Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Review

ign.com:

A lot of tears have been shed and drinks poured out over the “death” of the classic point-and-click adventure game. While some stalwarts like Return to Monkey Island have valiantly kept the torch burning, the days of walking around 2D environments shoving seemingly unrelated items into your pockets and then pushing them up against equally random objects in cryptic combinations have largely passed. With that in mind, it seems especially fitting that Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, the latest from Sayonara Wild Hearts developer Simogo, is a puzzle game very much about gazing back through the tangle of time (in more ways than one). The striking style of this exceptionally clever adventure may not look familiar on the surface, but at its heart, it’s the closest thing I’ve played to a modernization of what a point-and-click adventure could be. Its story is enticingly fresh, its vibes perfectly eerie, and the desire it evokes to uncover every inch of its intricately interwoven mystery is irresistible.

You take on the role of Lorelei, whose story begins in the dark woods outside of a looming manor with little direction beyond a strange invitation to an exhibit there that promises to transcend art itself – one that she might also be a part of? Lorelei and the Laser Eyes prides itself on its obfuscation, rarely giving you a straight answer to any of the questions it raises or telling you what the heck is actually going on – and that’s notable, because it starts at “curiously unexplained” and only gets wilder from there. But that enigmatic attitude never drove me toward frustration over the 13 hours it took me to beat it, always enticing me to uncover the answers for myself in a way that feels natural rather than laborious or obligatory.

Doing so generally has you directing Lorelei from fixed camera angles as she walks the black and white halls of this manor, bumping up against a cavalcade of locked doors that you’ll slowly but surely figure out how to open. Avoiding spoilers as