Girl Genius: Adventures In Castle Heterodyne Reviews

Combat's fairly clunky, but I liked the puzzles and the world.

I'm not at all familiar with the source material this game is based on, never even heard of it. I just bought it on a whim bc the trailer was giving me traditional 3D Zelda vibes, and it has not disappointed one bit. I am familiar with the dev team Rain Games tho, bc I have Teslagrad and World to the West on my Switch, both great games with some great puzzles. I played about 4hrs of this game when I first bought it and then fell into an Elden Ring hole for like 200+ hrs, and I gotta say, this game made it so easy to pick up where I left off after having forgotten literally everything. Gameplay mechanics, characters I've met, enemies I've encountered, lore and the story so far was all conveniently easy to access within the inventory menu and I was all caught up in less than 10min. That's major bc I've literally had to restart some games that I jumped back into months later feeling completely lost and dumbfounded. Everything about this game just feels so well done, from the art and comic book aesthetic to the fonts and UI and menus, nothing feels cheap or amateurish, like one might expect from smaller indie devs. The story has been good too, despite me not knowing anything about the comics. The gameplay is really what does it for me tho. Again, huge Zelda fan, and while I like BOTW and TOTK, I miss the OoT thru SS era of Zelda, and I like to look for games that take heavy inspiration from those games. The way you expand your arsenal of gadgets thru progression is very reminiscent, and so far I've acquired a hookshot and a bomb, as well as this little pocket watch critter with a cute running animation that I can use to solve puzzles, kinda like the beetle in Skyward Sword but better, and he also gets upgraded abilities thru progression. Also, lots of hidden things to collect if you so choose. It's basically a 3D Zelda game if Link was a mad scientist girl exploring a massively huge mansion full of environmental puzzles and whatnot. The puzzles are challenging enough but won't break your brain. An easy recommend if you're a fan of old school Zelda games or Girl Genius. If you're a fan of both, even better!

If you're a fan of the comic, it's a great (if buggy) puzzle platformer that drops you right into one of the most memorable stories in the series. The puzzles are challenging, while the combat isn't too difficult. Some portions can be maddeningly frustrating; don't get me started on the annoying "propeller clank flight" sequences. However, if you can get through those, it can be fun waste of a few hours. While the game is short, the collectables were fun to find and help flesh out the copious world-building of the comic. If you're NOT a fan of the comic, there's a LOT of lore that will be completely lost on you. You can "purchase" in-game copies of some of the prose novels spawned by the comic, but by the time you unlock those, you might be lost. While funny and charming when you know the history and background of the characters, you might struggle to keep track of who's who if you don't have that bedrock to build on. I played this first on the Nintendo Switch, then the Steam Deck. Both versions were playable but buggy. Annoyingly, the game fatally crashed on the Switch when I was close to 90% done with the story, corrupting and "losing" my save game and forcing me to start over. After a considerable "break", I bought it again on the Steam Deck, hoping that version would be more stable (and to funnel more dollars to the Foglios). Maybe the bugs were worked out in a later update or the Steam Deck is a more capable handheld, but it seemed to run better there. I didn't encounter any game-breaking bugs, but I did get "stuck" a time or two, forcing me to reload a prior save. In other words, SAVE OFTEN.

Even as a turbofan of the webcomic it's based on, I hesitate to recommend this one. The chapter from the comic the game covers from loses a lot in the translation. As an action-adventure with puzzles, it's "okay, not great". For me this one was just over 8 hours to beat on medium difficulty. Maybe wait for a discount.