Surrounded by full darkness and closely restrained in an antiquated wheelchair, life appears bleak. However you then discover a button has been positioned inside your hand, which seems to activate a laser pointer hooked up to your head. Focusing on what appears like a pull chain, a determine steps out of the darkness and switches on a lamp to light up the room.
Quite a few questions start to run by means of your thoughts – Who is that this individual, and why am I strapped in in opposition to my will? Is my life in critical hazard? How on earth do I escape from this place?
That’s how the unsettling opening moments play out in Final Labyrinth -Lucidity Misplaced-, a mysterious escape room type puzzler developed by AMATA Ok.Ok.. Previously an expertise solely potential in VR, Final Labyrinth has been reworked for PC and consoles; eradicating the necessity for a headset. So, let’s discover out whether or not the haunting puzzling inside nonetheless manages to succeed with out VR.
In Final Labyrinth, the mysterious individual you first meet is definitely a woman, Katia, whose sole job is to offer support. Level at one thing to work together with utilizing the laser and she is going to gleefully carry out the motion – albeit after a quick nod of the pinnacle utilizing the analog stick. The concept is to discover a means out of the room you’re in, which might contain merely exiting by means of a door or fixing a puzzle. Succeed within the puzzle and every part’s rosy. Fail and loss of life looms for each of you.
Someone is watching every part unfold, akin to Jigsaw within the SAW movie sequence, and it seems they’re chargeable for organising the loss of life traps. It’s all fairly sinister, nonetheless it’s not probably the most giving of narratives and so most of the questions you could have will go unanswered. Particularly when your ally speaks a made up language, limiting communication to mere gestures. That issue specifically hurts any potential bond being made, which lessens the influence of loss of life scenes as you merely gained’t care.
Chances are high, you’ll fail lots and bear witness to the numerous lethal conditions that come up. From rotating pillars coated in spikes and a guillotine, to flesh-eating beetles and electrocution, Final Labyrinth is brutal with its punishments. These moments have clearly been made to be skilled in VR and so any worry of impending doom is minimised with out the immersion. And that’s a disgrace as a result of the deaths are fairly artistic.
Shifting on to the puzzles, and there’s one per room so that you can resolve. There’s no hand holding in any way, therefore determining the issue is as a lot of a conundrum because the eventual answer. I like the range, for you possibly can find yourself getting Katia to flip levers to soundly re-route a toy practice set or press buttons to modify all of the lights off on a board, akin to the previous Lights Out sport. Different concepts contain algebraic calculations to steadiness the scales, a somewhat harmful model of Reduce the Rope, repeating a sequence of sounds heard, and extra.
Within the early levels, finishing a single room results in an ending scene, earlier than being thrown again to the begin to deal with a distinct room. Ultimately you’ll attain a degree at which a complete host of different rooms are on the agenda, together with extra branching routes. That is when the monotony can creep in although, with sure puzzles repeated so as to attain the alternate pathways. Worse than that nonetheless, is the overuse of a Japanese chess-like board sport.
Dōbutsu Shōgi, additionally identified internationally as ‘Let’s Catch the Lion!’, is a child’s board sport the place every participant has 4 tiles – a chick, an elephant, a giraffe, and a lion. Very similar to chess, all of them possess completely different motion guidelines and the last word goal is to seize the opposition’s lion. If, like me, you’ve no data of it, you then’re in for a painful quantity of matches all through. Not solely should you face off in opposition to Katia, a number of instances, but in addition the large unhealthy Phantom who’s seemingly orchestrating every part. As soon as is an excessive amount of; a greatest of 5 for a single encounter is overkill.
One other situation, albeit a slight one, is just not all the time figuring out the place the laser pointer is aimed earlier than urgent it. Positive, a number of puzzles have an indicator on the sq. or merchandise it’s focusing on so as to information you, however others have you ever virtually guessing; rapidly readjusting to swimsuit. There’s a fast-paced part the place that is an absolute nightmare and also you may want a handful of makes an attempt to succeed. Luckily, it’s only a small nuisance for the remaining.
I really feel as if Final Labyrinth -Lucidity Misplaced- loses its edge with out VR and merely turns into a mediocre puzzle sport. That’s to not say the puzzles aren’t good, as a result of they’re respectable assessments of your logic for certain. It’s much less charming on the entire nonetheless, with the cleverly grotesque loss of life scenes coming throughout as lacklustre as a result of them being equipped for folk engrossed by way of a VR headset. The repetition of sure sections, and the inclusion of a really tedious child’s board sport, merely provides to the frustration, which then places you off experiencing each potential ending.
If you wish to dive into Final Labyrinth -Lucidity Misplaced-, then both seize it on a budget or stick with the VR model.
