How difficult is the game actually?

[FreddyTheMonkey]

I love ZeroRanger and I was immediately intrigued from Void Stranger since the initial announcement. I'm tremendously interested in the mystery and story, but how hard is this as a puzzle game, really? I don't dislike puzzle games, or at least some types of puzzle games, like the Layton series, LucasArts old point and click adventures, Hotel Dusk, The Talos Principle and other similar games (as well as Tetris and Puzzle Bobble, but I'm not sure those fit the bill while talking about ZeroRanger).

I'm just not good when they get too complex or cryptic. Baba is You, The Witness, La-Mulana 1 and 2, Fez, I've dropped them all at various points (The Witness about halfway through, La-Mulana close to the end, La-Mulana 2 and Fez after a couple hours). Tunic I've managed to complete, but I wasn't a fan of the Hidden Treasures' cryptic puzzles. I'm scared I might not be able to enjoy the game and that the 2 hour trial period by Steam might not be enough.

What do you think?

[Aggrogoat]

There is nothing intricately complicated about beating the game, but seeing all it has to offer requires some serious brainpower & an endless curiosity.

The first two hours will be all you really need to know if you'll have fun or not. Cuz' the whole game sans maybe 1% of it is just Sokoban puzzles, with extremely meta optional puzzles tied into it that reward you with more Sokoban puzzles.

[a]

Originally posted by Aggressive Goat:

The first two hours will be all you really need to know if you'll have fun or not. Cuz' the whole game sans maybe 1% of it is just Sokoban puzzles, with extremely meta optional puzzles tied into it that reward you with more Sokoban puzzles.

oh sweet summer child

[Chelnoque]

In short, pretty darn hard.

"Core" gameplay isn't cryptic or complex by any means. It's just sokoban with a few relatively simple gimmicks - far, far simpler than something like Baba is You. There are other layers atop of this one, varying in craziness, with some being relatively straightforward and are impossible to miss by playing normally. Others, to my understanding, you can more or less, ignore them (I've played for ~40 hours and advanced deep enough, but catched only a whiff of them - but, admittedly, I don't engage intentionally).

Anyways, even the core part sometimes is, to put it bluntly, hard af and definitely leans much closer to "hardcore" than to "casual". I often get stuck and stumped about how to solve another puzzle, sometimes for a long time.

[Averis]

I'll give you some clarity by saying that this game is easy on the first playthrough. There are some cryptic and mysterious puzzles but they are all solvable and don't require you to whip out a notebook or translate hidden messages in the game's soundtrack like La-Mulana or Tunic. I completed the whole game without assistance or hints (except hard mode because it eventually broke me). It's only after you get the "true" ending of the first playthrough does the game instantly go from easy and fair to challenging and ♥♥♥♥ you.

Unlike Tunic, Fez, or La-Mulana where you don't even know what to do or where to go to even begin solving difficult puzzles, Void Stranger past the first playthrough will present you with difficult, deceptive and unforgiving puzzles back-to-back. The game isn't joking or exaggerating when it says that it contains several "seemingly impossible" puzzles. The amount of time it took me to solve 10 puzzles was now the amount of time it took me to solve 1 and then get immediately walled by the puzzle on the next floor.

The puzzles aren't by any means complex like the games you've mentioned, but the solution and precise movements to execute them become increasingly unintuitive and obscure. Nearly all of the puzzles are designed to either kill you or subtly render the puzzle impossible if you attempt what appears to be an intuitive or common-sense solution. There are no hints, and there are few non-secret options for skipping or cheesing puzzles, so if you can't solve a puzzle you can find yourself repeatedly trapped since you can't leave the room most of the time.

That said, there are secrets in the game that will enable you to "cheat" a majority of the puzzles in the game and progress through the story at a rapid rate. If the game becomes too hard and slow you can always pursue them to make progress again.

[FreddyTheMonkey]

Thank you all for your detailed input! I do believe that the game probably isn't for me, regrettably.