Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches

A lovely but flawed hard adventure game. Would be especially attractive to fans of Myst/Riven.

The story is very engaging, and the puzzles are "realistic" in that they are never obvious. There is no hand-holding: it's very challenging. Not quite Riven-challenging, but you better take care to look closely at every clue. The puzzles are fair, but sometimes the clues are extremely subtle. For fans of hard puzzles, it would be greatly rewarding to solve them through patience and sheer perseverence. If you're looking for a casual point-and-click, however, this is definitely not it. With a walkthrough, though, it could definitely be a more casual experience.

The UI is annoying: many times you have to click in a very small area, but there is no indication if you get it wrong. Too many times I had the right idea, but thought I was mistaken because I didn't click at exactly the right place. That felt quite unfair.

Another problem is the rather weird pace. You would think that puzzles would get harder towards the end, but suddenly they become easier. It almost feels rushed. Well, except for the very last puzzle ... those always have to make no sense, right?