A game that truly understands the style its emulating. 13 years of love, all worth it.

Through you, I endure...

I wont lie, I'm... rather disappointed.
Yes, I enjoyed the game and recommend it, but I ave a lot of sentiments towards this game that lot of other people share.

The entire game had absolutely wonderful atmosphere, don't get me wrong. Coming from the Haunted PS1 Demo from a while ago, the game was exactly what I expected it to be from what the demo presented. And it definitely felt like it got better and better as continue throughout the game, as the buildup from the different environments and questions you ask yourself really make your so much more curious, as the game throws at you tons of different pieces of lore from all over.
But eventually, the game does not even answer those for you, and in a very deliberately disappointing way at that.
But aside from that, I also have some gripes with the writing and visuals.


The environments look amazing and I adore the anti yellow paint design of the levels. They were tricky but still rewarding, but the texture work *really* turned me off. I understand not ever developer is an artist, but half of the areas in this game are just made of real photographs of bricks and cobbled rock that have been upscale in size and unnaturally plastered unto various geometry that doesn't even make sense in a functioning world; I understand that world the game takes place in is meant to be mysterious, but it clearly lifts inspiration from Blame and other media of similar calibre, and alot of the areas that you platform on are meant to be various sorts of exposed elements from the inside of the walls but they stick out so clearly from the rest of the blank colossal walls, aon top of the really lazy texture work, that it just looks so blatant and unfinished.

As for the writing... It was serviceable, mostly staying vague for the most part, which is fine. But later on throughout the game, it became a lot more obvious and even amateurish at times, with the game outright *telling* the player what to think, which didn't help as the game started feel like it was trying too hard at that point.
Up until the last area of the game (really unimportant spoiler for a small piece of dialogue ahead), you can scan a statue that the game dubs "A religious symbol", then adding a dissapointingly blatant "Perhaps the direction at which the symbol is pointing in is of significance", practically telling the player what to feel- which really sucks considering thte game had done an incredible job at hinting at the meaning and practices of this exact religion a few areas prior through pure environmental story telling,
*which is what the game advertised itself for*.

(LIGHT SPOILERS FOR ENDING - BUT NOTHING IS MENTIONED DIRECTLY)

As for the ending... I'm sorry, but that was not very good.
What the developer was trying to do was really cool, I *really* enjoyed it at first. It's a very cool trope to try and end a story in a climactic conclusion. But you've made an atmospheric exploration game with your entire climbing system being centred around PATIENT and PRECISE EXPLORATION.
Throwing the player into a FAST gauntlet at the end for a climactic escape, is not even the issue, its the EXECUTION.
It is incredibly unforgiving and frustrating, and it seems many other people seem to understand.

At first, I was very excited and pumped to make my big final escape. The music was incredibly unfitting and tonally inappropriate for the incredible mood that the game had set up until now, but i'd lie if i said it was undeniably groovy (but again, very tonally inappropriate).
The level was setup as a long parkour meant to test all of the player's knowledge. The issue is, is that it's incredibly punishing in all the wrong ways. The player will find themselves running out of stamina, falling at lethal speeds too quickly, and not going where they expected to go using the grapple feature- all of which hinder the player's ability to be PRECISE, something that the game has been DESIGNED AROUND up until now.

Typically, in video games, climactic escapes usually feature the player becoming "super-powered" in some way, because the developers want the players to FEEL like they're ina dramatic showdown. Additionally, this is usually right after a chapter that follows the player having their main mechanics or abilities fully removed from them. I can think of many games that have the player lose their abilities before the end of the story, only to get them back but even more powerfully. The entire point of "super-charging" your player is to make them FEEL like what's going on around them is COOL.

In Lorn's lure, you similarly lose your ability to climb. And during the ending of the game, you must make your escape right after a cutscene. Your character's picks even start glowing purple which led me to believe I'd either have infinite stamina for maximum movement or Reduced fall damage. But no, unless something was changed, I didn't notice anything because the game was making me do tight and unforgiving platforming because the developper decided to design the final great escape around the player *getting it right* rather than *making it feel good*. In the examples mentioned before, the act of making your player more powerful isn't to make the game easier or to coddle them, but to keep them immersed and present the challenge in an engaging and exciting way.
But here, the only challenge is the game punishing you for trying to play it. The parkour features numerous growing spheres that will INSTANTLY KILL you, which appear with NO warning out of thin air, all deliberately placed in areas THE PLAYER IS EXPECTED to be in, so that if you finally land on the pesky platform you've been trying to reach, an instant-kill sphere will greet you with no visible warning. And mind you, the checkpoints in the final sections are ridiculously far apart with numerous "grounded" areas eligible for checkpoints NOT counting.

The entire final section felt as if it was barely vetted or thought through, littered with poor design choices that make a section of the game that would've been otherwise exciting and conclusive to a respawn-fest where the beautiful initial momentum of the sequence is slowly and painfully killed with each sighing respawn. Which is all strange as I remember the developer making a poll about the audience's least favourite levels, with two levels including the final chapter being the most popular answers.