Goetia

Players take on the role of a wondering spirit of a woman who’s been brought back to her home and doesn’t remember what exactly happened. Her home and the town she grew up in have become nothing more than hollow husks of what they once were. Your task is to explore the world and to find the answer to what has happened. In order to do so, you must solve a variation of puzzles, read vital documents and make contact with some rather unusual inhabitants.

The world of Goetia is beautifully presented with some wonderful aesthetics, including an excellent soundtrack and great visual style. These elements combined bring forth an unsettling and creepy world that unnerves you as you traverse it. The world feels complex without giving you the impression of being complicated but interesting due to its many secrets and vast history.

Players who are patient will be treated to an interesting narrative structure, portrayed through finding letters, observing photographs and completing puzzles to reveal a rather dark tale filled with depth and gravitas. Goetia keeps its strong sense of mystery, never revealing too much and puts the player in the dark for more of an engaging factor right the way through. That said, the game does fail to bring a healthy dose of conflict or a truly satisfying end that is worth the lengthy journey.

The overall design of the puzzle mechanics rely heavily on investigation and exploration. You won’t be forced to finish all the puzzles and in fact many puzzles don’t force you to be stuck on them until you figure out the solution. The game is vastly open enough for you to go from one puzzle to another; being stuck on one means you can ignore it and move onto another and take the different path until you decide to come back to it. You are able to go through certain solid objects, such as doors, walls and floors, making some backtracking and exploration rather enjoyable. There is also a helpful mechanic that shows points of interest; even if they’re there for cosmetic value the game does get you to explore a great deal.

In regards to the above point, this does lead to one problem, the game can be too open and the focus on puzzles is regularly lost. You will have to explore and without a sense of navigation or structure, you can lose focus easily when stuck on a puzzle. Puzzles are very obscure and often enough have little ground for you to engage with.

Puzzles often resort to find a document, follow a trail of clues or move object from point A to point B. They’re particularly dull. Even a segment that requires you to enter a photo and teleport through other paintings and photos becomes a chore as it’s long winded, confusing and in the end resorts to a lame piano puzzle.

There is a neat mechanic that allows you to possess certain objects and allows you to move them freely, but this is heavily limited and just resorts to move an object to reveal a clue or scrap of paper for the answer. There is also a problem with needing certain powers to tackle puzzles later in the game and with the game world so open, it’s easy to lose track of this and become completely lost.

Goetia is a fascinating, puzzle-driven adventure game that has a strong foundation and some very interesting elements that make it very engaging. But with a shallow puzzle design and never raising the stakes, you’ll never find yourself truly gripped or admiring the surrealist and bleak tones that are presented rather fantastically. Overall, Goetia is a worthy title to check out if not for a bleak and interesting mystery filled with demons and ghosts, but don’t expect a reverting puzzle based experience.

+ Engaging narrative
+ Visually pleasant
+ Interesting open world nature in a puzzle game

- Majority of puzzles are shallow and dull
- The end result is not worth the prolonged journey

A steam key of Goetia was provided by Square Enix for the purpose of this review