what i liked:
- passionate love letter to 90s masterpieces from a solo developer, lovely stuff.
- overall the puzzles were fun and well thought out. some (not many) of them are obnoxiously hard, at least for me, since i'm kinda bad with more complex puzzles. well, in the end the majority of the puzzles were pretty straight forward and almost naturally solved. p&c puzzle enthusiast will definitely appreciate this game!
- atmospheric narration and fully synchronized dialogues, which was kinda unexpected in such a small indie game. the actors are sometimes a tad bid overambitious, even though this is probably intention, i wasn't always pleased by it.
- cute and engaging story about pirate mysteries, adventures and treasures! who didn't dream as a kid of their own heroic adventure just waiting out there in the world. actually the story got more mature in the later stages.
- cleo is a brave, young lass and a pleasing protagonist. definitely winning the sympathy price over there.
- interesting world and scenery. the world building was decent and the take on afterlife quite exhilarating.
- gorgeous and detailed pixel art with some flaws. (see cons)
- a free saving system is always a positive in my bible.
what felt debatable to me:
~ not a big fan of the comedy. it wasn't particularly bad or anything, but such things are usually not my cup of coffee. wasn't annoying enough to make it to the con section and i kinda see that a lot of people will truly love the game for this.
~ pop- and gaming culture all over the place. either you truly love it, or you utterly hate it. just be prepared what you're dealing with, when starting this game.
~ kinda hated the fishing - it's neither reaction nor skill based, so discovering what line / bait combinations provide what kind of catch got tedious quickly and the animations take too long in my opinion. even more so if you failed and caught an old shoe. removed it from "bad" to this section since the game at least provides you a fishing chart for your main quest.
what i disliked:
- the graphics are a little blurry, mostly while animations happening. it could use some more sharpness, i think. played on a basic setup with a 24 inch screen, fullscreen with 1080p. no ultrawide or anything fancy.
8-9/10
