評論

• gamedeal user

  Aug 9, 2023

  As much as I loved the puzzle-solving aspect of this game and the innate excitement of uncovering the past through piecing together fragments of an ancient language, the storyline of this game is not for me. You play as Aliya, whom pretty much everyone dislikes for some reason or other, so expect the characters in the game to have an attitude. At one point, Aliya mentions visiting a friend, and I personally thought, "Oh, nice, finally a friendly face." That didn't really happen. The friend wasn't exactly overjoyed to see Aliya. The gameplay is also a bit tedious. You can't sprint, and there's no way to rush through dialogue, so you're going to spend a lot of time walking around and having to sit through condescending dialogue. I tried to power through this game because I enjoyed the puzzle-solving aspect very much. There isn't another game that captures Heaven's Vault language-deciphering aspect, so I wanted to like this game very much. Alas, the writing and the story ultimately dissuaded me to the point of abandoning this game. 5/10, and that is only because of the language-deciphering. I wasn't thrilled about anything else.
• gamedeal user

  Apr 22, 2020

  Boy, I'm torn about this review. This game has a fascinating game universe, and it's your job to explore and investigate it. I was loving it! But here's the catch: there's a place that if you go there, the game is over, your investigation is over, all your questions are left unanswered, and all your projects are left unfinished. To make matters worse, the game's interface keeps pressuring you to go to this place, but it gives you no hint that it will cause the game to end. At that point, your only option is to start over. Personally, although I was having a lot of fun, I just don't want to re-explore all the things I already explored. I really wanted to finish exploring the nebula, and I'm frustrated that it took that option away from me. So my recommendation would be: play the game, but first use a walkthrough to make sure you don't accidentally go to this place.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 1, 2020

  An exploration game... that does its best to impede exploration and to frustrate the explorers. In other words, a perfect example of a game with a UI that is the polar opposite of what would suit its narrative. Someone put great efforts in world building, in constructing a consistent and visually pleasing language, in writing hours of meaningful dialogues, game-changing events, in drawing an intricate road map, etc. The integration of non-linear events into each other seemed particularly thorough to me. All that is quite impressive. Someone else decided that players should not be allowed to freely enjoy all that. Here are some of the worst offenders they used to that effect: - No manual saving. 1 slot only auto-save. On top of its intrinsic stupidity, this heresy always makes other flaws worse. - Timers: Some of the ancient sites can only be "explored" for a couple of minutes before you are forcibly removed. - One-shots: You can't revisit places. If you'd like to go back, if only to enjoy a scenery, well, screw you, plain and simple. - Other events forcibly remove you from sites. Extreme luck is required for a visit in optimal order. That spot you kept for a later click? You'll have to replay the entire game to satisfy your curiosity. - Timers: Disappearing texts. Keep your 4 extra eyes on each corner of the screen while looking at the scenery, otherwise you'll miss a lot. - Timers: Disappearing dialogue choices. That 21st century invention proving that invertebrates can write computer code. - QTE: You don't initiate talks, talks initiate you, and they are reflex-based. On top of that, options often appear right when you are clicking one. You'll regret not waiting 1 second longer. Of course, 1 second longer, an option can be gone, so good luck with your "choices." On top of that, different actions often use the same button at the same time, so good luck with your choices. - Unspecified dialogue choices. The game throws thousands of talks you can accept (if you notice them fast enough,) yet you have no idea what they'll be about, what you're going to say. All you see are "Reply" and "Remark" timed buttons. - No control over the camera. Half the time, which makes it feel even more arbitrary. That's not all, folks. Of my 37 hours of play time, I estimate that 5 were spent playing. The rest was just the game stalling. Boy do they have stalling features in this game! I'm not even sure that they are intentional: - Interactive spots are not available when people talk. Had to stand still for hours until dialogues ran out. Did I mention that I minimised text speed to be able to read? Didn't stop them from disappearing though; just piling up bad design choices. - Tons of repetitive, pointless filler text. Like when finding ruins along the rivers. You can't click to make them disappear so, again, either be patient or constantly juggle with the text-speed setting. - Repeated transition scenes. The game constantly takes away your control of the protagonist for no reason, when passing doors or climbing stairs or such. It doesn't accelerate things, she's still gonna crawl all the way; only if you didn't actually want to go there, just got too close to a trigger, you'll have to wait, twice, before being back where you wanted. It brings absolutely nothing but annoyance. - These same transition scenes are often padded with additional, verbose, repetitive, unskippable cutscenes. - The robot constantly interrupts you to offer to leave. Constantly. Exasperatingly so... ...Except when you do want to leave. The player cannot initiate the request. You saw that one coming by now; you get how things were designed, with either incompetence or malice. Conclusion: A very attractive setting is once again ruined by worthless UI design. Such a waste...
• gamedeal user

  Apr 17, 2019

  I have an Oxford degree in Archaeology and this game is my wet dream. It's in no way reflective of modern Archaeology, but modern Archaeology is boring as fuck. It's like early 20th century Archaeology meets Sci-fi. What more can you ask for?
• gamedeal user

  Apr 29, 2019

  It's a bit hard for me to write a negative review of this game because I loved 80 Days and Sorcery! by inkle. Maybe my expectations got spoiled by those games. TL;DR There were immersion issues for me, and this game has a "the world sucks" theme. Exploring ruins and the translation mechanic is nice, but its too slow to get to those parts. The environment is gorgeous. My main issue is the narrative. Aliya (the main character) has a fixed personality. This is a huge problem because the game also offers dialogue options reflecting that. In a regular book, I might read from the perspective of a single person. That's fine because I'm viewing the world through the lens of that person as if I'm simply an observer going along for the ride while the narrator dictates what happens. Or in other games, the perspective of the character serves as the background where I make no choices (e.g. cutscenes) and then I get to play the "game parts" of the game. But in a game where I make meaningful dialogue choices based on personality and world views, I am actively participating in that world and cannot simply be observing it. 80 Days pulled this off beautifully. Passepartout was more or less a blank canvas. I could be nice or mean to basically anyone I met. I could hold and express different views on technology, politics, and aesthetics. I could make choices that mostly fit my personality, views, and instincts so it felt like I was Passepartout and I was really in the world of 80 Days. The only way for a fixed personality to feel immersive is if that personality mostly coincides with my own. But as Aliya, I can't even choose to be nice to Six :(. A lot of the times when dialogue options came up, I wondered, "why bother?". Its [i]her[/i] story, not mine. She already has notions about how much she does or doesn't trust people which certainly don't match my gut reaction with these people. She already has views on how society ought to be. And clearly she hates robots. I'm not in control, yet the game keeps giving me "control". The game would have felt more immersive if those dialogue options (not the ones concerning where to go/explore or asking about what happened) were stripped away and chosen for me. Then I would be putting myself in her shoes and not trying to also wear my own and then tripping out of immersion all the time. Other players don't seem to have this immersion breaking problem though, so take this with a grain of salt. The voice actor sounds too nice for Aliya. Even ignoring tone, they sound like two different people based on what they say. The game would have been better without voice acting altogether. Also, the people you meet are all mean or deceiving, and the world Heaven's Vault builds is so bleak that it drained any wholesomeness from me. The closest thing to a positive experience is finding a beautiful garden, but turns out [spoiler] its a graveyard and [/spoiler] [spoiler] makes you speak to a suffering soul that is stuck there.[/spoiler] I guess it was going for a "the world sucks" theme while I was playing this game as an attempt at escapism. I'm usually fine with playing games with such a theme and without any positivity, but only when I'm in the mood and know what I'm getting into (e.g. Frostpunk makes it very obvious its not a happy game and I still enjoyed it because I knew that upfront and played when I was ready). While 80 Days did show how much the world can suck, it had some positive/hopeful notes as well. In Heaven's Vault, its just suffering, struggling, and slavery. Combined with a mean protagonist... its too much for me. Nothing in the game description even hints at this. I won't go over how slow gameplay is because I think other reviews have covered it enough. I wish there was a sprint key. My favourite part of the game was [spoiler]finding a book and translations dozens of lines without being interrupted by walking slowly between inscriptions.[/spoiler] To include a positive note (which the game lacks), I like the art style. The world is beautiful, and the 2-D and 3-D styles work together. I can also tell the developers put a lot of effort and details into the game to make such a non-linear story cohesive.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 2, 2019

  Heaven's vault is an interesting game which I'd recommend, but with reservations. The core gameplay idea is really solid, where you're an archeologist translating fragments of ancient text, with you trying to put together words from smaller concepts. Especially how as you go through the game (And especially the NG+), you're building longer and more complex words and phrases. However, I do hesistate to give this a full throated reccomendation because the UI actively fights you. In order to check your work, you either have to use a word like 4-5 times, or you can take it to Huang to check your translation. However, since you only get 3 dialogue items at a time, the list of items to check quickly becomes untenable after your 2nd planet. Combine that with the slow walking speed and traversal mechanic between each area, and it becomes an exercize in fustration
• gamedeal user

  Nov 14, 2021

  [h1]History of the world at your hands[/h1] [b]Intro[/b] Heaven's Vault is a unique game, I would call it an indie gem. It offers good story, captivating gameplay, beautiful world and great sound design combined with interesting and pleasing art-style. [b]Story[/b] The story in this game is awesome. You play as Aliya – an archeologist who's constantly is followed by her robot Six. At first you're not sure what is happening, it seems that you're just doing some detective work or something. Your task is to find a missing archeologist named Renba. You follow his steps, collecting clues and so on. But on your way you start to see the bigger picture. While uncovering more secrets by finding artifacts and translating glyphs you start to understand the world and you start caring about it, you want to know more and to know more you need to learn and explore. You'll learn a lot about the robots, about ancient gods and other people living on different moons, their struggles, their life. It all fits well into story and the complete picture is very appealing. [b]Gameplay[/b] Gameplay is quite unique. While from the first sight the game might seem to have similarities to visual novels, it also provides some interesting gameplay mechanics – exploration and translating glyphs. Fans of Outer Wilds might find this game interesting due to some simlarities. You explore the world while sailing your ship between moons. Each moon is different, some moons could be rich, some poor, some contain some valuable artifacts or glyphs. Artifacts usually have glyphs on them too. So speaking of translating them. You get glyphs and few suggested words and put those words under glyphs until you get a phrase which hopefully makes sense. This is the main mechanic of the game. Don't worry if it doesn't make sense, the whole point of the game is learning so your knowledge of glyphs will improve with time. It's also extremely important to explore every corner of the moon and find as much stuff as you can. You can either trade that stuff for something else which might be valuable for you as an archeologist or you could show those items to someone so they would tell you something about them you don't know. You'll also meet other people and interact with them to some extent. The game isn't linear. You can explore the world and go to places at very different times in different playthroughs. It's also very easy to miss something and you can miss a lot of stuff, like really lot of stuff. Don't worry, you're supposed to miss things. But this game has New Game+ and it's there for a reason. There's almost a guarantee you won't explore everything on your first playthrough and it'll need some time to understand things. So starting a New Game+ lets you restart your journey with all the knowledge from your first playthrough. And then comes the sailing. It's a very insignificant gameplay mechanic since you're basically sailing to a new destination. Sometimes you find shipwrecks on the way and Six searches it and usually picks something up and you start deciphering it. But the sailing sections of the game are extremely relaxing, mesmerizing, it feels like you could sail forever, you don't want it to end. [b]Technical side & Graphics[/b] Graphically the game looks very pretty, it has an interesting graphical design. The environments are all 3D and while pretty simple they still look very good. Every moon and every area is different and beautiful in its own way. Now characters are all 2D and with barely any animations. But that's clearly intentional and it makes the graphical design stand out among other games. One thing I didn't like are the dialogue subtitles. So for example someone is talking and subtitles are displayed on the right side of the screen but camera angle suddenly changes to another character and the same sentence appears on the other side which sometimes makes it harder to read because those subtitles disappear very quickly. Ultrawide support works fine and game runs well. It shouldn't be demanding for resources but since the environments are 3D I guess it could not be friendly to every potato. [b]Sound[/b] Sound is wonderful. The dialogues aren't voiced but narrator (Aliya) speaks sometimes, describing something usually when arriving at the new moon. The voice acting is great. Music is absolutely wonderful and doesn't get repetitive or boring at any point. The music is especially good while sailing and adds to the atmosphere a lot. It also creates that relaxing, chill atmosphere. It's a game designed to be played while comfortably sitting and maybe sipping some coffee. [b]Summary[/b] This is a wonderful exploration/adventure game. It's not linear and allows freedom, you have some choices to make and it offers a unique gameplay accompanied by wonderful art design and sound direction. Just buy it. [b]Pros[/b] [list] [*]Unique [*]Fun gameplay [*]Replayability [*]Beautiful art-style [*]Great sound design [/list] [b]Cons[/b] [list] [*]Subtitles are sometime hard to read [/list] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32930811-Kosmos%27s-Cosmic-reviews/?appid=704030][h1]Follow my curator page for more[/h1][/url] [url=https://www.twitch.tv/crazykosmikbunny] [b]My Twitch[/b] [/url]
• gamedeal user

  Sep 4, 2019

  [b][i]"What was, will be."- Stellaris.[/i][/b] In a nebula of moons connected by rivers and shared history, acerbic archaeologist Aliya and her overprotective but no less sarcastic robot companion Six translate their way through the mysteries of the past to discover what the future holds. It is a memorable, special, and inspired game unfortunately marred by technical difficulties and janky controls. It is Inkle's finest work yet, stepping outside of IF genre into adventure game territory. But the sheer ambition of it inevitably comes at a price of quite a few rough edges. [b]Heaven's Vault[/b] is a great choice of a game if you want to: [list] [*]Spend twenty-something hours arguing with a robot. Dialogue and character writing in [b]HV[/b] is sublime, it's absolutely delicious. Aliya's verbal exchanges with Six are so full of delightfully vitriolic retorts! It often left me wishing I had the wit to insult my friends with the same acerbic eloquence. [*]Learn an ancient alien language but don't have the energy to study Japanese. Game's main linguistic mechanic of deciphering inscribed glyphs works really well. It never makes you feel dumb or stuck (unlike studying Japanese, or so I hear). By the end of the first playthrough, I was able to read basic ancient sentences, and New Game+ offers promise of more complex phrases. [*]Interpret history by slowly piecing archaeological finds and clues together. To later realize your theories don't work, are very silly, and you generally have no idea what you're talking about. I'm convinced that's how real archaeology works, too. The world of [b]Heaven's Vault[/b] is rich in history and lore, but it doesn't dump it all on the player at once, like many games often do. Instead, it is presented for you to gradually learn and build your own understanding of it. [*]Build a veritable collection of ancient junk, but you're out of space to keep it in. And let's face it: your mixtape collection from the 90s is hardly a historic artifact. [b]Heaven's Vault[/b] excels in environmental storytelling: every item you find, however seemingly mundane and inconsequential, supports the bigger picture of Nebula's history. [/list] So I love this game dearly. But you might like it a lot less if: [list] [*]You don't miss clumsy tank controls from the original version of Grim Fandango because [b]HV[/b] controls somewhat like it. If you're too young to remember tank controls, trust me: it's unpleasant. Also, please accept my bitter envy of your youth. [*]You aren't the type to enjoy long, pointless travel. Piloting [i]Nightingale[/i], Aliya's ship, along Nebula's rivers is fine at first. And the locales are pretty and serene. But it gets really old really fast. (And so did I.) You can actually skip the whole sailing part but you'll be missing out on a lot of optional ruins to grow your ancient language vocabulary, so it's far from ideal. [*]You are bothered by the game's camera focusing on a random wall or getting stuck in somebody's back. Because there'll be a lot of it. Some glitching textures and level geometry also occurred in my playthrough. [/list] Overall, if you always dreamed of messing about with cultural heritage sites but those laymen from UNESCO never let you, [b]Heaven's Vault[/b] is highly recommended.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 14, 2019

  Heaven's vault is an amalgam of many types of games. It is mainly point and click with the deciphering of an ancient language. Your character is a feisty woman named Aliya who is an archaelogist. She was orphaned as a child on the planet Elboreth and adopted by her boss Myari. Aliya loves to sail on the 'rivers' and on her adventures she discovers artifacts which point to an ancient civilisation. She is accompanied by her new robot called Six. Be warned that there is a lot of talking in this game....a bit like a visual novel at times. Your choices do impact on the ending, but there is obvious scope to replay the game many times to see what happens. It is a slow moving game, but the story is intriguing. The graphics are stunning and the music just divine, especially when you're sailing. The gameplay is the downside. A wee bit clunky and when you're sailing, you can get very lost....which happened to me many times!! The search for artefacts got boring and so did the conversations. Sometimes I felt the search for artefacts was just padding the game out. The variety of worlds you visit are interesting and it is obvious that the devs put a lot of love and thought into the game. The movement of the main character is very clunky, but the personalities you meet are good. It is hard to categorise this game...part sci-fi and adventure. You have to be interested in history and languages to enjoy the game. There is no violence, combat or gore in this game, so is suitable for children, but it would be boring for them. I played over 16 hours, but didn't get all the achievements. The ending I got was quite weak after all that travelling! Heaven's Vault has a strong replayable feel about it to explore different endings. I give it 8/10 mainly for being so different and for it's unique story and graphics.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 30, 2022

  I'm actually really enjoying this game and plan on completing it, but it has some SERIOUS problems that you need to know about if you're considering buying it: 1. Bad pacing: The beginning of the game is an absolute slog. Once you get into doing a lot of translating and figure out how you're supposed to be doing that (not clear enough, imo), it's fun, but you regularly get walled by really boring sequences that bring the energy of the game to a grinding halt. 2. Awful controls: I feel like I can't walk more than five steps before the game takes over for me while going through tedious dialogue. Speaking of the dialogue, it's all text, not voiced (with the exception of the main character's monologues) BUT it moves through the lines automatically instead of having you press a button to move on. You can adjust the speed in the settings, but if there's an important bit of information given to you in dialogue and you need to re-read it or write something down, you're screwed. It moves right along and you can never get it back, not even by prompting the NPC again. It baffles me that they wouldn't just have a "next" button like every other game. 3. Absurdly bad menus: The concept of the timeline is cool, but in practice it is so unwieldy and is constantly spinning out of control. Important things are difficult to navigate to with unintuitive menus. You figure it out, but the bad design really slows down gameplay for me. 4. FOR GOD'S SAKE, WHY IS THERE NO DICTIONARY??? The whole game is about translating glyphs, but for some reason they don't give you a dictionary of all the words you have encountered, their possible meanings, and which ones are confirmed translations. It keeps all the phrases you've encountered, but if you want to be able to reference individual words, you basically have to keep a handwritten dictionary. (Which is hard, because it will take up several pages and you can't easily change the order.) If you want to change your translation of a previous word based on new information, you have to remember what phrase it was part of, and when in the game you discovered it (because that's how the phrases are ordered.) Keeping track of words you learn (and haven't quite cracked yet) should be very simple, but because of this staggering oversight, it's an absolute mess. The game is an amazing and creative concept with a really interesting and story, but I often find myself pulled out of it to marvel at how much better it could have been from a game design perspective. It's still mostly fun for me, but often frustrating too.