A great game you shouldn’t play – The Witness Review

Yes, I beat it and got the secret ending. I have near 100% completion (497 panels and 46 environmental puzzles) and will 100% the game, but it’ll probably take a walkthrough. Up until now, I’ve only needed one once in the shadow based area. This game is great, but bad at communication. I feel like a lot of the aha moments could become pure frustration to someone who doesn’t understand them. If you don’t understand a concept, the game will NOT guide you. It will simply cross it’s arms and shake its head. So why is it 5 stars? Because my experience with the game was amazing, and because this will most likely not happen to you. The game is phenomenal, from the opening to the end, it’s full of thought-provoking puzzles and ideas. Granted, don’t get the plot, it’s an unnecessary part of the game, but it’s still there if you want it. I LOVE this game (except the Jungle and shipwreck, they can rot in Hell, but they’re optional unless you want secrets). The way that some puzzles have parts covered by something or are changed by color is ingenious to me. The way the mountain flips the ideas on their head, making the puzzles move, messing with perspective, obscuring certain parts, giving you a seizure, making looping puzzles, it all feels very Baba is You esque, but without the Baba is you, and with waaaaaay better visuals. The ideas are communicated mostly by showing you an oversimplified puzzle with no prior knowledge, the player trail-and-erroring the first super-simple puzzle, figuring out the rule, and then applying the rule in super complicated ways. This is how the jungle, quarry, zen gardens, orchard, keep, marsh, bunker, and more teach you their principles, and it’s an effective yet ineffective way of doing things. I assumed a tutorial would be somewhere, and as a result was stumped for the first 3 hours of the game in the town because since it’s right there, you would think it’s the next area, but I gave up and then realized it’s close to the endgame. Other than the few problems, the game is almost perfect, but also absolutely infuriating. Great game, don’t recommend.
Review by No yo biz on The Witness.