Annapurna has always given us real gems over time, passing through the most disparate genres, but the title we are reviewing today could even be at the top of the list of the most particular: let’s talk about Lorelei and the Laser Eyesan adventure that takes us inside a disturbing hotel, in which we will solve riddles upon riddles.
A job offer… particular
The title starts without too many preambles. A woman, our protagonist, parks her car at the entrance to a forest, in which, after a few steps, there is a very… very strange hotel. This place is exactly where our client awaits us, a man who commissioned a job from us and who told us to join him a year later. It is about theHotel Letztes Jahrea place that despite its very ordinary external appearance, hides in his heart much more than it seems.
Our protagonist
Inside it we will have to try to carry out this work, which consists into investigateAnd discover the truth… but will it really be just this?
There storytelling of the game is at the same time very confusedbut not airtight, because as we explore the hotel we will be overwhelmed by an avalanche of jagged information, both on the past of some characters and on the present, and who knows what the future holds for us. In any case, know that things are complex and complicated by default, so don’t worry if you don’t understand what’s happening, because the pieces of the puzzle will fit together very slowly. We are talking about a complexity sought and desired by the developers, which is only the tip of the iceberg.
A puzzle matryoshka
Yes, because the truly intricate part of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes lies in gamplayor rather, in solving puzzles who we will meet in the hotel. This place is practically a concentration of puzzles and the search for logic, where every door we have to open will have a padlock to unlock, or a lock that must be opened from the opposite side. This without forgetting the other dozens of puzzles proposed by the story, the locations, and… practically anything else.
The incredible thing is that although we could almost define the puzzles as divided into “strands”, they will all try to converge in the same directions, making you explore the hotel far and wide in its entirety, in search of the answers we seek.
Inside the game menu there are several things that can help us: first of all the photographic memory they mental notes of the protagonist, who will remember everything she sees, be it books, posters, documents, photos and so on. This is because every single document that we find could be of vital importance for the answer to some enigma or riddle. By the way they really are of the most disparate types: we range from logical and mathematical riddles, to those of deduction, through open numerical answers, keys to find, up to symbolism, labyrinths, and much more. Everything is mixed in one chaotic order, a waltz between entropy and tension.
READ ALSO The director of Mad Max: «A video game? We would need someone like Kojima”
Obviously we will have with us a inventorywhich we will gradually fill with all the keys and objects that we will obtain in game, as well as finances: the game map is also dotted with U.S. dollarswhich we will collect one by one, and which we can use for different accessory purposes (some a little more useful than others…).
In Lorelei and the Laser Eyes we will also sometimes find ourselves being hunted…
Let’s end by saying that although it is not a game genre where it is often present, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes also presents the possibility of Game Over, which has happened to us more often than we’d like to admit. This is because sometimes we will be faced with situations in which a wrong answer is equivalent to… bang! For this reason we will be led to Save your game often with the various computers (a little dated to be honest) that we will find in the structure.
A nightmare hotel
Clearly one of the most prominent features of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes it is undoubtedly the graphics departmentwhich creates a black and white grayscale very captivating, recalling the noir style in a not too subtle way. The third color that is very present in the game, as well as fundamental, also for the sense of adventure, is the redused in a fascinating and skilful way to say the least.
The shots in third person alternate with fixed cameras, and will lead us to explore differently depending on the area (or dimension) where we find ourselves, with quotes and tributes that aren’t too hiddenlike when we use game consoles (in game ed.).
One of the places you will pass most often…
Also video I’m very detailsThat without dubbing they alternate simple shots, sometimes moving, sometimes static, with a brilliantly disturbing directorial cut. The audio does its job with many merits and few discordances, proving to be a perfect side dish.
Such an important visual care, however, was not followed by an equally worthy one regarding the menu management and gods controller input. Indeed there is no way to go back in a menuor in some animations such as those of objects or locks, if not respectively selecting manually the X, or failing/solving the puzzle. This means that simply pressing a button will not be enough to exit the menu, and worse still, there are multiple buttons to “confirm” choices, so much so that out of habit it is easy to make a mistake and “accept” something when you actually wanted to go back. This problem, let us clarify, is present in the console version of the gamegiven that on PC when playing with mouse and keyboard you can point exactly where you want.
Apart from this flaw, play it portable on Switch that’s a good thing, but if you decide to take this title with you we recommend you always have it on hand paper and pen, because for some puzzles it will be really indispensable. We also remember that the title is completely translated into Italianwhich to say the least is essential for understanding the text and many puzzles.
#Lorelei #Laser #Eyes #Review #Pandoras #box #puzzles
