{"id":117638,"date":"2020-09-05T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-05T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/manifold_garden"},"modified":"2020-09-05T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T13:00:00","slug":"review-manifold-garden-a-remarkable-spectacle-undermined-by-benign-puzzles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/09\/05\/review-manifold-garden-a-remarkable-spectacle-undermined-by-benign-puzzles\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Manifold Garden &#8211; A Remarkable Spectacle Undermined By Benign Puzzles"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/manifold_garden\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/manifold_garden\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Manifold Garden Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/108256\/large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/108256\/900x.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" alt=\"Manifold Garden Review - Screenshot 1 of 4\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>First-person puzzle games are not a fresh, new concept. The likes of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/realmyst_masterpiece_edition\">RealMyst<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/talos_principle_deluxe_edition\">The Talos Principle<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/superliminal\">Superliminal<\/a><\/strong> (amongst many others) represent the genre on Nintendo&#8217;s venerable hybrid console, and they&#8217;re a high bar to clear. We don&#8217;t feel as though <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/manifold_garden\">Manifold Garden<\/a><\/strong> <em>quite<\/em> reaches those highs, but it&#8217;s a game with a lot to offer \u2013 especially if you appreciate its bizarre, sweeping and somewhat alien perspective tricks.<\/p>\n<p>The visuals are pretty spectacular, in terms of their sheer creativity and the unfolding enormity of its vistas. Moving through its bizarre, M.C. Escher-esque locales never ceases to be interesting; the sense of scale is often daunting, and moving from the game&#8217;s initially claustrophobic environments to the sudden vastness of its outdoor space inspires genuine awe and more than a little vertigo.<\/p>\n<p>Progressing through the game is easy and intuitive; controls are kept as simple as possible in order to avoid tripping the player up as they navigate the spatial puzzles that make up Manifold Garden&#8217;s core gameplay. The A button interacts, hitting switches or picking up boxes, while tapping ZR will plant your feet on whichever surface you&#8217;re aiming at; basically, you&#8217;re able to re-orient yourself on walls and ceilings in order to get around.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Manifold Garden Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/108260\/large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 900 506'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" data-original=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/108260\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Manifold Garden Review - Screenshot 2 of 4\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>You&#8217;ll need to, because the puzzles here involve picking up and placing boxes on switches, some of which are found at completely different orientations to the state that you may enter a room in. The catch is that you can&#8217;t manipulate said boxes without being at the correct orientation, and gravity will only apply to them as long as you remain in such a position. Flicking between walls, ceilings and floors to manipulate multiple elements in order to get a single box where you want it isn&#8217;t just common \u2013 it&#8217;s pretty much <em>all<\/em> you do.<\/p>\n<p>Every puzzle is essentially a block puzzle, though the goals aren&#8217;t always the same. Figuring out how to manipulate gravity in order to &#8220;freeze&#8221; boxes in mid-air so you can stack further boxes atop them is a headscratcher, and sometimes finding your way through the labyrinthine structures to get where you need to be is a challenge in itself. Thankfully, while difficult, Manifold Garden is rarely frustrating \u2013 its rules are extremely clear and it never breaks them in an effort to trick the player. There&#8217;s also a refreshing lack of hand-holding; it&#8217;s up to the player to figure out exactly how the game&#8217;s elements work together, and how to solve the conundrums that arise from its building blocks.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Manifold Garden Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/108257\/large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 900 506'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" data-original=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/108257\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Manifold Garden Review - Screenshot 3 of 4\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Traversal is both helped and hindered by the fact that the game&#8217;s world is looped and mirrored \u2013 in outdoor spaces, it&#8217;s easy to accidentally fall into what seems like a never-ending void, only to find yourself landing on the very platform from which you tripped. Given you can&#8217;t <em>traditionally<\/em> jump, this is actually the easiest way to cross gaps in the environment, which can lead to a thoroughly exhilarating fall as you wrap around from top to bottom, gradually making your way forwards.<\/p>\n<p>Less impressively, we found that the consistently remarkable spectacle of Manifold Garden is a little at odds with its relatively benign and straightforward puzzle-solving. That&#8217;s not to say it&#8217;s <em>bad<\/em>, or that said puzzles aren&#8217;t fun to figure out, it just struck us as being a little detached from the presentation. Your goal seems indeterminate \u2013 you&#8217;re effectively opening doors to move forward, yes, but it can be somewhat jarring to move from these outrageous, surrealist landscapes into a smaller room with a bit of glorified <strong>Sokoban<\/strong> to play. The gameplay doesn&#8217;t match the ambition of Manifold Garden&#8217;s visuals, and with some of the trickier to execute puzzles we found ourselves just wanting to get them over with so we could get back to the cool stuff.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Manifold Garden Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\" href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/108262\/large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 900 506'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" data-original=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/108262\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Manifold Garden Review - Screenshot 4 of 4\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Performance is adequate, running at what feels like a consistent 30fps framerate, though the resolution doesn&#8217;t hold up so well in handheld mode, leading to some shimmering edges. It&#8217;s totally playable, though, and the game doesn&#8217;t chug when you navigate the enormous outdoor spaces. It&#8217;s responsive to control and generally pretty chill \u2013 right down to the ambient soundtrack which makes some of its finickier puzzles less irritating than they could be.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>It almost feels like Manifold Garden might have fared better as a &#8220;walking simulator&#8221; at times; its infinitely-folding environments are works of art from any angle, and it&#8217;s a little difficult to appreciate them when you&#8217;re solving <em>yet another<\/em> samey block puzzle. Still, it&#8217;d be churlish to mark it down for <em>being a game<\/em> when solving its riddles isn&#8217;t unenjoyable by any stretch of the imagination. We just found ourselves a little impatient to be done with them so we could hurry into the next astonishing panorama of abstract, impossible imagery. Manifold Garden is a lovely game, but sometimes the &#8220;game&#8221; bit gets a little in the way.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked) First-person puzzle games are not a fresh, new concept. The likes of RealMyst, The Talos Principle and Superliminal (amongst many others) represent the genre on Nintendo&#8217;s venerable hybrid console, and they&#8217;re a high bar to clear. We don&#8217;t feel as though Manifold Garden quite reaches those highs, but it&#8217;s a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}