My Playtime: 2.3h (100% achievement, finished the game)
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (6 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.

LEAVES - The Return is a point-and-click game with puzzle solving as a focus. It's the second installment of the LEAVES series with the same gameplay. Since it doesn't have any notable stories, you can jump right to the second series without any issue.

Pros:
- Various puzzles to solve

Cons:
- It's hard to figure out how the hint system works
- Sometimes it's hard to figure out where to go next
- Some puzzles require you to either back and forth or screenshot the hints on other screens
- Some solutions don't make sense

Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650

No.
Unless you like to solve vague puzzles and backtracking, do not buy this game.

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The game still uses surreal visuals. Some scenes are also reused from the first installment, LEAVES - The Journey (my review), although they still have some original content to compensate for it. I still liked the visuals here - it gives a unique charm to the game.

Gameplay
If you have played the first game, the gameplay is exactly the same. It's a point-and-click game where you have to explore the area and solve the puzzles. Unlike other point-and-click games, there is barely any plot at all; you only get the objective to find leaves that are scattered throughout the area, and finding these leaves can be daunting since they are obscurely hidden in the background. There is a hint in the map that shows in which area a leaf is hidden, although it will still take some effort to find it.

Solving puzzles will be what you'll be doing most of the time. Items that you pick will mostly serve as a hint to solve certain puzzles, which you must find on your own. LEAVES - The Return likes to force you to backtrack a lot, forcing you to go to other areas when you are stuck with one. However, this can prove to be problematic for those with bad memory; they will be forced to explore all areas again just to find where to go next, which might be more difficult if they don't know if they already have the hint to solve a certain puzzle that they stuck on before. Moreover, manual backtracking can be tedious due to the slow fade-in fade-out animation on each screen, adding more time to find the area that you are looking for.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2204782948

You are forced to take note of the hints on your own. Hints can be provided on another screen or in an object that you can pick up. However, even though you have an object that can help you to solve a puzzle, that particular object won't be pinned on the screen when you are solving the puzzle, forcing you to go to your inventory and recheck it most of the time. This takes time since you need to wait for the animation to kick in before you can select the item in your inventory, and it's easy to misclick and get out of the puzzle - I had to redo a puzzle thrice because of it. Another solution would be to take a screenshot manually, which works better in my case.

That being said, some solutions still don't make any sense. There are times when I believed my solution was correct, but it turns out that the game wants another solution which I couldn't seem to draw the connection from, even though I already get the solution from a guide. I didn't remember experiencing this from the first game, to be honest. I'm not sure whether the developer wants to increase the difficulty or not, but it didn't work for me.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1328823623

Length and Difficulty
I finished the game with a guide in 2.3h. I still found it hard to figure out where to go next here, and some puzzles just didn't make sense to me. I still enjoyed solving the puzzles, but with how many times I got stumped with hardly any hints to go on, I just didn't find any enjoyment from finishing the game and wished it to be over.

The in-game hint system still doesn't make sense either. It still uses the same feature from the first installment, which I couldn't manage to figure out. The only good thing about it is that I could finish the game without using any hints for an achievement, and stick to a guide that works for me instead.

It's just the same as the first installment, LEAVES - The Journey. Just like the first series, I didn't find any enjoyment from it apart from solving the puzzles, which was turned down by the time it took me to get to the other puzzles. Moreover, some puzzles in this game are more vague, to the point that I found the solution to not make any sense. I still couldn't recommend it because of these reasons.

game crashed completely on my second session. all progress lost......... NOPE

Less areas than the first game, some repeated backgrounds and puzzles from the first game as well. Shorter and even less remarkable.

LEAVES - The Return the second of the LEAVES point and click puzzle/adventure games with a whimsical, esoteric theme not unlike Samorost. You click around a mysterious forest full of strange creatures and statues solving somewhat simple puzzles based on clues you can collect on leaves. I think there's some kind of niche for these games, but the quality of this game in terms of implementation can't be saved by the intriguing theme and artwork.

This sequel is very much a copy + paste of LEAVES - The Journey, but with different puzzles, otherwise the technical aspects of the game (and most of the gameplay) is identical, with no improvements over the first and all the same defects.

From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

While there are options to change the resolution for the game, all this does is scale up the simplistic 2D art assets used to make the game, which makes little or no difference to the graphics quality. Without any other substantial graphics tweaks, it's not possible for gamers to improve the lacklustre 2D visuals. The developers didn't design the game for modern gaming PCs, as such the display resolution caps out at 1080p, a very low resolution that became mainstream back in 2006 and became obsolete when 4K entered the mainstream in 2014. The game simply won't look right on modern gaming displays due to this failure on the part of the developers.

The game only displays in 4:3 pillarboxed aspect ratio. It's possible they developed this using an old CRT they found in a dumpster, or this game has been specifically designed for people gaming on PC's from 1995... either way, this isn't really acceptable in the modern era of PC gaming.

For gameplay purposes, because the user interface for this game is mostly just 2D static images with a few Flash-like sprites and objects on top... it might as well be a browser game. And we all know, Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. If the game can be done in a web browser, it's just not rich or compelling enough to appeal to serious gamers on PC.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

LEAVES - The Return didn't appeal much to the people who own a copy of the game, either. It has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game didn't really capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is clicking on the first things you see in the game, but only around 40 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. It drops sharply for achievements collected after the first screen you see. Hardly a success story, gamers just weren't all that interested in the game.

Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a very healthy spike in player counts for the game. But this only appears around the same time that trading cards were applied to the game... so this is just card idlers getting their cards and moving on. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with no merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards.

LEAVES - The Return has the laughable price of around $5 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam (and on web browsers, like this game looks like it was designed for).

Unfortunately just as the first game: Unbelievably beautiful, unbelievably illogical, frustrating mechanics, infuriating logic.

This game suffers the same issues as the first. There are some unique puzzles, but most of them are stupid hard to solve. Like "open a guide or die" hard. It does look a bit nicer in my opinion and the paths aren't quite as long and windy, which is cool. It feels a bit more put together map-wise. There's pretty much no story whatsoever, same as the first

I think this game improves on the first in having better puzzles and less backtracking. There are some additional bits of text to help new players with the basics of navigation that the first game did not have.

A lot of the same cons have returned. There's still a lot of excessive clicking, tough not as much as the first game. The worst aspect of this game, just like the first, is the technical performance. There is no way in the options to limit the frame rate. If you have a modern-ish graphics that card that means several hundred or low four digit FPS. If you've got an older or less cooling-efficient machine I wouldn't suggest launching it.

Stars received: 2.1/10 _ Note: v.6 [0.0 to 1] = personal impressions

[0.3] Controls & Training & Help
[0.2] Menu & Settings
[0.3] Sound & Music
[0.3] Graphics
[0.3] Game Design
[0.2] Game Story
[0.4] Game Content
[0.1] Completion time (level/game)?
[0] is it Enjoyable & Fun?
[0] Could it hold a spot in Favorites? (& if the Game can be repeatedly played again)
[0] BONUS point: Multi-Player related
[0] BONUS point: Review for VR
[N] - if Registration is required with providing PII
[Yes = maybe] - is it acceptable to Play the Game in 2022+ ?

Game description key-points: puzzles with an Artistic design that stands out more in a bad light from the gaming standpoint, causing frustration to progress the content


Overview:
A strange choice to play, but if you prefer a challenge and especially a very unusual design to see.

Game itself worth playing to see a non-conformist concept "game art" with no expectations from the content or quality. Playing it is already a puzzle ;)

Even poorer man's Botanicula.

Meh rating, not a hard no but not a yes either. The problem I have with the sequel is that the issues from the first game are still here and ready to annoy you along the way. Transition-arrows leading from one screen to another again disappear, trying to open the inventory while solving a puzzle can and *will* exit the puzzle, etc. On top of that, the last (and probably the most annoying) puzzle is recycled from the first game. I haven't encountered the infamous bug others mentioned but that was probably just my luck. The map is still there and still pretty much useless. I enjoyed some of the puzzles, the number kriss-kross was fun to do, but overall the game was nothing special. If you did enjoy the first one, leave it at that, and if you didn't you won't get luckier with this one.