Heaven's Vault

This game definitely isn't for everyone, but I personally really enjoyed it. It has an engaging story with interesting writing and non-linear progression that makes you feel like you're an archaeologist piecing together the story of an ancient civilisation. While it is true that the movement and navigation can be annoying, you get used to it after a while. One other thing worth noting is that this game has a LOT of reading , so if that's not your cup of tea then maybe skip out on this one. I'd also say that multiple playthroughs are intended, so if you don't understand the story the first time around, try again. There's genuinely more replayability than you'd expect. TL;DR: Play if you're patient and don't mind reading.

I'm early in this game (4.5h) so take this review with that caveat. This is a very intellectually demanding game, at least for me, with little experience in translating hieroglyphs. It also has it's moments as a very beautiful game artistically. It is what it is (mostly 2d art moving around a 3d environment) While it is a little wonky to have to move so slowly when on a world, i enjoy the "sailing" to get between map destinations. it gives me a thrill every once in a while, a bit rollercoaster-y. If I need to update this later, upon completion, I will, but I highly recommend this game for a chill but thought-provoking time. Wanted to add that you can ask some of the dialogue questions even after exiting a conversation, though it's reserved for following up on only the last topic in the conversation, and not always going to produce a response, it seems. (There's a button for making another question and one for making a statement that occasionally light up just out of conversations.) I saw a review that mentioned that, so wanted to help anybody frustrated by the limited conversation options.

Action, adventure, lightning fast reflex shooting? No. None of this. This is a walking simulator/point and click adventure-lite that focuses heavily on story telling and narrative. The graphics are pretty, the music is really nice, and the puzzling is very satisfying, as long as you're into solving unknown languages. This is basically a sci-fi archaeology game and if that's your jam. Buy this. If your looking for deep "VIDEO GAME" gameplay. Don't go here. The most action you'll have is piloting a ship on a rail that you can often skip.

The story and worldbuilding is really interesting but there is so much jank in the gameplay. Frequently I had to fight the camera to get a specific angle to click on a point of interest, or had to walk around a tiny rock in the floor. Not to mention only being able to give 2 items to the other characters for more language/confirmation. If I'm walking around with a dozen pieces of language and I have to leave the university and come back 6 times to validate them all, that's just stupid. Anywho, language puzzles are really fun.

A remarkable game of mystery and discovery. If you liked Outer Wilds you will love this!

BR// Este "jogo" foi estranho. Eu esperava algo tipo um jogo de investigação e tradução de línguas antigas, tipo um Golden Idol ou Obra Dinn, mas com o progresso atrelado às traduções que você fizesse das línguas encontradas em sítios arqueológicos e artefatos. Ou seja, traduzir algo errado afetaria seu progresso, e ter muitas pistas/artefatos mudaria seu conhecimento da língua e a forma como você a traduz. Esse jogo seria interessante. Por outro lado, essa história não chega nem perto disso. As descobertas arqueológicas e o minijogo de tradução são uma parte secundária do jogo, que é narrado basicamente como um livro. Mesmo que você traduza algo errado ou não encontre todas as pistas, você pode simplesmente "virar a página" e seguir para o próximo ponto da história. A menos que você queira entender 100% do contexto do jogo, ai você vai querer encontrar e traduzir todas as palavras, frases e tudo mais. Fiquei desapontado, principalmente porque a história não é lá essas coisas e, que nem Mass Effect 3, a última escolha é a única que importa. Mas eu não me importei com as consequências dessa escolha, então escolhi uma das 3 opções e o jogo terminou logo em seguida. Sem clímax, sem nenhuma sensação especial. O jogo mostra os créditos e me dá a conquista de "Concluir a História". Bem meia bomba mesmo. O jogo tem o modo História+, que é um NG+, mas a história não me cativou a ponto de me fazer querer completá-la 100%. EN// This one was weird. So I came in expecting some type of ancient language translation investigation game, some sort of Golden Idol or Obra Dinn, but your progress would be attached to the translations you made of the language that you find in these archeological sites and artifacs, meaning badly translating something impacts your progress and having lots of clues/artifacts changes your knowledge of the language and the way you translate it. That would be super fun to play and actually interesting. This story on the other hand, is not even close to that. Archeological finds and the translation mini game is the side part of the game, that is told basically as a book would. Even if you translate something wrong or if you dont find all clues, you can just "turn the page" and go to the next story beat. Unless you want to get 100% full context of the game's lore, than you gonna want to find and translate all words and phrases and everything else. I was disapointed, specially because the story is not all that and in a Mass Effect 3 way the last choice is the only one that matters, but I could not care about the consequences of said choice, so I chose one of then and the game just ended shortly after that. No climax or me feeling anything special. The game just goes to credits and gives me the Complete Story achievement. A bummer. It does have Story+ mode, which is a NG+, but the story did not make me care about itself to also make me want to 100% it.

The game is interesting, I'll give it that. The worldbuilding is thorough, and the language is enticing. However, the pacing of the game is slower than a snail, combining walking simulators with no sprint ability, dialogue at a set pace (during which you cannot realize any actions), and the visuals, while interesting, aren't enough to make up for the slow pace.