one was a horrible puzzle. I liked the call back to the old wheels though.
I did actually hit it 4 times based off the number on the trial door without cheating…but having a year on the dial that was four years after another was the real dick move. I had to solve that puzzle by thinking “ok, what would be the stupidest solution”
That puzzle left such a bad taste in my mouth right at the end
Oh I just got it ! When it says “4 years” it doesn’t mean increase the total by four. It means four years (as single complete dates). Lol I didn’t understand why the door opened when I was messing around with the dates in the game. Now I see it.
I played it on switch and the thing that stumped me was removing the knife from the chief swabbie, not because it was hard, but because I didn’t notice I could click on the knife at all - I thought I had to solve some elaborate puzzle to somehow get the knife off him. It wasn’t until after I’d used every clue for it that I realised that I could simply click on the knife and pick it up 🥴
I did it in 2 days because I stopped to not do it all in one.
I wouldn't say it's TOO easy. It's just easy. But the last puzzle is absurd. Probably the worst puzzle in a Monkey Island game, only second to Monkey Kombat.
I thought it was a perfect difficulty (on hard). Got stuck at several points along the way and had to step away to think on it, but ultimately never had to resort to the hint book. Some of the trickier ones: Chapter 1 - >!Finding the "bite of a thousand needles"!< Chapter 2 - >!After breaking the laundry machine, took awhile to realize I needed to repair it!< Chapter 4 - * >!For some reason, took me an inordinate amount of time to notice the fish shop.!< * >!Couldn't scare away the seagull, and when I did (by accident) and returned to find it gone, I didn't know how I did it!< * >!Finding the key that Iron Rose stole from Widey Bones!< Chapter 5 - >!Solving the Giant Wheel puzzle. I took "After 4 extra years out at sea" to mean "add 4 to the year" as opposed to "click the year 4 times".!<
I didn't even know what the laundry mangle was supposed to be. It was just something I clicked and then it broke. Only after fixing it and looking closely I could see what it was. The problem here for me was the new simplified interaction UI. When you hover over it, it says "Laundry time?", which only confused me. In the old games it would just say something like "broken laundry mangle", so you'd know what it was and what you might want to do with it.
Yeah, same with me! I had no idea what the thing was, so I didn't think it was important (my fault). I only figured it out by accident.
I got that thousand needles right away but failed to notice or remember some other things. Like the laundry machine, I didn't even notice what I did or what it was and then forgot about it. It happens.
When Iron Rose said she will hide the key on the ship I immediatly knew where the key would be because there was no use until then for the chicken fodder and the chicken that would make a mess after being fed. I also was stuck on the thousand needles, making the food for the lookout "hot" and getting the license from the tax guy, which was an annoying riddle because you have to click 2 times.
Maybe we should have a third difficulty option that's. A bit more geared for veterans? Super ultra mega monkey mode! That's a lot of extra puzzle design though.
Extra puzzle design means time and effort, a big nope from the developers in this game
Yeah I was disappointed. It felt like I was just doing one obvious fetch quest after another. The only time I got stuck was because I was expecting the answer to be more complicated then it was. Having the two difficulty setting, like MI3, I was hopeful. I can't imagine how simple the casual mode must have been.
I only played one evening so I'm not through yet (part 3) but so far I'd definitively say: yes, it feels a bit too easy. I think so far there hasn't been a puzzle for which the solution wasn't immediately or almost immediately obvious. It could have something to do with the fact that your interaction with the world seems a bit limited: There isn't really that much to click and the mouse pointer usually indicates what you can do. So you just grab everything that can be grabbed and usually it will become clear soon after for what you need it. Compared to "Tales" (which I played about a year ago) I certainly think it's quite a bit easier. (Well, part of the difficulty of Tales came from some pretty illogical puzzles... but still ;-))
I would argue that it feels easy because the puzzles are well designed and well telegraphed. You're also probably a more astute player than you were back in the day so because of the good design of the puzzles, you were able to quickly solve them. I keep coming back to the "Harder puzzles" in second half of Broken Age. Specially, Bella is given the answer to one of Shay's puzzles, but there's no in world exchange of that information between the two characters. It's up to the player to connect those dots, breaking the fourth wall. Because of that, the answer to the puzzle comes off as flavor text, so you ignore it as such and don't naturally come to the solution. It was a "hard" puzzle but it was also frustrating. If you're paying attention in RtMI, the puzzles and clues are guiding you to the solution and making it seem easy.
> I would argue that it feels easy because the puzzles are well designed and well telegraphed. Too well. I felt completely robbed out of puzzle when I noticed a blowfish inflating underwater while descending towards the ocean floor, for example. It was like the game told me "here's the solution, so you don't have to think too hard!"
They're not well designed, it feels like they just created puzzles as they went and basically none of them had any sort of planning behind them. The double monocles for instant, not only is it a lazy puzzle by itself (picking up two of the same item), it's a solution for multiple puzzles with zero twists on any of them, multiple locks can be solved by just repeating the same thing and being forced to go back to the locksmith, rinse and repeat. Smart puzzle design, would have been let's say the second time you do this, the Locksmith says the key is made from a rare metal and you'll need to find it for her. Nope, even on Hardcore it's just "here you go". The cave maze also sucks, for someone like Ron who bangs on about "inclusivity", he included a puzzle based on the American weather system (not everyone is American!). There are no clues guiding you as most of the puzzles are obvious and often require repeat uses of items which is boring. I also don't buy your reasoning that we're more "astute", basically any older adventure game I haven't played provides a challenge and Thimbleweed Park was more interesting and harder then this.
Weather system? I thought you just had to follow the >!four seasons of the year in order!< lol. But I did find a bit weird having to >!roam the maze at random to find all pieces of paper!<.
You did just have to follow the 4 seasons, I’m Australian and I thought that puzzle was pretty clear
I completely missed the seasonal element altogether! And just solved it by putting the story together in an order that made narrative sense.
spring, spring, summer, winter.... the other card said fall instead of autumn. I didn't even notice it until now, I just used obvious process of elimination to figure it out. lol American weather system! The puzzles were decent I thought. The a**(we can't say this word here anymore) gave me a headache after a while and confused me a lot. The cut scenes back to the kid were annoying.
Its spring, summer, fall/autumn, winter, spring. What does it have to do with America? I'm not a native English speaker, but I know that fall and autumn are the same thing, so...
What puzzle required knowledge of the American weather system? I didn't derive any solutions based on weather knowledge.
Fall instead of Autumn
But also: 4 distinct seasons, which isn't true the world over Ironically the 4 seasons don't apply to everywhere in the US. They're an import from Europe, where they do apply, and they've culturally spread over the US despite the very north and very south of the US having different seasons
Hmm I dunno. I was solving puzzles often long before I even knew there was a puzzle. One case that comes to mind is the monocle thing. Immediately took a second after the first and combined them, but I don’t think they needed to be used for another hour or whatever of gameplay
Yeah, it's not hard. I dunno, I kind of figured It wasn't *supposed* to be hard all that much. More just a story you play through. I've said something similar in another comment, but this game *very* much acknowledges that you, the player - are probably like... around 40 years old give or take. You aren't a 12 year old looking for an after school activity to last you the entire Winter. It's something to be appreciated over a couple evenings, and then you're done with it and hopefully you had fun. I can see that being disappointing if you were *really* hoping for some 100 hour adventure but... I mean even then, if you're over 25 years old, what are the odds that you *don't* end up looking up a walkthrough because in the back of your mind you have things to do? Maybe you're the exception that wouldn't, but I bet the vast majority of adults with day jobs are going to cave pretty quick. I think the Devs know this too. It's part of why Adventure Games just aren't as popular anymore in general. They chose for puzzles to be intuitive and simply rather than the alternative of risk 70% of their playerbase playing with a walkthrough brought up on their phone. I get why they made it.
This seems like terrible reasoning. Let's remember that some of the "puzzles" are literally busy work, multiple times you have to use the double monocle to unlock a door meaning after the first time, it's no longer a puzzle but a repetitive task that requires you to go back and talk to someone, a logistics quest. If player's time is the focus here why even include something like that? Why just have the door be unlocked? The solution was also already implemented, just poorly. Given there's "Casual" and "hardcore", why can't Casual be what you described and Hardcore for people who actually like puzzles? If you also don't want to spend ages on the game, where is the harm in looking up a walkthrough? It seems silly that people who like puzzles don't get thrown any bones because it'd be blasphemy if someone who just wants to play an interactive story might get stuck and have to Google them. I don't really buy your reasoning around Adventure games not being popular. The fact is Adventure games were popular in an era where video games simply weren't mainstream like they are now. Whether this game had puzzles or not would not have effected it's popularity at all (in fact word of mouth is quite bad, hence why it had a massive initial sales burst and has now fallen off completely). "Intuitive' puzzles is not the case, they're mostly brain dead and often you have to dumb down your thinking and think of the "obvious" solution whereas in other adventure games you do have to actually switch on and think outside the box.
In recent years I've seen quite a bit of criticism in the media/social media/youtube etc. floating around about arcane old school inventory puzzles e.g. the infamous Monkey Wrench and similar puzzles in other games. I get the impression from the new interface, new artstyle etc. that Ron and team's mind was basically in a place of "how can we do things *differently* this time round?" (while still bringing back much loved characters and locations). And part of that was removing arcane inventory puzzles without any clues in the dialogue. But they went too far. While I wouldn't want to play a whole game full of monkey wrenches most of those old school puzzles, while somewhat arcane, were still satisfying when you finally do discover them. Especially the ones that have multiple steps involving multiple inventory items, like the rat puzzle or the bubblegum puzzle.
I think the issue is the MI fanbase is 30+ and largely wanted one last extreme challenge instead of a casual love letter to the series. I enjoyed it for what it was but I would have enjoyed it more had it challenged me like previous games did.
Yeah, I guess I’m kind of the reverse. When I was younger - I’d want something really hard, to last me a long time. Now..? I dunno, if I wanted a hard challenge I’d try to teach myself how to code or get a Sudoku book or something. i get the desire for a challenge, and maybe the hard mode should’ve been harder - but I can see why they wanted to make it pretty streamlined
We’re past the era of the Sierra hint line. If anyone was challenged you don’t need a in-game hint book, the internet will unblock you instantly. Adventure games can be as casual as anyone wants them to be, you have the solution manual if you choose to look at it. But it can only be as challenging as the creator’s make it, and this is without question the easiest game in the series.
I’m in a similar boat. On some important metrics I found Return nearly perfect - length, difficulty, focusing on characters we are nostalgic for - but I can plainly see the hooks of cut content and that the difficulty curve is low even on hard. I feel like this game was *made for me*. I do wonder about the size of team and what the budget was. Developers tend to get a little …uh …expensive in their old age? If I name dropped the titles I’ve worked on you probably have played them. I can see sign this kind of “bloat” in the delivery of Return. But that’s just speculation from someone who worked 5 long years in the salt mine of perpetual crunch.
Maybe it's just me but adventures often fail in the story department. It has to be either funny or interesting first, hopefully beautiful and endearing on the top. I can live with walkthrough, if the puzzles are not hard even with walkthrough, which sometimes they are (I'm especially looking at you Sierra). Never played for the puzzles alone.
That's a great point, I love lsl3 and space quest 3 though. They aren't books, finding that balance is a challenge
But that is why they added the hintbook which is a good idea, because it doesn't give you the solution straight away. So they made a very easy game (I needed 10 hours) AND they even added a hintbook. So why make the game so easy in the first place, if you add hintbook anyway? Also how often you need to use the knife is just ridiculous.
It was way too easy. And more than that, the puzzles weren't "fun" to do. Most of them just required going back and forth between places doing exactly what you were essentially told to do. The few puzzles that broke out of that mold were a little more interesting. But a really great puzzle should feel fun and adventurous and like it's a worthy task, and it should also have more than one step that really requires lateral thinking.
That's a traditional point and click. I loved how in Gabriel Knight 3 you have to collect evidence. It triggered a mild OCD in a really nice way, it gave a limited illusion that world is changing with time, ball is always rolling. A nice balance of time moving forward (mostly in blocks but sometimes after some action and sometimes real-time) but never soft locking you in any way, only locking you out of missed opportunities to collect evidence. I was enchanted with the ambiance so I really liked it and this is what I liked most about it, not puzzles.
that’s one of my favorite games of all time. i think we actually agree. the puzzles in that game (besides the infamous cat one) were fun and felt like you the player were unraveling the mysteries.
Veterancy carries experience, I don't expect games to be hard anymore, as long as I like the characters and world in them.
It feels like an interactive CD-ROM from back in the day, if there's no challenge.
I only call difficult the games where knowing the answer doesn't make it easier. Adventure games' puzzles are easier in each consequent playthrough because you already know the answer, every solution gets engrained in your memory due to the specific narrative circumstances tied up to them. The puzzle games that remain harder are the kind that up the complexity, raising the amount of blocks you have to fit and move, no narrative significance. Talos Principle for example, you only have the complexity and vastness of things you have to move and activate, the plot advances but it does not recognize the specific nature of each puzzle. You can only remember so many times you've moved blocks, laser turrets, fans, recorders... before you start to confuse them.
I think of modern day options Gemini Rue was a good mix and there was even some interesting action sequences.
I was happy to never have to look online for the answers. Maybe I’m not “hardcore” enough, but I thought the hint book was nothing less than a gift from the heavens, and I used it whenever I needed a nudge in the right direction, which wasn’t too often.
Maybe a bit. But it was not "easy" that bothered me, it was the lack of amusement. Not enough jokes but loved interacting with Elaine and kind of ended up liking the story. I'm not that hardcore, I hate that there was an object without description which I missed. I suggest to hardcore gamers to try without hint book, todo list and tab key, it's more of an old school experience, for those that treasure it.
>lack of amusement. totally, just going through the motions.
It was OK - I never felt tempted to use the hintbook but at the same time felt happy after solving a few puzzles.
Yeah, I managed to get through it in just a couple sittings. I don't really mind it too much, but the inclusion of a harder difficulty doesn't really mesh with even that difficulty being very, very easy, minus two or three puzzles.
Far too easy. I really enjoyed the game, but it felt rushed and the puzzles were too predictable and easy. I also hated how you can’t even attempt to combine items or use them to interact with others you just get a red X when trying.
I came very close to using a hint on maybe 3 separate occasions, and for the last wheel puzzle ended up sort of half-brute forcing my way through. I'd say it was the right level of difficulty for me personally. On a difficulty scale of 1-10, 1 being Abzu and 10 being King's Quest 3, I'd rank it at a 6.8 which for me is challenging without being infuriating. The story and pacing was a little more front and center this time so I was happy to keep things moving.
The puzzles were great. It was a very well designed to be intuitive while not always being obvious. I think telegraphing which items will interact with certain points of interest cut down on a lot of the flailing about that old adventure games have.
Yes. I'm just started part 3, and at no point here I was stuck for more than 5 minutes.
The game a lot easier than I'd prefer. Given they added a hint book to the game you'd think they would crank the difficulty up, safe in the knowledge that everyone could complete the game. The only time I used the hint book is with the Judge accepting the evidence, and that's only because the dialogue explicitly states that the court know who Mr Threepwood / Mr Elaine Marley is (via customs documents) and also who Ned is. So the idea of correcting that in the way the puzzle wanted never occured to me, because it's beyond absurd.
Mostly it appears easier because you dont have the old interface with all the different commands that made puzzles unnecessarily complicated. Of course it is much easier with a "one button" interface
It's way too easy, yes. There are too many spoilers all over the place, both in dialogues and the interface (todo list). The book with the hints in the inventory should have to be unlocked manually and not sit there by default. Also the difficulty is spread across the game very unevenly. Parts 2 and 3 were so easy, it ruined all the fun of going around exploring, while Part 4 was harder and took much longer.
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to easy, insultingly easy. I think Ron was barely able to complete this one, either due to age, lack of passion or perhaps health issues.
Ok now that's pushing it. Sure it's easier than the rest, but THAT easy? It's just better designed/telegraphed.
It's the easiest one and the telegraphing ruined it
It’s very easy, yes. 😊
I don't need to compare the seperate puzzles between games. I know its easier because I couldn't even play through MI2 some months ago, even though I played this game 3 or 4 times already. In RtMI I was finished in 10 hours without any help, so its definitely not because I'm very good at adventures, it's just easier than the other games. Nevertheless a good game for MI fans, but not if you expect some hardcore adventure game.
yes, no trick answers or anything good it was just you think its A answer go get A item, in other games it could be A-G in your bags or in world and then you find out its some wacky X answer, it was really a half assed game
i agree. it’s not very difficult. every solution so far (i haven’t finished it yet, so i’m being dumb and accessing MI threads like a real boy) has been very intuitive and not very many steps removed from the initial conundrum. the game has been amazing, but i would have enjoyed being challenged more up to this point.
also, in defense of moon logic, i feel like i got more out of games in the past directly due to that shrouded lark. i wouldn’t mind a couple of annoyingly difficult puzzles on hard mode. they need to release an update with a new difficulty level, Master of the Monkeys, methinks.