REVIEW: ‘Lorelei And The Laser Eyes’ Is A Magnificent Mystery (Switch)

A good mystery usually involves an interesting premise. Moreso, it requires intriguing clues that piece everything together slowly as you accumulate more. For those who are eagle-eyed, you may be able to figure it out early enough. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, by Simogo and Annapurna Interactive, is the ultimate mystery. It really requires you to think outside the box to figure out just what is happening in the mysterious hotel. It oozes style and will be impossible to put down while you are moments away from solving the next puzzle.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes brings our mysterious unnamed heroine to a seemingly abandoned hotel in the middle of a Central European forest. All that’s there to guide her is a mysterious letter asking for her to show up one year after the letter was sent. Only it was sent over 60 years prior. Why did she just get this letter? What is so special about this hotel? Well, as she arrives, not everything seems right. It’s locked up and only accessible through solving certain riddles or clues to get keys and unlock oddly placed padlocks on gates and doors.

As the mystery of this hotel begins to open up, she is greeted by an Italian man in a tophat, a weird magician, a little girl in an owl mask, and an old woman with red eyes. So, you, as this lady, must connect the dots and find what mysteries this hotel has been hiding from its residents. A mystery that connects directly to the hotel and its residents’ past and will reveal much more than anyone would expect.

Lorelei‘s story feels very unassuming at first. Its setting carries more earlier moments than the story pieces slowly piecing together. What is genius about the story comes from the fine details in the set design and the documents scattered through every floor of the hotel. They build on a grim and mysterious world involving a cult-like group that ropes in an unassuming artist who may be in the way of their goals. Every note is expertly crafted to hide clues to something grander, whether it be the story itself or a piece to a puzzle in a room you may not even have encountered yet. Plus, nothing feels out of place. Every character interaction, every journal entry, and every device you interact with all tie to Lorelei and the Laser Eyes’s ultimate conclusion.

There are additional lore bits that are strictly optional. But even then, they just help build on the grander mystery. They may even help you connect dots that you may not be able to connect otherwise. It all just builds a grand history that feels like it could be a retelling of actual events that may have happened, even if those events are revealed through otherworldly methods. To reach that ending, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes expects you to learn from its past, and thoroughly understand those events to connect the final dots.

To get to the final scenes and learn the truth, you will be solving a lot of puzzles. This includes solving riddles, opening locks, using the correct items in the right places, and taking lots of notes. Even then, the game itself controls very simply, for better and worse. You just walk around the hotel with the left stick and almost every other button acts as an interact button. Using A, B, X, and Y does the same thing. This is fine for the most part because it lets the game focus solely on the mystery and puzzle aspect.

On the other hand, it removes simple mechanics that you’d expect to be there. In the end, the game can be annoying and frustrating to control at times. In the menu, you’ll click through many items to read and reread information. The issue here is that there is no dedicated backing-out button. You need to close out of the item by re-clicking it, then scrolling to the top to hit the X button to get out of that one menu. For some items, you’ll have dozens to scroll through to get to that X button again.

As for locks, there is no scrolling up/down or left/right on them. In other words, the wheels of each lock spin in one direction. If you make a mistake, you need to go all the way around again. Similarly to the menu controls, this is more of a nitpick that required getting over my own assumptions to really get a grasp of it. And if you are on a roll but make a simple misclick, the wind gets taken out of your sails over minor inconveniences that can add up quickly.

Once you get a handle on these gripes, they mostly fade away. Especially as you start to get to the riskier portions of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes with actual death at stake. But what’s great about these moments is how the heroine retains information. Where, in some areas, simplicity works against your goals, many more features are player-friendly. Under the guise of a “photographic memory,” the heroine remembers everything she’s interacted with. Every important page of a book from front to back, every plaque, every note you read gets stored in her memory. And it’s accessible to you at any time.

Moments that are presented as life or death are telegraphed well and let you access everything you’ve seen to answer them. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes doesn’t expect you to memorize every minute detail; the game just wants you to use the tools at your disposal. The menu also creates a running list of everything you need to do. Found shortcut door 13 and haven’t unlocked it yet? It gets added to the list. Run into a door you don’t have the solution for or the key to unlock? It gets jotted down. This list is perfect for a game with so much to do. Minor puzzles get added so you always know what to watch for. This is immensely helpful as you get further and further in.

It’s not just documents that help you find exactly what you need. The hotel is immaculately designed into a maze-like structure full of juicy details. And there are clues everywhere. Art pieces are perfectly placed to give you a hint of what you need. Rearranged posters lead you to find a date to the combination you need. There is just so much, and it’s all placed so you aren’t backtracking too much when discovering one of these environmental puzzles.

Even then, Lorelei evolves in immaculate ways as you play, adding on to this slowly expanding world. You’re not just wandering around a hotel; you’ll be thrust into numerous different environments that each catch you off guard. Like the PS1-era beta video game of Lorelei where you move with tank controls. It’s genius and is fantastically used based on its setup of being unfinished. Another is a first-person maze where you have to use a map you’ve used repeatedly to navigate it. Nothing ever feels half-assed when the perspective, graphics, or controls change. I’d love to play a PS1-style puzzle-solving game with this much detail.

Overall, the level of detail throughout Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is applaudable. The game feels like it’s made by a team that had ideas, and they ran with it. Where this feeling really shines through is with the shortcuts and collectibles. There are twenty doors that are numbered and locked. They are completely optional to open, but unlocking them gives you an easier time navigating the hotel. You solve them through a puzzle book without ties to the rest of the game’s solutions except for these doors. Solving one of these puzzles is just as satisfying as solving a puzzle for progression.

Then there are the collectibles, which are, funnily enough, American dollars. You’ll find one dollar bills everywhere and where you least expect them. They can buy some minor exposition, little figurines, and even video games for a mini Game Boy-like device for some more fun in-game. They are also used to unlock the heroine’s sprint ability. Later on, you can access a coffee bar and need to buy a subscription to use espresso machines. By paying ten dollars to an entity on the phone, you get an espresso cup that lets you just move a little faster.

But drinking too much will force you to use the bathroom. Yes, her bladder is a mechanic. But all this is strictly optional, too. I played 98 percent of the game just walking around and was perfectly content doing so. With the fantastic ambiance and music, I was fine meandering around, thinking of what to do next while working my way to an area I knew had a couple of things I could interact with.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is magnificently crafted, oozing with detail, love, and care. What it does amazingly is give you all the tools you need to figure out this mystery within the hotel. The only limitation to you figuring out a puzzle and reaching the ending is you. Only minor gripes, like its overtly simplistic controls, keep it from being a perfect game. Even then, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is a can’t-miss, especially if you love a good puzzle game built in a beautifully crafted world with an even better story.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is available on May 16, 2024 on Nintendo Switch and PC