izigame.me

First things first I'm judging this game on its own merits. I didn't contribute to this game's development and I don't have nostalgia for Scratches.
I liked this game a lot. The presentation and the writing are its strongest points. There are a lot of reflections implemented on surfaces and a few gnarly animations. The flashbacks and character conversations look pretty good for an adventure game. The sound design is excellent with a couple minor exceptions. The diegetic interface is fantastic; I loved using the notebook and the main menu book to navigate, and I loved the different fonts and paper types for the different notes. It all helped to give the asylum a real sense of place.
The writing is really the star of the show. Multiple lines have been implemented for most objects, and the notes and audio/video you can find are compelling. The notes tend to be between 2-5 pages as well, so there's potentially quite a bit of reading. You can finish the game without paying too much attention to most of them, but a few are required for puzzles and there are several I think are necessary to understand the ending. Personally, I loved these, and read every one I could find.
I didn't like the ending very much initially. After sitting on it for a while, discussing it with others and mulling it over I think I like it more now. I feel compelled to go back and get the few notes I missed to see if that alters my understanding at all. Fortunately, the game gives you enough information that you can understand basically everything about the ending, you just might have to look for it; I just have one (minor) question remaining I am hoping gets addressed in a note I missed. One criticism I could make is that the scope is very small; about a quarter of the asylum is functionally closed off and you never go there, and there are only a handful of characters. It is a very tight and streamlined experience, for better and worse; it took me a little over 6 hours without a guide, but I read very quickly so your results may vary (additional time from note hunting after seeing the credits).
I will say the puzzles in particular are quite rudimentary. They require you to remember things about the environment and put pieces together but they were mostly (one exception) very logical and ultimately simple. There are no sliding tiles, grid puzzles, towers of hanoi etc. No abstract mechanical constructions serving an unknown purpose. Everything is very grounded.
I did experience a few bugs. Nothing game breaking, but there are a couple screens where the picture would get cut off at the top or bottom of my display and show fog in the background. I use an ultrawide so that may be why. There were also a couple instances where interactions wouldn't trigger and I would get stuck. Ctrl+Backspace fixes this. There are a couple scripting bugs but the developers have already put out a patch on the second day fixing many of them, so they probably won't be around long.
I'm very satisfied with my purchase. Despite feeling underwhelmed by the puzzles the presentation and writing carry this game. I loved the diegetic interface. I liked the story; uncovering the chain of events was compelling, enough so that I ended up playing through to the end from the start of my second sitting. Having your perception of specific moments changed by new context is very enjoyable to me. If you're a sucker for this kind of thing and you like old fashioned first person point and clicks, you'll probably have a good time.