Lorelei and the Laser Eyes review: The best video game I’ve ever reviewed

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Score Details Pros

Ingenious puzzle design
Consistently surprising
Unnerving atmosphere
Astonishing visual style
Thematically rich

Cons

Lack of hints may alienate some

I’m 15 hours into Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, the mysterious new game from Sayonara Wild Hearts developer Simogo, when I’m finally ready to tackle its ultimate puzzle. That time on my save file is misleading; I’ve likely spent closer to 100 hours getting there if you factor in all the sleepless nights where I laid awake trying to crack ciphers that eluded me. After all that mental work, I have almost everything I need to finally solve the labyrinth and find the truth behind a twisted mystery hiding in its center. But I’ve hit one final roadblock.

Five symbols. That’s all that stands in my way.

Early on during my stay at the gloomy Hotel Letztes Jahr, I discovered five odd shapes hidden throughout its rooms. They were abstract to me at the time, so I tucked them deep in my memory banks. Now everything depended on them. If I couldn’t deduce their meaning, I would be trapped here forever, clawing at a metal door that hid the answers I so desperately sought. The crowded notebook I’d been using through my playthrough to track clues begins to reach critical mass. I’m filling every free space with potential solutions.

“Maybe they form a word?” I try to rearrange them to form one coherent shape.

“This must be a number code!” I start seeing ones and sevens that don’t exist.

“Symmetry!” I flip my entire notebook upside down as I hit the brink of madness.

The more I scribble and rave, the further reality recedes into the distance. There’s one hard answer, but that hardly seems to matter to me anymore. I’ve tossed over a dozen hours of defined puzzle logic out the window. The act of personal interpretation has consumed my quest for the truth. I’m no longer trying to reconstruct a shattered mirror; I’m piecing together my own image in its shards.

That experience lies at the center