just beat shardlight my thoughts HEAVY SPOLIERS

[Heater]

after beating the gem that was technobabylon, I decided to play shardlight, and 8 hrs later I beat it. here are my thoughts summed up in one word ok.

Pros
1. voice acting, was great prob the best overall talent so far in a wadjet eye game

2. Art and character design were magnificent

3. Animation was very superb, especially loved how amy would drop her hood and mask. also loved the decapitation animation at the end, looked amazing

4. Music was also good, not technobabylon good but good

cons
1. puzzles were downright too easy, and the one and only puzzle that was not completely easy was way too finicky. the puzzle im talking about is the chalkboard puzzle. I knew the answer but I had to redraw it 4 times for the game to recognize it. there was at least 4 or more puzzles that involved the crossbow and little else. plus the last quarter of the game had basically no puzzles, felt like it was a telltale game

2. Writing was also weak to me and very uneven, especially in the character development department. it just seemed every character was somewhat cliched and ripped out of a post apocalyptic book or movie. Tyberious had the making of a good villain but he just fell flat, I love bad guys who dont think they are bad and have some depth, and it is obvious that is what the writer was going for but it just didnt work at all for me. Abe did a great job with his voice acting  but the written material just was not there.

3.I felt the locations were too small and the game basically held your hand and told you where to go

4. The whole thing with the reaper had a great setup but with no payoff, and the whole plot and gameplay to find him made no sense to me, why not enlist amy's help directly instead of leaving all these obtuse clues on where he is. Also it was pretty convenient that the old lady on the train knew about the underground tunnels, bc it is never made clear if she knew the reaper, in fact with the way she acts its implied she does not know him.

Now I know all this sounds like I hated the game, I promise you I did not, I guess the thing that bothers me is I see a great game buried in here but we got an avg adventure game as a final product. I give it a 7/10, def worth a buy but only on sale. I got it at 10 percent off, I wish I would have waited a little longer.

[crimsoncantata]

I agree with much of what you say, but I feel like I have to stand up a bit for my man Tiberius. While I do wish there was more of him, I still think there's enough in the game to successfully portray a man absolutely driven to maintain order. This doesn't make much impact at first because plenty of villains, both real and fictional, use 'maintaining order' as a cover for self-serving action, but as events progress we see that Tiberius doesn't actually want further riches, or conquest, or the adulation/fear of others- strict order isn't a means to end for him, it's the end itself. When he threatens to have a soldier hung from his balcony for talking back, it's not because his ego is bruised, it's because good order cannot tolerate insubordination. I found it a subtle twist on the more usual cookie cutter villian, and one I respected.

I absolutely agree that much of his power comes from Abe Goldfarb's stellar performance, which makes listening to Tiberius a bit like watching someone expertly twirl a razor-sharp dagger through their fingers- equal parts fascination and danger.

Puzzle-wise I was pretty stunned that a post apocalyptic game starring a mechanic didn't have more repair-type puzzles. Matching gears to pegs, re-rerouting current, loose component jigsaws, etc. I was actually a little disappointed I didn't get a close-up screen where I could fiddle with the mechanical raven guts.

I was also dead certain halfway through the game that I would get the chance to bring the salt flats train to life, but perhaps there was a deleted scene along the lines of-

AMY:...and in the best part of the plan, we drive this train straight into the secret heart of Tiberius' territory, taking him completely unawares!
TRAIN LADY: *silent death glare*
AMY: ....or we could just walk there. Walking's good too....

[Heater]

I agree with much of what you say, but I feel like I have to stand up a bit for my man Tiberius. While I do wish there was more of him, I still think there's enough in the game to successfully portray a man absolutely driven to maintain order. This doesn't make much impact at first because plenty of villains, both real and fictional, use 'maintaining order' as a cover for self-serving action, but as events progress we see that Tiberius doesn't actually want further riches, or conquest, or the adulation/fear of others- strict order isn't a means to end for him, it's the end itself. When he threatens to have a soldier hung from his balcony for talking back, it's not because his ego is bruised, it's because good order cannot tolerate insubordination. I found it a subtle twist on the more usual cookie cutter villian, and one I respected.

I absolutely agree that much of his power comes from Abe Goldfarb's stellar performance, which makes listening to Tiberius a bit like watching someone expertly twirl a razor-sharp dagger through their fingers- equal parts fascination and danger.

Puzzle-wise I was pretty stunned that a post apocalyptic game starring a mechanic didn't have more repair-type puzzles. Matching gears to pegs, re-rerouting current, loose component jigsaws, etc. I was actually a little disappointed I didn't get a close-up screen where I could fiddle with the mechanical raven guts.

I was also dead certain halfway through the game that I would get the chance to bring the salt flats train to life, but perhaps there was a deleted scene along the lines of-

AMY:...and in the best part of the plan, we drive this train straight into the secret heart of Tiberius' territory, taking him completely unawares!
TRAIN LADY: *silent death glare*
AMY: ....or we could just walk there. Walking's good too....

I just took it that tyberious was crazy at the end, I mean he was talking to a dead fetus in a jar lol. I agree with you about the puzzles too, I was convinced we were going to have to fix up the car amy was working on with her dad at some pt and probably have to sacrifice it for the rebel cause, but nope in fact her home base was sorely underused, lets see we got some flowers outside anda bucket that was it. I felt no strong connection with any of the characters, no real bond was ever formed for the player with any character. in the dream sequence I cared little for any of the characters I was talking to bc the devs did nothing to really establish a connection to amy or their story. overall just very basic adventure game.

[AndyfromVA]

My favorite aspect of the game was the fact that Amy was dying of a fatal disease, something that you were always made aware of.  The gave the the story considerable power.  I agree that the character of Tiberius could have been fleshed out more.