![]() There’s one right at the end, for example, that requires the player to recognize and use base-4 math. This puts the focus on “pixel hunting” as the player will be much more worried about finding the books and notes in the rooms than about anything else – and the game even hides some important objects behind others so to make this task harder. Sometimes, these clues contain several possible answers, so it’s just a matter of testing them all out until you get the right one. Without the corresponding clue, it’s impossible to solve the puzzle without resorting to trial and error, which means that every time the player finds a puzzle their first action will be to check if one of the clues they already have contains the answer. First, it means that the player is “paying attention” instead of “thinking”: they are not deducing something, but just looking out for the clues they need, frantically scouting every room for books and posters. This puzzle design leads to some problems. Sometimes you have to pay attention to symbols and decode their meaning with the help of another note or book, but these are rare. You find clues around the rooms in the form of books, posters, and random notes, which usually have the exact numbers or words you need to unlock something. ![]() The logic behind the game’s puzzles stays the same for most of the game. The ending, therefore, is anticlimactic, and most of the things you do in the castle doesn’t seem to matter much. Their true nature is not hard to figure out due to the abundance of puzzles surrounding a specific theme, but the problem is that the revelation doesn’t mean much besides the simple idea that “there’s something more out there”. There’s nothing in the story besides that, which makes the notes you find and the things you discover get repetitive quickly. The problem of The Eyes of Ara’s narrative, however, is that the mystery surrounding these “eyes” is not complex enough to sustain the whole game. At least, they appear to be just casual observers: if, initially, they fly away from you, as you keep advancing deeper inside the castle they start to get used to your presence and even follow you around. Whether they’re ghosts or aliens, it doesn’t matter much since you soon find out that they mean no harm. I can feel the spirits around me, speaking to me, directing my brush as it glides across the canvas. Warnings that a terrible fate ‘befalls all those who dwell here’ are just waves crashing on rocks. “ T he townsfolk love to tell stories, haunting children into obedience. Some feared them, while others were just intrigued by their presence. Are they harmless or dangerous? Are they human-made or alien artifacts? One of the castle’s past inhabitants believed their blue light is the soul of the dead. ![]() ![]() The game’s main mystery surrounds their identity and purpose. As soon as you enter a room and find one floating around it immediately flies away, as if it was not meant to be discovered there. As you explore the castle you meet some small, shy drones that emanate a bright blue light. Sadly, the game’s story is not its strong point. You constantly find notes scattered around the place about a family that lived there in the past, but the castle doesn’t feel like a place people could live in, but a giant intricate puzzle they must solve. The castle feels like a classic game environment, being completely designed around its puzzles: it’s the kind of place where even clocks don’t tell the time, but if you place their hands in the right place, open up and reveal a secret lever hidden inside where their pendulums should be. When you manage to enter the castle – even its entrance is locked behind a puzzle, of course – you find that it’s a very curious place with various rooms full of strange memorabilia. A letter explains their mission: a strange signal is emanating from the castle and disrupting communications in the region, so they are to find its source and shut it down. The game opens with the protagonist – who is never named nor shown – arriving at a medieval castle by boat. The game, however, falters with its shallow story, uneven puzzles, and cumbersome control scheme on the Nintendo Switch. The Eyes of Ara is a first-person point-and-click adventure that tries to harken back to the genre’s golden era, evoking games like Myst with its puzzle design and mysterious, eerie atmosphere.
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