Cocoon Review (Lummie Thief)
It really hurts me to say this since this was a highly anticipated game for me, but I really don't recommend this game.
I went in expecting an interesting world to explore, some puzzles to solve, and a mystery to unravel, all as advertised on this store page. In my opinion, I was let down in all of those regards:
EXPLORATION:
The world was certainly interesting to look at, and the world design / visuals are without a doubt the best part of the game, but the game is so mind-numbingly linear and formulaic that it felt more like an on-rails visual experience than a video game. The game pretends to have branching paths, but it only took me around 15 minutes to realize that all branching paths converge after only a few steps or are complete dead ends. I'm the type of person to avoid the main story line in order to be able to experience all the side content a game has to offer, but this game offered no side content and didn't ever reward me for exploring. There are a few optional "secret" areas that you could technically miss, but they are very obviously telegraphed and don't reward you in any way other than an achievement.
PUZZLES:
The puzzles are probably the most disappointing part of this game for me as they are hardly ever anything more than trivial with lots of backtracking and long animations to wait for. There are certainly a few good ones toward the end of the game, but the longest I was ever stumped on a puzzle was maybe 3 or 4 minutes and it was only because I didn't know what one of the components in the puzzle did. The puzzle system definitely had unexplored territory by the time the game was over, and I appreciate games that don't overstay their welcome, but after 3 hours of completely trivial puzzles, it was disappointing for the game to end as soon as the puzzles started getting interesting.
STORY:
If you are expecting to "unravel a cosmic mystery" as the store page promises, you will absolutely not be doing that. If someone had me at gunpoint and the only way for me to live was to explain even a single component of the story, lets just say it wouldn't end well for me. There's lots of events that are interesting and beg for an explanation, but the game never offers an answer to any of the questions it poses, and the ending sequence which I think was supposed to explain how the world works only left me more confused than I started.
In conclusion, the visuals are beautiful and the world was very fun to look at, so if you just want to go on an "adventure across worlds within worlds," this might be the game for you. However, if you want to "master world-leaping mechanics and solve intricate puzzles", play Patrick's Parabox instead, and if you want to "unravel a cosmic mystery," play Outer Wilds.