Gear up, this is somewhat of a long one, and my first big review on this website! :D

I just "finished" Talos Principle about half an hour ago, and by finished I mean I got two endings: the tower one and the stars one. I'm still not done, I'm going to go back and 100% complete the game and see the easter eggs I missed next week when I have free time, and I'll update this when I do so, but for now here's my thoughts.

Go for the tower ending. It's an absolutely fantastic closer to the story, which is I found to be extremely heartfelt and packed in with a lot of nice philosophy (which some admittedly goes over my head, I'm not very smart on this subject) and extremely hard-hitting moments. There were some extremely heartfelt and depressing moments that had me in tears, even when it was just text on a screen. The problems with the story, though, are the narrative pacing. A lot of its best moments are packed in with a lot of weaksauce allegory squished in between (that some also went over my head), though despite that, uncovering the secrets of the world you inhabit and what's actually going on is still a great experience, whether it's through Elohim, a snarky talker, good text logs, or the fantastic audio recordings (Alexandria's VA was so good!). Some of the QR codes were also funny and nice worldbuilding (and even lead to a nice out-of-world puzzle :D).

The "characters" are also good, specifically the computer AI and Elohim, though I think the computer AI needed some work. Part of his routine is to make you think about the world and ask you questions, but you have pre-ordained responses to him. I believe it's intentional, because of the nature of the world that it's built (commented meta-wise through text logs aware that it's a game), where it has specific responses you can use to eventually gain true independence. That being said, it's frustrating to be unable to answer questions in the way you want to, or to add nuance when the AI gives edge cases and you want to say "there's a line", or it's "context-dependent", which are not available answers. I still like it and the reason it exists, and the snarks are hilarious. Though I also think the AI could've been... a LITTLE less pretentious.

Also on the stars ending, it's not worth it. I think it's neat to potentially be a "helper" for future players that are in your friends list, but I think the QR paint code is already more interesting interaction (I got freaked out by a few of them lol). The helpers also come so late by the C-world, and from what I've gathered there's usually not that many puzzles left, unless of course they've been skipping sigils, but I think most people playing this game will go out of their way to do a lot.

The gameplay, especially the puzzle design, is top-notch with some rough patches. The difficulty curve is really good, especially with the grey puzzles and the think outside the box stars, though it has problems where by the C-world I found the main puzzles too easy, save for a few exceptions (the prison break one and Tower 5 AAAAAAA). The stars are GREATLY challenging and I appreciate their existence for the most part, though you do notice patterns eventually after solving a few (I like to say your brainwaves match the devs and you realize how they craft them). The way you think outside the box is great, especially with the signposting.

I had so many "a-ha" moments, which I think is my favorite part about playing puzzle games. I had a lot of them through Worlds A and B. I also think it's great how open-ended it is to go do puzzles while having some hard ones gated off, keeps the difficulty curve nice for most of the game. Elohim also pushes you to do other puzzles when you're stuck so you don't get tunnel vision, which is great.... but I'm super persistent and refuse to let a game BEAT ME! Got an achievement for it :3

Platform usage is also really cool but underutilized. Some reflector puzzles using great spatial awareness, especially the ones when you have to realize their multiple uses, are GOAT. Almost every puzzle requiring smart usage of multiple jammers were my favorite puzzles by far, especially ones asking for smart observation skills. The recorder also had some great puzzles. It's so much fun when it first shows up and you find out what it records over time, that's wild. The fans are also great for great 3D up-down awareness puzzles, though it can be a little frustrating when what you think the fan gives to solve isn't what it actually is (maybe fan distance signposting?).

Exploring to find stuff is neat, but... I feel like the process of knowing where the stars are is annoying, at least parallel to how little I think the stars ending is worth. I feel like a "path" signposting would've been nice to see where they are but give no help to solve it. There were 2 stars that were outright BULL and I don't even want to talk about them.

Some other frustrating mechanics I want to talk about include the recorder. While I love its use in puzzles, it's SOOOOO SLOWWWWWWWWW. I wish there was a way to speed it up instead of having to stand on a platform for so long because I don't trust myself to be speedy. The mines and turrets are also TOO GOOD AT THEIR JOB. I think they're way too scary. Made me dread every time I came close to them, or had to do a puzzle with them. I had to use a messenger on one with a mine because I didn't want to do it because SCARY... and that's when I found out they don't solve it for you, so I had to do it anyway. ;_;

Getting the axe and then having to painfully go through elevators to open up new entrances was a bruh moment. Block sigil puzzles are also STUPID AND I HATE THEM. 2D topography awareness is my kryptonite along with geometry. Figuring out where one stupid block goes in the square drove me nuts. They also had an annoying difficulty spike around Tower Level 3 in runtime.

Not a fault of the game, but I do wish this game was more accessible. The messengers you can unlock do give neat guidance, but I wish they were more helpful and plentiful. Having a tiny amount makes you never want to use them, though I think it was the devs' intention of wanting you to solve it by yourself (especially with the ARE YOU SURE)... but the hints they give aren't that great either. They're a good step to help, but they're not amazing from the two times I used them (just for achievements hehe). But again, this is a nitpick.

Some other nice things. Finding the dev room was super nice, and I'm excited to find other easter eggs when I go back to 100% finish. I was warned that the game would not be wise during current time right now, but I actually found the coronavirus timing to be both hilarious for some things and.... made other stuff hit harder. I don't think the current global situation is a barrier to entry, but it's worth thinking about..

The aesthetic is nice, though it really hits when you find the sacred grounds. The music for messenger rooms are godlike. The general OST is pretty good, though I started tuning it out (save for sacred grounds) by the C-worlds. Long times spent on puzzles and the OST not being that gigantic does eventually make you grow tired of it, and it's not THAT amazing an OST to replay constantly, unlike Celeste imo (though they're both completely different games).

When I'm eventually completely finished with Talos Principle, I really want to break down how each puzzle teaches the mechanics of the world. It reminds me of Portal but it has more depth to its teachings, and I think in the future that's going to be a big passion project for me... when I have time. I'm doing a lot of things at once.

Anyway, really good game. I don't have the time for a TL;DR right now, and these aren't my true final thoughts as I still need to complete it all! But I enjoyed it still. Thinking 8.5/10

(Thanks to SGS for the game rec!)

I don't understand the high appraisal this game receives. Yes, it has a coat of pop philosophical discussion. Yes, it has a good set of puzzle rules and bending moments of those rules to make you question your assumptions about it's rule-set.

But at the end, it never evolves. The puzzles are in a large part, small variations of the same ideas over and over again. I found myself annoyed by amount of pixel hunting needed to make sure I wasn't missing anything which could lead to a star. A lot of solutions almost worked, but because of minor positioning errors I always second guessed them. Sometimes you "break" some solutions, and you never know if your solution was the intended one.

Mechanically, it's messy. Why can I climb some walls and others in the same height you can't? Why can I jump way farther when the games wants me to do it? Why can't I vault small windows, when I should have all the human movements available? Why when I wall climb I can stay on top of it, but if I use a ladder I drop to the other side instantly? I understand mechanically why the game works like this, but it's not intuitive and it leads to a lot of second guessing of the mechanics. I'm sure there would be better ways to polish those things to avoid these issues.

And then there is the ending. What a waste to have the philosophical discussion, make us a vessel for discussion of consciousness, what is it to be a human and have the most simple endings possible. No breakthroughs, no side discussions, and to have the hardest of all endings to be the most unsatisfying...

For me, it's an average puzzle game, with a lot of potencial related to the meta discussion on what it means to be human (kudos to the writters of MLA) but it never fuses properly these ideas onto the mechanics of the game and the conclusions available are so underwhelming. A lot of potencial which never grows, at least for me.

Easily one of the best games I've played this year.

It's a puzzle game kind of similar to Portal, but I think it's actually better than portal. It's set in a gorgeous 3D environment and you move through old ruins as you solve a variety of puzzle types. You start off in a place that looks like ancient Greece, and then travel to ancient Egypt, old medieval castles and also weird futuristic crumbling apocalypse landscapes. Some of the earlier puzzles were a little too easy for my tastes; I completed the whole game in about 7 hours, although I haven't completed all of the extremely difficult unlocks/challenges.

Apart from the stunning visuals and mind-boggling puzzles the game really shines in the story department. The narrative is delivered through occasional voice over (from a god-like figure, Elohim) and also notes/computer terminals scattered throughout the game world. Usually in games I completely ignore the story especially if it's given in text form, but in this game I was feverishly searching for more pieces of the story. The narrative is really interesting and gripping and it's a puzzle in itself. As the player you are a robot or an AI of some sort and the story explores all of these deep philosophical questions regarding consciousness and existence. It was like a full brain massage, the puzzles stump your spatial reasoning and surface logic synapses while the story has you puzzling over the nature of existence itself.

Apparently a big DLC is being released for this in the coming days, I can't wait!

Three stars out of five. Although, if you were to chart my enchanted feelings toward this game, they also probably disappeared about three fifths of the way through. I was frustrated with a game I had been excitedly recommending to my friends. What happened? I love puzzles. I like having philosophical debates with buds. Why did the sheen fade?

It is almost like a relationship with an immature friend. When the relationship starts, you are talking about surface level stuff so it doesn't matter too much that they are shallow. But after spending some time with them, and you want to go deeper, you realize that is as far relationally that they can go.

The puzzles are a good example of this. There are little robot guys that float around and explode if you get too close. This kills you and you have to start the puzzle over. Okay. Not a big deal. As a puzzle mechanic you can put stuff in its way to allow yourself a path. You can set up a jammer to shut them down or to delay them. You can place boxes on the robots that can carry you. There are interesting puzzles to be made out of these guys. BUT a little over half way through the game they run out of ideas with these robots. Which is what it is, but the game keeps using the robots anyway. Most tediously just to create little sections where you have to avoid the robot's timing. That's not a puzzle. That's forcing the player to fight your janky game!

I remember a puzzle toward the end of the B area where a robot wasn't creating a puzzle, but just going back and forth. You had to wait your turn. And you have to walk past this robot maybe five times to complete the puzzle. I died at this robot 4 times. I knew how to solve the puzzle before my first death. The game's lousy puzzle designs and inconsistent controls made me wait for the little robot to fulfill their routine five times before I angrily got my tetromino.

The other big chunk of the game is conversations about consciousness with a computer. At first, I loved these. By the end of the game, I was just clicking my way through. The game felt challenging philosophically at first, but at the end, I felt like I was forced to sit through a lecture where the professor was grandstanding and NOT taking questions.

The above picture is a good example. The question the computer asks is interesting, but the options are limited to answers that the computer has rebuttals against and answers that I wouldn't give if asked in person. Initially I gave the designers the benefit of the doubt. It seems like an impossible conversation in a video game that involves programming answers. HOWEVER, I don't think the limited answers would be such a nuisance if the computer wasn't such a jerk to you. Like stop believing the worst in every answer you're forcing me to give.

One last complaint. The controls feel like yanking which wouldn't be a big deal except the game requires precision. Example: In order to change floors where there is only one possible other floor, you have to click the exact floor button. You can't just click the panel, you have to once again fight the game to click the precise button.

I have complaints. This game had a lot that frustrated me. But for the first three fifths of this game I had a good time. I guess that is my pro tip. Just put the game down before you get to the C area. It is all downhill from there.

The Talos Principle is a first person puzzle game that relies heavily on pathos and player experience both to give importance to the puzzles and create a meaningful storyline. During the game, in the likeness of an android, the player faces tests and trials of ever increasing difficulty while being guided by a celestial voice. From the start, it is intriguing and captivating and trying to understand what is going on is a big part of the game experience. The game however doesn't make it easy as clues are scattered throughout the world and information is released in tiny, non sequential bits.

Granted that the game is bigger than its parts, it might be easier to judge The Talos Principle while analysing its two core components separately.

On one side there's the gameplay, the puzzle component. In its basic form, abstracting away all the art and craft, and considering only the mechanics, it's nothing special nor new. This is not a belittling remark, just an observation that the concepts used are shared by many other puzzle games that came before. Specifically, the puzzles are separated tiny levels where the player has to reach an end point by using blocks, movable turrets of various genres and a couple other devices that are unlocked in steps along the way. All of these devices follow basic, simple mechanics and the difficulty arises from the need to have them interact in ever increasing complex and particular ways. The only peculiar mechanic of the game is the use, later in the game, of a sort of time manipulation (playback). Again, it's nothing new, quite reminiscent of what can be found in games such as The Swapper, Thinking with Time Machines or The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. As far as difficulty goes, the progression is fairly consistent and guided. New mechanics are introduced with simple tests and advancing in the game means encountering harder levels even though some overly easy challenges can still be found in the later stages. Overall, considering the core levels, the difficulty never feels excessive to the point of being frustrating. There are a couple of levels that may be harder to figure out. The solution, though, is never out of reach, given the compartmentalized nature of the puzzles. A lot harder is, instead, the task of 100%-ing the game, which involves finding all the "stars" disseminated throughout the game. In fact, despite the game hinting at the overall number of them per sector, some are not only hard to spot but also quite hard to collect as their collection requires bridging the borders between different levels using indirect and creative approaches. A couple could also be classified as flat out frustrating given how hard to find they are and considering that one of the endings requires the player to find them all.

On the other side there's the artistic component of the game. Firstly, the storyline, which follows an indirect approach: the player is never given the full picture, at least until the end as information is relayed through multiple conflicting parties that force the player to keep questioning the nature of this fictional world. At its core, it is a story about reality, consciousness, artificial intelligence and the nature of knowledge, full of philosophical bits, mythology and mystical innuendos. It's engrossing, interesting and fascinating. But it is also a strenuous task, as most of the information is scattered throughout the whole game, given in sparse written bits, mostly non correlated, with missing parts and words. Thus, it requires some effort from the player to get the whole picture, especially considering that it is not necessary and one can simply decide to go along with the puzzles only. But, it is definitely worthwhile and it plays a huge part in making the game what it is. It's an experience worth pursuing! As far as the art goes, inspiration is drawn from Greek/Roman architecture, ancient Egypt and middle ages as the game is comprised of three main thematic sections. Meanwhile, the music mostly takes the meditative and relaxing approach. Both art and music contribute significantly to the overall feeling of the game as an experience of discovery and growth.

To conclude, the game is great. I personally loved it. I wouldn't call it a genre-defining universal masterpiece to the levels of Portal 2 but there's undeniable immense craft and skill than went into creating this quite unique game. And even though, reasonably, it is a mixed bag for some players, lovers of games such as Portal, Q.U.B.E., The Turing Test and the likes, should definitely give it a try. It is also a fairly long game. Completing all the 100+ levels and reading throughout most of the story easily requires more than 15 hours, if not 20. So be prepared, child of Elohim.

From a story and presentation perspective, The Talos Principle is a five-star game. While its tone and themes appear to draw heavy influence from Valve's Portal games, the way the narrative unfolds is quite different. Its comparatively non-linear structure and less cinematic, more literary means of providing the player with the literal and figurative puzzle pieces they need to piece together the story really makes it stick with you long after the credits roll.

I found the puzzle game beneath all that less compelling. There's no single mechanic that results in the same sort of joyous "a-ha!" moments as that of the Portal series. The recurring mine enemies lack the personality or clear line of sight of Valve's iconic turrets. Certain time-based elements involve a lot of waiting and backtracking, feeling more tiresome than playful. And several times I abandoned puzzle solutions only to find out they were correct, but required such finicky physics or such precise line-of-sight that I assumed I was on the wrong track. Most of the puzzles are fun, but enough feel either unintentional or monotonous that I doubt I'd have continued to push through them without the story points to motivate me.

TL;DR: To me, The Talos Principle feels like a three-star puzzle game with a five-star narrative. I recommend it, but take some of the internet's more exuberant "better than Portal!" reviews with a grain of salt.

At first, I felt like the philosophical musings of this game were heavy handed and not that interesting. Even though a part of me still feels that way, the way this was integrated into the overall narrative and how the ending tied gameplay and theme together ended up being pretty satisfying. The concept seems to be heavily inspired by Alex Garland's works, such as the great movie "Ex Machina".

The puzzling is a lot of fun, and it gradually ramps up in difficulty. I feel it strikes a good balance of offering some challenges without being overly frustrating. My only gripe is that the puzzles do overstay their welcome. By the end of the game, not many new mechanics are introduced, which makes me think that this game should have been a bit shorter.

The narrative succeeds partly thanks to the music and atmosphere. I really liked the soundtrack, which managed to put you in a relaxed state to go over the puzzles while being evocative and contemplative to highlight the philosophical component of the game. (It would even seem that Alex Garland took some cues for his latest series Devs from this soundtrack's more ecclesiastical tracks).

The game provides a special ending if you collect some stars hidden around the levels. Some of these were fun, but others were more a matter of hunting every corner of the map to find which I think is more about brute force than "aha!" moments. I recurred to a walkthrough for these and I am pretty satisfied with my choice.

Another complaint I see is that the reward for this star hunt is a lackluster ending. Though I agree it is a bit anticlimactic compared to the main one, I did like the concepts it presented. It evokes Nietzsche's Zarathustra, who after gaining insight and knowledge, descended from the mountains to share his wisdom with the people.

All in all, this is a great puzzler tied with a well executed concept. It will always be nice to see puzzle games not make an excuse of a story but actually make it an integral part of the game.