Claire de Lune Review – GameSpew

I used to be going to kick off with a gag, one thing alongside the traces of “Claire de Lune has extra invisible partitions than a mime conference” – however this puzzler’s greatest letdown is nothing to snigger at.

That’s to not say Claire de Lune is solely humour free; the banter between John, your protagonist, and Arturo, his AI companion, will certainly elevate a smile. Although once you keep in mind that you’re attempting to trace down your daughter, Claire, whose blood was smeared over the ground of her escape pod, these wisecracks really feel somewhat misplaced.

The connection between John and the titular Claire feels surprisingly actual, although you spend all of 5 minutes along with her earlier than issues go horribly, horribly mistaken and he or she finally ends up stranded (and injured) on an alien planet. It’s a welcome distinction to The Final of Us the place I couldn’t give two hoots about Joel’s daughter. You’re truly motivated to get on the market and get her again.

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And, regardless of her peril, journeying throughout a hostile alien planet might be enjoyable, whether or not you’re dropping a glowing blue block on an area crab’s head or utilizing your nanogun to sort out the alien geography that stands in your means. The instrument itself, when it really works, is a bit of cake to make use of. You begin off simply with the ability to spawn a blue dice, you then get the flexibility to create a booster; I used to be notably pleased with determining how one can use these two collectively, effectively earlier than the sport informed me.

As in Portal, the sport Claire de Lune most intently resembles, success is so very, very candy. There’s a second once you’re roaming a posh and it’s important to determine how one can mix your nanogun’s options to knock out a set of 5 cameras. The ultimate one virtually had me tearing my hair out however determining the answer was an actual rush, extra so than any of the non-nanogun puzzles.

The issue is that the majority of the sport doesn’t happen in some Portal-fashion laboratory the place you’re introduced with flat surfaces and sterile, common chambers. It takes place within the aforementioned alien panorama and for all the liberty it seems to provide you, it’s probably the most restrictive video games I’ve performed.

Take the “acid swimming pools” part. As you may count on, falling into acid is deadly and so, on condition that the sport has inspired you to take the excessive floor, you resolve to take action once more. So you utilize your nanogun to create a booster, then use a block to launch your self to increased floor. It really works. So, spying one other outcrop in entrance of you achieve this once more. Besides this time, you hit an invisible wall that occupies half that outcrop, and also you fall to your doom.

It doesn’t assist that, in contrast to Portal’s Chell, fall harm will kill you. In truth, you’ll die an terrible lot. Fall 12 ft? You’re useless. Jumped by an alien lifeform? Useless. Contact that one particular ledge together with your elbow? Useless. The autosave fortunately means you not often need to backtrack far but it surely makes an already irritating expertise downright infuriating.

So that you strive once more. Nope, extra invisible partitions. Finally you find yourself utilizing the blue block as a stepping stone to cross the acid. Was this the answer Claire de Lune had in thoughts? Apparently so. Was there any clue that this was the one particular answer you needed to take? Completely not.

Don’t get me mistaken; I’m not asking to be led by the hand, however there’s completely no consistency right here. You’ll be able to stand on a ledge that might barely help a hamster whereas there are plateaus 4 instances the scale that may slap you within the face with a clear barrier and shove you into the abyss.

Issues get even stranger once you poke round on YouTube and have a look at the individuals who have been taking part in preview or Early Entry copies of this a few months in the past. I’d tried the whole lot to cross a specific chasm, and resorted to taking a look at a “Lets Play”; the participant leapt onto a small outcrop, down by way of some greenery and jumped over from the opposite aspect.

I’d already tried that however, in case I’d missed one thing, I gave it one other go. As earlier than, as an alternative of falling by way of the palm leaves I ended up levitating two metres above them. I don’t know if this later construct was an try to cease gamers bypassing puzzles but it surely’s gone a lot too far the opposite means. When you step inside a facility the issues disappear – because of the flush partitions, it’s obvious which areas you’ll be able to and might’t negotiate.

However, as a rule, traversing the alien world boils right down to guesswork. I used to be actually having fun with myself within the mid-game warehouse space, smashing cameras, utilizing a bypass instrument to close off drones. However the second my AI companion informed me I’d need to undergo the caves to succeed in the lab, my coronary heart sunk. True to kind, half an hour later we have been again on the mime conference.

There’s a whole lot of promise right here but it surely’s smothered by Claire de Lune’s insistence on punishing you for not with the ability to learn its designers’ minds. Should you have been to take the sport’s inside ranges, faux the out of doors areas don’t exist and halve the value accordingly, you’d have an actual gem. Or simply disabling all of its infuriating invisible partitions would do the trick. As it’s, Claire de Lune left me preventing to have enjoyable and, lacking daughter or not, that’s not a battle I’ve the stamina for.

Claire de Lune Overview: GameSpew’s Rating

This overview of Claire de Lune has been facilitated by a code offered by the writer. It’s accessible on PC.