Review: House of Da Vinci II

 This is another game that I haven't finished yet but have spent significant time with. Basically I picked it up as something lighter to play when I wasn't up to Suzerain. It is a puzzle game with a light story.

Basically this is 3D puzzle game. You manipulate objects to find secret ways of interacting them with them. The story is set in Italy in the late 1400s and early 1500s. Cesare Borgia and Leonardo Da Vinci are the two characters you interact with.

I have enjoyed my time with the game I think primarily because the puzzles aren't that hard but they aren't trivially easy either. So generally I have been able to proceed at a fairly good pace and make progress without too much frustration. Some of the puzzles have challenged me a bit more which is good. There is a hint system. I used it once early on basically just to see what it was like but I am a bit stuck and thinking of using it again. For the most part things make sense and don't feel arbitrary or dumb. I also think the visual aspect is pretty good. It is an attractive game. The story is mostly in the background but does give some motivation to the whole thing. It has a bit of sci-fi that plays into it and a bit of a mysterious conspiracy. I found these engaging but your mileage may vary.

As to the negatives, for the most part I found the puzzles a little too easy. A lot of them don't really require you to really figure anything out but just to manipulate the objects and like put them together. The difficulty in my current section is kind of a step up so maybe part of that is just some intended progression. Secondly there is a story that gives some motivation to the process but at the same time the story is pretty thin so specific puzzles still feel somewhat unmotivated. There is a little bit of a feeling of "why am I doing all these puzzles?" That is to say that there doesn't seem to be that much reason why all of these puzzles are put in your way. This is of course a problem that all puzzle games have but for some reason I felt it here more than when I was playing Talos Principle or Portal 2.

So, my overall opinion is that I recommend it but I didn't find it as engaging as Talos Principle or Portal 2. It is also on the easier side of things.