This game is a trap. It lures you in by presenting a good first level and the general feel of a Myst-like adventure, only to drop all the facade in the next levels. This game's puzzles can be divided in two categories: extremely convoluted busywork that wastes your time or "figure what the ♥♥♥♥ the developer wants from you". Sometimes both. The latter are the ones that trigger me the most. I still have no idea how the bridge puzzle in level 2 works and the gear puzzle in level 4 is honestly guesswork. The level 2 gate puzzle is also guilty here: yes, there's a pattern for the gate itself, BUT before that you need to literally guess the segments on smaller circles. What broke me though was the windmill puzzle in level 6. I'm sorry, but checking EVERY SINGLE COMBINATION that rotates the fan that it also rotates the other 4 fans correctly is just... why? At the same time, the gate puzzle in level 4 looks cryptic, but turns out to be just a boring guesswork too. And ball puzzle takes twice the amount of time it should due to this game's controls. Also the way they ask you to repeat the colored totem pole puzzle in level 2 just screams "padding". The hints also suck, mostly stating obvious things.
Fun thing is that odd levels don't have that problem, mostly because they only have like a single long and tedious puzzle. Although now that they patched level 3 it may become worse.
Speaking of patches, they need to iron out technical stuff. None of the options to decrease graphics quality seems to work.

Foreword:

While I didn't recommend it at first I now completed a playthrough on "hard" difficulty. There were a few puzzles actually made me think for more than an hour. Pressing buttons at random isn't my playstyle so I think first and bring my thoughts to paper. Once written down I try to translate my notes into actions.
Succeeding that way is the best achievement for me and is what I want when i play. I really like the design choice as it reminds me of some puzzle games I've already played.
The world looks really beautiful. Futuristic, old-school, with a lot of copper elements and other steam punk like materials.



**My advice:**

Start on "hard", don't pay to much attention to dialogues as they sometimes reveal the solutions. As I've played various puzzle games before no spoilers were given to me at least.



**Issues**

I sadly still have several issues limiting the joy.

1.) Voice dialogues explain more or less how to solve the puzzles. Sorry, but that is a big no-go unless you are already familiar with puzzles.

2.) During dialogues movement speed is reduced unless you skip them.

3.) Alphawalls and hitboxes are strange as I often get stuck while I should easily fit unless my character is about 2m wide.

4.) It feels as if there are few puzzles in relation to the size of the environment. However some levels with only one puzzle have it spread across the associated map.

5.) The dialogues feel robotic like simply read without the voice actor being in the role and are annoying as hell if not turned off.

6.) At least one puzzle [4-lane circle shifting] is already difficult to overview as the textures blend together to some degree. I'm actually writing this with that puzzle open in the background and myself being frustrated of the terrible overview and a few other issues.

7.) During several actions like moving in an elevator or standing on/leaving a moving platform I can't move. There can also be only one action be performed at a time. Pulling a lever for instance will make the player wait for whatever action is bound to it is done. I don't see any reason for that. There is nothing to skip. It's just a nuisance to me as many of these actions are quiet slow.

8.) The NPC feel out of place. NPC like these don't belong in puzzle game in my opinion as the atmosphere is different than being all alone in a place filled puzzles to solve.

9.) The controls are one more big issue. There is an interaction mode which needs to be entered. As soon as you move in any direction [camera movement not included] the mode is turned off again. I had several situations where I couldn't enter interact due to the camera deadzone [there is a limit to how far you can look down] which prevented me many times from interaction with a low placed object as I had to reposition myself turning off the interaction mode.

10.) It also appears that the first three levels weren't counted as complete. Possible reason would be having the first chapter done in the demo. None of the 6 achievements [completing and completing without hints] were accounted. At the same time I have not even the desire to replay the levels. Reason for that are once again the issues listed.



**Verdict [72/100 points]:**

For the price of less than 20$ with a rather small developer team the experience was forth the money. I still see a greater amount of unused potential. I for myself had fun with most puzzles to an extend where I had "Victories" without any hint [the dialogues weren't spoilers in my case]. Just don't start off with the "regular" difficulty as puzzles are getting toned down/altered, which most likely will spoil the "hard" difficulty.


**Proposals:**
-an option for not start any dialogue
-rework Alphawalls and Hitboxes
-being able to move while having interaction mode on
-reduced deadzone for the downward camera movement
-visually rework the first puzzle of the fifth chapter to easier see the boundries of the plattforms and fences [different colors for instance for each circle]

Nemezis: Mysterious Journey III is a mind blowing game that offers you a classic puzzle experience with sharp contemporary visuals,
From brain teasing to an almost cracking skull where you can almost hear the neurons communicating,
some of the puzzles really made me think and wonder, 'how the hell am i going to solve this?'
In the end when you complete a puzzle everything seems so logical and simple, until you are confronted with the next puzzle ;)

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etpB4qa4Ewo

Graphically, the game is also very nicely laid out, the environments differ very clearly from chapter to chapter and each style is neatly finished for all that pleases the eye.
You will also be able to look out in the environments for extra hidden photos that you can collect.

The game also has good support for playing at ultra-wide resolutions.
This is an example at 3840*1080: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fIZQgZs7w

My review for this game is told relatively quickly:
You solve certain puzzles in different levels as either Amia or Bogard. Additionally, there are (hidden) collectibles like photos and computer terminals that reveal short info snippets of various kinds.

All well and good, and I'm also very enthusiastic about the graphics and soundscape in places. But it seems that my oh-so-great IQ of 500, oh no, 50 is not even close to being enough to solve any puzzles without Youtube videos. Brainstormed for almost 7 hours (in vain) and I could only master a few puzzles without solutions. Really too bad and not very motivating; which is why I won't play any further.

For all other real (hardcore) puzzle solvers out there, I can still recommend this game.

Rating:
70/100

I know you are here looking for a clever Myst-like kind of game... keep looking, because this is random nonsenses. Go play Quern or The Witness. Trust me, don't buy this.

I expected interesting story and logical puzzles, but the story is boring and the puzzles are just frustrating.
The world should be a mistery but it's illogical as well as characters I meet and their stories out of mind.
Legendary authors like Żołna and Cwalina convinced me the game will be cool but so far I feel just dissapointed :(

There is no fun in this game... :(

I am a huge Detalion fan, especially Schizm 1 holds a special place in my heart as one of my all time favourite puzzle adventure games. Detalion games are famous for their devilishly difficult puzzles and imaginative world-design, and Detalion had a good run of games between 1999-2005. Since their last game Sentinel was released more than 15 years ago, I gave up any hope of expecting more activity from them. That is why the announcement of Nemezis (a.k.a. Schizm 3) took me with a complete surprise and since then I have been eagerly waiting for its release. After the game was released I took two days off to clear it (took me two sessions and over 8 hours without any hints) and started to write this review to share my excitement with you. The wait was worth it! This is an amazing comeback and a game worthy of the Schizm franchise.

Because of the copyright issues, Detalion couldn’t use any stories and characters from the previous games, but the puzzle style and look of the game is completely in line with previous Schizm entries. We play the game alternating between two siblings, Borgad and Amia, who teleport to the far planet of Regilus for vacation. However, something goes wrong during the teleportation and the brother-sister duo gets separated.Throughout the rest of the story they try to get back together, while discovering that Regilus is not what it seems.

Positive:

- I liked that the story keeps the theme of “dual characters” from the previous games. In Schizm 1 you also played two different protagonists who were separated from each other. In Schizm 2 you played a single character, who disguised himself as two separate people. This narrative device creates a nice motivation for driving the story of the game. Overall, I liked the story and characters of Schizm 3.

- Puzzles are amazing. If you are a puzzle adventure fan like me, then you know how rare it is to find games with truly difficult logic puzzles. Somehow the genre of mind-bending Myst-like games got less popular throughout the years, puzzle adventure games nowadays focus more on visuals and usually have average or above-average puzzles at best. This is definitely not the case with Nemezis. Following the style of previous Detalion classics, Nemezis brings forth many challenges that require very careful deduction, inference and calculation. I was literally crying with joy in the second half of the game, where many of the difficult puzzles await you. It is amazing that most of the puzzles look impossible to solve at first look, but with sheer dedication you can overcome every one of them and obtain a level of satisfaction that you can’t easily get from other games. The level of brilliance and depth doesn’t quite reach the levels of Schizm 1, but I can say that it is mostly on par with Schizm 2. I strongly recommend that you play the game on Hard so that you can enjoy solving the puzzles without any hints.

- Graphics and sound design is excellent. Although I still miss the pre-rendered graphics of Reah and Schizm 1, I can also appreciate how far real-time 3D graphics has come from the days of Schizm 2 and Sentinel. Textures look great and architectural design is very intriguing. I also liked the addition of animals and NPCs to the game, which makes the world feel more alive.

Negative:

- The game desperately needs a run button. Default walking speed is way too slow for the larger environments in the latter parts of the game.

- I am surprised that you can’t switch between characters or there aren’t any puzzles that require you to coordinate both characters. It feels like there is some wasted potential there.

- Although the length of the game was fine, after such a long break I was kind of expecting a larger game of epic proportions. I simply couldn’t get enough of the final acts of the game.

- One game mechanic that can be improved is how balls, levers etc. are changing positions. Whenever a lever/ball can slide into two different positions, clicking on it only moves it in one direction and you need to go to the limits of that position and then reverse it to go into other direction (this is really difficult to put it into words, but you will get it if you played the game). This really slows down getting around some of the puzzles, improving the controllability would make the gameplay much smoother.

Nemezis (or Schizm 3 as I would like to call it) is a must-have if you enjoy difficult Myst-like games. Do not be discouraged by the negative reviews that complain about the puzzle design, all of the puzzles are completely logical, it just takes time and experimentation to understand the underlying logic. I think many people want to quickly understand the objective of a puzzle and then spend the most of their time solving it. In Schizm (and other Detalion games) at least 50% of your time is spent on understanding the objective of the puzzle, which is the most fun part! If this sounds like your type of game you will definitely enjoy Nemezis.

Rating: 9/10

The puzzles are beyond any logic! It should about solving not guessing !

A very difficult game to evaluate, especially considering the peculiarities of the whole puzzle genre, once exalted by the legendary game Myst. It should be said right away that the game was beaten on hardcore difficulty mode (without prompts and with complicated puzzles), so it is quite possible that some things that I strongly disliked on normal difficulty are perceived quite adequately. As the successor to the popular Schizm series, the game quite rightly knows what it will be played for. Puzzles. A large number of puzzles. And this is in abundance here, we will return to their detailed analysis a little later, for now, let's just say that almost everyone will have to make a huge amount of effort to solve, sometimes justified, but sometimes not so much.

Fans of past games can be immediately reassured - this game has absorbed everything for which Schizm loved and what it was disliked for. Large open spaces, very bright and detailed graphics, a serious scale and complexity of puzzles, a duet of main characters, still accompany the player in the world of the game. But the solution of some riddles was transferred here solely by brute force, and not by building logical chains, in places unjustified backtracking, serious questions about the design of some riddles. Before the Cave (Chapter 4), the game feels very smooth, the difficulty fluctuates within moderate limits, but starting from the very first cave riddle questions arise, the main one of which is: "how could you reach the correct solution on your own?" The meaning of the fan puzzle is still not clear, it also applies to the elevator after the bridge, some points obviously require more intelligible hints of a solution. Yes, most of the puzzles remain at a good level, but these constantly troubling difficulties knock off that great mood, set from the start.

Even though my mood during the game fluctuated from positive to negative and back, but I will still focus on a neutral assessment. Not so many similar games have been released recently, especially those made with such diligence and at such a good technical level, albeit with certain flaws in the moments. It's definitely worth trying, but prepare yourself for serious difficulties in advance

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2560065389

Here's The Thing:
High-IQ twins, Amia and Bogard vacation to the mysterious planet Regilus. Accessible only and provided by the Fort & Company Teleportation Agency. They are quickly separated due to a technical difficulty and instead have to partake in bizarre puzzles seemingly orchestrated by an unhelpful mastermind.

Determined to play along for the sake of reuniting with their other half and resting their feet- the pair, who are also part of a society of outstanding intellect also have a reputation to uphold~



I went and cheated my way through with the walkthrough graciously provided by the dev because I reckon they pretty much anticipated there’d be players like me who just couldn’t handle the challenge. I referred to probably 5 solutions out of the 14 puzzles, and that’s basically the ones that required me to backtrack a lot and there were a bunch of combinations to try, unruly so.

And frankly it didn’t ruin the experience one bit. In fact, I’m glad I did, because even knowing the “answers” failed to yield a connection or “eureka” moment for me. Not saying there aren’t any logical threads, but after having beat the game on normal- I pity those who had to struggle so much and yet got mediocre returns… Much less on hard mode, with more complex variants. But more on that in the cons~



:) ONE WITH NATURE
Top marks go to the design behind Regilus and outlying areas. I can absolutely see why people fall for this game’s trickery. It’s absolutely breathtaking- the species of animals and plants are so pulling and colorful. Like they’re actually inhabitants of that ecosystem and you’re the foreign one that it seems too good to be true. And equally handsome are the NPCs, their mouths… because of the impeccable lip sync.


:) CALL OF THE WILD
Though Paweł Górniak’s score cannot help solve the obstacles, and will probably get overlooked… But it’s what I would call mesmerizing and has the resounding quality of awakening your inner peace. The main theme alone gave me shudders and invoking of a spiritual, soul-searching quest. I loved the way brass instruments were used conspicuously and just suits the almost philosophical journey.


:) PLOT
The story is like if Bioshock Infinite and Prometheus/Alien Covenant had a drink that crossed boundaries and *poof* NMZ was born nine months later! The NPCs’ cryptic speech and out-of-place, out-of-touch behavior reminiscent of the Lutece twins from the former. To a deuteragonist that’s almost robotic and lacking of empathy, but driven with a singular goal. Kinda like Ash or David from the latter…

Even the whole scientific pursuit, for the greater good and visionaries not being appreciated during their time hit the mark very well!! I was invested from the start. Though filled with amateurish performances, it was a nice change of pace and just right at home in this strange, accursed planet.


:) PUZZLES
Gameplay wise, it’s simple… to explain but harder to overcome. There are 7 levels; each with two puzzles! They’re connected together, some intuitive and others need more thought on your part! My favorite were the more hands-on and reasonable ones. Such as the refracting of light and finding a trajectory to another end, the moving of steel balls to their pressure plates and even general discerning of patterns staple to the puzzle genre!!

Of course, you can always take a breather and just loiter to play tourist! There are also hidden energy sources that when touched reveal pictures of a once hopeful excursion that gradually have darker meanings surface. And laptops detailing logs and excerpts from an unknown third party.




:( PUZZLE DESIGN
Or should I say, hint system… That is- if you played on the normal difficulty since hints are absent on “hard”. Usually these aren’t very beneficial either, revealing things I already know from fiddling and not say give the answers straightaway. Many of the puzzles being so intricate that I typically had to go the lengths of randomly guessing then genuinely shocked it worked!

Sometimes you won’t even know if you’re right- since the guide dude inconsistently tells you “attaboy”, “you’re onto something” with the easier ones and flat out silence on the tougher ones. It doesn’t help that devs stroke their ego in each level by praising the genius of the “architects' puzzles" at every avenue they get. I know English was used, but every time I get stuck, the guide tells me- even repeats lines I simply can't make heads or tails of!!
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2560068954


:( MOBILITY
An issue I faced regularly was with regards to movement which is already kind of slow, but it’s also like your body is constantly changing size. Gaps that I should be able to fit through or go over somehow bar me… then I get stuck.

And instead of being able to jump/squat pass obstacles like a railing, I have to take the long way each time because the solutions often have a link between them. I kid you not, once, I thought I hit an invisible wall only to find a turtle was obstructing me!!

:( WRITING
Unlike the puzzles, the story was engaging; but it too didn't flee without a scratch! Firstly, the laptops you find had copy-paste traces from the monologue you hear in the beginning. Secondly, I still don’t understand the motivation behind this “teleportation blunder” that’s just an excuse for a puzzle game. Lastly, the two main actors have great delivery sometimes but other times sound disinterested like rough cuts from their practice were used without their consent.


x Puzzles glitching out mid-solving; the required mechanisms for the rainbow switches just stopped working [2nd level].
x Press "H" for hints but there's nothing. NOTHING!!!


~ There should be an option to skip puzzles while voiding achievements of course!
~ No option to reset / restart puzzles unless you manually save at the start of the level and overwrite a separate file.
~ During the "interaction mode" why not have the camera become free roam and even ascent higher like a bird's eye view; would help with Level 5's rotating rings puzzle
~ A crouch button would have been a lifesaver because there’s a certain threshold where the head just stops rotating or bending. And I get stuck as the mechanisms lock me in place!
~ "Guide" (the character, not guide the online help) is near useless. Also, instead of voice dialogue for "dropping clues"; better yet just put them in the form of text or notes so that players can choose to refer or likewise ignore!
~ Many NPC conversations end abruptly and you’re just spacing out…


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2560071166

Last Words?
NMZ’s for hardcore puzzle fans. Toss “adventure” in, it becomes remarkably sensuous as a prime vacay spot! Sadly, its ambition ends up transient… as some conundrums just weren’t meant to be solved~

If you like to take an incessant amount of time to figure out some truly “revolutionary” puzzles, then go for it! If you like the Schizm game titles, by which NMZ was known as previously with similarly designed challenges. Then it’s still for you, congratulations!! But if your patience is low and you don’t have time for unrewarding puzzles- unless you consider the act of bypassing the puzzle as the reward itself, then what do you know… *ding-ding-ding* NMZ’s is yours~