Tangle Tower

I have a lot of thoughts about this game. My positive thoughts are largely spoiler free, whereas my negative ones are very spoiler-y, so heads up for that in this review. I'll mark the spoiler section accordingly. Spoiler free section: Over all, I really loved the game! Especially it's artistic execution. The music, the backgrounds, the character designs, the animations, all of it is beautifully detailed and stylized, and it's clear there was a lot of thought put into every aspect of every possible detail. As a character driven story, every part of the game is wonderfully personalized to each suspect, most of which are written very well and in very distinct styles. The voice acting is especially on point; I don't think there was a single poorly delivered line in the whole game, and the VA's did amazing embodying their respective characters! Every element seamlessly builds upon the other to add depth to the characters, and it's absolutely FANTASTIC. The gameplay is really fun as well, with a wide variety of puzzles that are challenging and satisfying to solve, and little segments like questioning suspects and figuring out Sally and Grimoires thoughts that make you feel super involved in the mystery. The dynamic between Sally and Grimoire was also very well done, and fun and charming, and I love them. I love Secret of the Swamp, but their back and forth brings a lot to this game that it's predecessor simply can't match. All of these things are awesome, and were executed EXTREMELY well. Unfortunately, this game is not without some (in my opinion) MASSIVE flaws. Mainly, the ending. I'll get into more detail in the spoiler section, but in my general opinion, it felt rushed, exposition heavy, and recontextualized the rest of the story in a way that clashed with its own themes and leaned too heavily in calling back to the previous title. And, despite all the amazing qualities of this game, (including it's prior writing which was fast, clever, and humorous), it really, REALLY drags it down for me. To the point I would recommend not playing the final few chapters of the game and deciding your own ending. That's simply my opinion though; make of it what you will. TLDR: Game is 90% a really REALLY good, beautifully crafted and funnily written puzzle game, then drops the ball so hard at the end that it retroactively poisons its own story and ruins everything forever. You should still buy it though because it's mostly really good and I think it's important to support this studio to make better stuff. !! SPOILERS START HERE !! [Will spoil the killer, ending, etc!] I REALLY dislike how Tangle Tower ended. Most of it has to do with the killer, and the nature of the mystery itself. The whole game felt to me like it was building to a family tragedy, the natural conclusion of years of isolation and increasingly distant and / or toxic relationships. By the time I got to the harp statue puzzle, my working theory was that Fifi had killed Freya because she couldn't handle the thought of her leaving the tower, and felt betrayed. I knew there was also some secret plot with a golden beetle behind the scenes, but I thought it would be largely irrelevant--a red herring, and a fun callback to the previous game. I was wrong; instead, in the last half hour or so of the game, Grimoire and Sally discover a secret lab and a secret room, and find out all at once that the fellows and pointers ancestors had some dark history and that actually Penelope was secretly evil the whole time and she only killed Freya out of necessity for her evil plots. In my opinion this is dumb. And also bad. Now its not to say that this ending didn't have ANY build up. There were clearly hints to the secret dark history and golden beetle subterfuge. But up until the final reveal, where Penelope exposited her motives for maybe 10 straight minutes, I genuinely thought most of them were just cute references to Secret of the Swamp. And I had ZERO clue that Penelope was the killer until she revealed herself, which feels wrong in a murder mystery game where the entire POINT is KNOW who the murderer is by the end based on clues you've gathered throughout. On the one hand, I dislike this ending because of how poorly it fits with the rest of the game thematically. This very sad family death rife with interpersonal drama was suddenly all about the family's dark past as a secret evil monster hunting group. A group that only involved members of the family that weren't even at the tower anymore, and that most of the people at the tower either didn't know, talk, or care about (it played a part in Secret of the swamp too, but it worked better in that game because it wasn't fighting against themes of bad family relationships. Most of those suspects didn't even know each other). It feels extremely tonally dissonant. On the other hand, I REALLY dislike this ending because of Penny's characterization. I feel it's even worse than the thematic issues. While I would still have issues with the 'secret evil history that nobody cares about' thing, I wouldn't care as much if Penelope just...acted like herself. If they found a way to squeeze the ditzy bird-lover into the role of ancestor obsessed murderer instead of having her whip off her cloak and suddenly be a completely different person. One could argue that it's not out of character--she is simply acting like Hawkshaw, her alter ego. I'll concede this may be true, but it doesn't change how dissatisfying the change up is. Hawkshaw, the character you initially assume is the least connected to the family, is the WORST character to have committed the murder, because that lack of connection has no emotional weight. The family doesn't have to grapple with how their own toxic relationships with one another, and their self-imposed isolation, could have pushed one of them to murder. It's just 'oh, some lady came to the tower and killed Freya for a beetle,' and that's it. While Penny has more of a connection to the tower than Hawkshaw, her transition into Hawkshaw's clinical and uncaring personality and the reveal that most of what she said as Penny was a lie, makes it feel like she really IS just a stranger who came for the beetle and nothing else. Even as Penny, she's so disconnected from everything, there is simply no impact to her being revealed as the murderer--she travels a lot and doesn't care about most people in the tower, she mentions liking Freya but moves on immediately, she's even distant with her own fiancée (her relationship with Fitz gets less build up than the THEORETICAL relationship he has with POPPY). And her explanations for why she did the things she did make little sense with the context of her demeanor as Penny Pointer. Seriously, how did she go from THAT to Hawkshaw? If she ever was like that in the first place. And if she wasn't, why didn't anyone else in the family mention her switch up? It really truly feels to me like the writers just wanted to pick the least likely character to be the murderer, then contrive her a motive in order to have a secret twist villain that nobody could ever guess :/ SPOILER TLDR: That ending sucked massive tangle tower and it's mostly 'suddenly evil' Penelope's fault. The game is still really good up to that part though so you should still buy it if you haven't already to support the studio in making better games. I really hope Mermaid Mask has a better ending than this.

J'ai adoré ce jeux !!

Keyifli, kısa bir oyun. Karakterleri sevdim, konuşmalar güzel yazılmıştı. Hikayeyi de ilgi çekici buldum. Düşük beklentiyle güzel vakit geçirebilirsiniz.

I loved this game! Some of the puzzles took a bit of persistence but it was always super rewarding in the end!

delightful game!!! i bought it in a bundle and completed everything in 2 days, the voice acting is incredible all around. what most appealed to me was the banter between sally and grimoire, i find that many games with two protagonists tend to make them just copies of eachother but it was a very nice surprise that although being detective partners, sally and grimoire were quite different from eachother while still being on the same wavelength! the characters and their stories were fun and i liked drawing my own conclusions about them, the ending..... left a bit to be desired if im honest. The clues were there from the start but the execution left me a bit meh. Mermaid Mask, the sequel, had a much satisfactory ending so it was good to see them learning. overall, 9/10!!

Muy divertido, de mecanicas simples y excelente estilo. Las actuaciones de las voces es lo mejor que tiene.

Genuinely great adventure/detective game. Beautiful art and animations, stellar voice acting, engaging story and characters. I think the whole series is simple enough to pick up even for the younger players, but has enough depth for all ages. It sucseeds in making you feel like a detective better than most detective games.