Review by GamingCouchPotato.co.uk Staff
Faraday Protocol is a first-person perspective puzzle game and walking simulator. I am playing this on a Nintendo Switch Lite.
Let's take a look at the official story of the game.
"You are Raug Zeekon: interstellar archeologist from planet Cunor. You have been sent by your company to investigate the source of a mysterious signal coming from an unexplored star.
The Bia Tool, an ancient relic of an alien civilization, is the first mystery you uncover when arriving in OPIS. Unsure of its true purpose you start wielding it to solve the challenges on your path. With its ability to absorb energy and the option to redistribute it to different machinery, you start digging deeper and deeper into the temples, encountering even harder puzzles that will test your savvy and abilities in problem solving. Are you smart enough to solve every challenge thrown at you?"
You find yourself on a seemingly abandoned planet, you head towards a huge structure, you pick up what appears to be some kind of laser gun. But you won't be fighting anyone today, for this is a puzzle game. Pretty quickly you figure out that you can use your gun (the bio tool) to absorb energy from one location and fire it elsewhere, and this is the general mechnic that you will be using to solve the puzzles. Each puzzle has a purpose of allowing you to proceed further into the structure. As you progress, the puzzles get harder and harder. The whole structure is seemingly a training guard, and as you play you will hear the voice of IRIS, an Artificial Intelligence that is there to help guard this ancient structure. The puzzles are described by the A.I. as tests. Hence the idea this is some kind of tarining ground.
The main gameplay is about transfering energy around, connecting areas in the correct order, which in turn may open a door or portal, open a stair case, move walls, open new areas and so on.
The puzzles themselves are logic based, and as such every puzzle if taken in a slow methodical way, can be beaten.
That said, I found myself stuck pretty often, but not so much because of the game, but because I forgot to think in a logical way.
The clues to solving a puzzle are always there, sometimes staring you right in the face, your job is to see them, and then figure out what you are supposed to do.
For example in one room you might see 3 differently coloured lights, in a different room there may be 3 differently coloured pillars. Connect the pillars with energy collected from other areas, in the same order as in the first room, and voila, puzzle solved and next area unlocked. You will need a good memory at times, or take a quick photo of the screen with your phone, to remind you of what you are looking for.
Unfortunately there is no hint system in the game, and as such you will at some point get frustrated enough to either give up, or look online for a walkthrough, something I did a few times, and as is always the problem with walkthroughs, as soon as you need to go use one, you will quickly go back to it the moment you got a little stuck.
The game is relatively short, more so if you do use a walkthrough for regular help.
The Good
Despite playing this on a Nintendo Switch Lite, the graphics were all crisp and clear, I never once felt like it would be easier or better to play on a big screen. The puzzles are all well thought out, and although tough at times, they are all logical. There are also some secrets to collect along the way.
The Bad
The lack of a hint system, or any real kind of tutorial or help system, is a major issue for me, I get so frustrated when games are released without such things, for the moment someone gets stuck, they are either gonna just give up, or they are gonna go watch a walkthrough, and once you make that an option to the player, they are gonna use it, and as such that does spoil the game, because let's be realistic, if you get stuck, and you know you just watched a walkthrough on youtube 10 minutes earlier, you are going to go back to it. But a simple help system would keep the player in the gamer, nudge them in the right direction, and the eventual feeling of achievement would still be there.
Also the game is relatively short.
Overall
A good puzzle game, with a unique mechanic, that being the gun. The whole game works well on Nintendo Switch.
Despite the lack of a hint system, this game will entertain any puzzle fan, if only for a few hours.
I score Faraday Protocol on Nintendo Switch a fair 7/10
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