Limbo

I finished this game, but I'm still not sure why. I've been playing games like this for a long time, and I love all kinds of puzzle games as well as pretty much any 2D platformer. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this one. It took me about 3.5 hours to finish, although I was sick while playing. I honestly think it could be completed in under 2.5 hours without rushing. The problem is that I don't think there's even 45 minutes of actual content here. The character moves so slowly that it feels like time is running backwards. On top of that, there's a mechanic that repeatedly forces you to backtrack, sending you left, then right, then left again through areas you've already been through. The puzzles aren't difficult logically, but the real challenge comes from other aspects of the game. The timing requirements are incredibly frustrating. Many puzzles require frame-perfect timing or extremely precise jumps. After you've already figured out how the puzzle works, there should be some margin for error instead of requiring near-perfect execution. There's also the issue of visibility. At times, you can barely see anything. One puzzle near the end requires you to change gravity to manage a huge wall so it sticks to the ceiling while another wall should stays on the floor. The problem is that you can't even see the second wall while you're interacting with the gravity. Near the end of the game, I slid into a pit about sixteen times trying to make a jump that seemed barely possible, only to discover that I was actually supposed to interact with an arrow in mid-jump. Nothing about it suggested it was interactable. It looked like it was simply indicating the intended path. The game isn't terrible, but I'd rather play a worse game that doesn't frustrate me with issues that clearly aren't my fault as a player. There's a big difference between failing because you haven't figured out a puzzle yet and failing because of tiny execution errors or unnecessarily poor visibility. The ending was also pretty underwhelming.