There is a certain stage when media becomes self aware and meta with philosophy object as the main theme. And video games is one of prominent medium to present the ideas that is exact type because its interactivity. There are a lot of video games that has been reached and poked into serious theme such philosophy and meta ideas about the existentialism itself within the world. Talos Principle is a puzzle game that deals with such heavy idea that merged with the questioning of the existence of player who act as a robot who woke in the virtual world where it needs to discover the reality of being one of sons Elohim, a god who becomes the guide to explore the world.
The premise idea of game in simple term is about discovery of the world which consist of nature area with popular landmark such Egypt. The graphic is the realistic as possible and use of photo realistic as art direction. Too bad if players expect for a game that has fast paced with a lot action, Talos Principle is the wrong game to try. It’s a game that has ton of puzzles to solve in each area where the result is unlocking notes to find from a single computer that contains seem random message and philosophy teaching. If you aren’t interested with heavy philosophy, don’t bother to read the note and just play it as puzzle game. Each puzzle has different approach and there are 5 tools to use to help breaking the puzzle.
The puzzle itself is somewhat easy and difficult at the same time. Sometimes, I can break the puzzle in the first try and other becomes so much frustrated about finding the right method to solve. It’s the game that requires patience, precision and persistence to progress. I don’t have to be feel embarrassed to cheat in some levels because sometimes the game itself don’t show any tutorial for new tool and another reason some level really needs exact precision and angle to get things works. So its not so worth time to spend my time one hour to do trial and error. Basically in each puzzle, its only need more than one minute to solve but strangely if you have any idea to do and try to grill your brain, you will spend more times to solve the puzzle. So except you are the maker of the game or having 4d brain. You will easily to finish the game but for us who just want to have casual puzzle gaming experience, just count on Youtube tutorials.
Talos Principle is not that bad game for a puzzle game, its decent puzzle game to try for the lore and the story that has not so much interactivity except reading notes, answering bots question and listening Elohim speaks about world. There is no combat, stats progression, or anything that deals with typical action games even though this game used First person of view (3rd person of view is optional). Its just running into a new area of puzzle, solving the puzzle, get the reward as a sigil that is Tetris where later used to unlock new phase of area by playing more puzzle but with your Tetris sigil.
As my closing paragraph, I would like to talk about the game idea about existentialism that its offered and taught toward the player. Its philosophy lesson for you but don’t expect to understand anything here because sometimes its confusing to think about and its really bad idea while you try to solve these confusing puzzles. It will become your brain griller instead being brain evoker for new idea.
P.s: I bought the DLC as expansion game, not really interested to play since its just more puzzles but more advanced and complex to solve. The story itself is same as the setting, its about Elohims robot angel to discover place called Gehenna. Too bad nothing to explore in Gehenna except same area and environment design.
Finished : 27 April 2020
Rating : 7/10
Difficulty : Hard
Written :: 1 May 2020
