Return of the Obra Dinn Review
Some games have so many mechanics stuffed into them that I need to ignore most of them to get any real enjoyment out of them (looking at you, enormous open-world action RPGs!). Other games have a couple key mechanics that start fun but quickly get tiresome.
Then there are games with basically one mechanic that the use so well you don’t end up needing any more.
Enter Return of the Obra Dinn.
You play the role that every child dreams of: inspector for the East India Trading Company. Your goal is simple: figure out how much money your company owes after a shipment gone wrong. Can you even imagine the thrills?!
Bizarrely, though, there are thrills. Because “shipment gone wrong” is a nearly superlative understatement. And your investigation takes the form of a magic pocket watch: the Memento Mori. Point the watch at the dead body, and it will show you the moment that the victim died. And if there are other bodies in that memory (usually there are), point the watch again to see their deaths.
That one watch, and a mostly empty book, are all you have to help solve the mystery of the Obra Dinn. You have a ship’s roster and a few simple illustrations to guide you as you figure out what happened to each of the 60 crew and passengers on one of the most horrifying boat journeys imaginable.
My wife and I played this game together on the couch, taking turns with the controller as we jumped from memory to memory, finding clues and chasing hunches to fill out the details of the story. Every time you discover three “fates” correctly, you get a little update in your book, and you have to high five the nearest person (it’s mandatory) because you feel like Sherlock Holmes without the cocaine (at least the way we played it).
It truly is a delight peeling the mysteries away and putting pieces together, particularly if you can play as a team with someone you care about. Much like the great AMC show The Terror, this journey starts off relatively straightforward before taking a sharp turn into the strange.
A couple little details rain on this game’s parade. The book interface can be somewhat cumbersome, which adds unintended challenges to solving the mystery (I know exactly what page I’m thinking of, so why am I flipping through so many pages to get there!). And, if I’m honest, a couple of the clues are so devious that guessing through process of elimination feels like the only viable solution.
Overall, though, the game is a delight if you enjoy mysteries or puzzles of any kind. 4.1 mysterious shells out of 5.