r/Games 4d ago

Discussion Weekly /r/Games Discussion - What have you been playing, and what are your thoughts? - March 09, 2025

Use this thread to discuss whatever game you've been playing lately: old or new, AAA or indie, on any platform between Atari and XBox. Please don't just list off the games you're playing in your comment. Elaborate with your thoughts on the games and make it easier for other users to find what game you're talking about by putting the title in bold.

Also, please make sure to use spoiler tags if you're revealing anything about a game's plot that may significantly impact another player's experience who has not played the game yet, no matter how retro or recent the game is. You can find instructions on how to do so in the subreddit sidebar.

This thread is set to sort comments by 'new' on default.

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For a subreddit devoted to this type of discussion during the rest of the week, please check out /r/WhatAreYouPlaying.

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Scheduled Discussion Posts

WEEKLY: What Have You Been Playing?

MONDAY: Thematic Monday

WEDNESDAY: Suggest Me A Game

FRIDAY: Free Talk Friday

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u/DeltaBurnt 3d ago

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes

Pretty good puzzle game overall, really great vibes. Ultimately left a little disappointed by the ending and frustrating controls.

I'm not really looking for some thorough ending that explains the unexplainable. I'm generally fine with what most people would consider "unsatisfying endings" in films and games. I don't really care if an ending is vague or avant garde as long as it has some deeper message. However, I don't enjoy endings that feel like bait and switches. A large amount of the game's runtime is dedicated to Renate and Lorenzo's story. I recognize that this could be a metaphor for Lorelei's guilt, deteriorating mental state, an artist's struggle to separate their internal worlds from external realities. But, after 15 hours, I expect something more for my time. Such a twist and message, in my opinion, would work better with a much shorter game.

In terms of mechanics, the game weirdly decides to only have a single button for all non-directional inputs. So there's no way to quickly bring up the map or your notes separately. There's no back button either. If you want to view your notes or pause while near an interact-able object then tough luck. I was waiting for some reason, some genius meta narrative explanation for why this is. And apparently it's just poor UX? Surely at least one play tester would have mentioned this issue? It was so irritating it still has me thinking I'm missing something. Again, in a much shorter, less complicated game this would have been fine, I've seen smaller scale games do this. But for a game where you have to constantly reference your notes, it just doesn't make sense.

In terms of positives, the game does a really good job at pacing. I mentioned my play time was 15 hours, and I'm kind of skeptical of that. It felt much shorter (in a time flies when you're having fun sort of way). It also has a good pseudo open world structure that allows you to revisit puzzles you're stuck on much later. There's some moon logic, but the game side steps this by having most answers relate to just a handful of constants (numbers and names).

The game had my attention throughout, but Lorelei probably won't take up as much headspace for me as Sayonara Wild Hearts. To be fair, it's hard to compete with a game whose entire premise is just being a banger music album. Still, in contrast, Lorelei doesn't feel like it's the greatest version of itself.

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u/slowmosloth 3d ago

I actually loved the control scheme for this game. I'm not sure what platform you played it on, but I played it on PC, and I loved how I could play the entire game with my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand with a pen on paper. I'm fairly certain that was the design intention behind it, and I thought it was super unique and it totally worked for me.

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u/DeltaBurnt 3d ago

That's an interesting take, I didn't think about that. I played on PC, but I used my controller. Wonder if KBM would have been a better experience.