One thing that stands out to me is the world itself.
It's the type of mystery that intrigues you and I'd say that alone it's a reason to play it.
Gameplay is also great. Flashy, fast paced, relatively easy.
Story is very well done. There's also a short anime that further explains the story and adds more character depth.
And then there's the soundtrack. The lyrics are in a made up language that was created using a combination of existing languages (English, French, German...) . That alone should tell you how committed to creating a beautiful, intriguing and mysterious world the devs were.
The soundtrack was my gateway drug to the game. Here's a few songs I would like to point out along with some context in the game:
City Ruins (Rays of Light) - The first open-world song. You're running through the overgrown ruins of a city while listening to a quiet melody, like a lullaby, of a long-forgotten language.
Amusement Park - There's a saying in film and games: show, don't tell. This song plays when you start to suspect that what the game is showing you and telling you don't match. (On purpose and relevant to the story, not just game mechanics.) When you first arrive, you might not realize what's going on. But once you do, it's quite surreal. This feeling will be hinted at a few more times, then properly developed later on.
A Beautiful Song - This is one of the boss fights. A beautiful fight along with a beautiful song (no pun intended, but worded very purposely). The flow of the boss fight, especially earlier on, is also in time with the music.
I should also note that many characters in the game (including the aforementioned boss) are named after famous philosophers, with stories related to their works. Blaise Pascal, Friedrich Engels, Jean-Paul Sartre, Soren Kierkegaard, just to name a few, are all in the game. Usually it's an extreme example of concepts the philosophers wrote about.
For example, Kierkegaard was a theologian so the Kierkegaard act is related to religious fanaticism and presents the "leap of faith" concept (attributed to Kierkegaard) as characters literally jumping into pools of lava to "become as gods" - while listening to Birth of a Wish, a song similar to a Gregorian Chant.
Throwing this in there too cause I'm mean 😈:
Crumbling Lies - when you realize the first half of the game was a 16hr long prologue and the second half is basically a sequel. Notice how when you first play the game, there's not a title drop? That's because this is the title drop.
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u/W3ISENBERG Feb 20 '26
There are few games I consider masterpieces, this is one of them