The idea behind FINIS sounds cool in paper, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
Yeah, I did not enjoy the time I spent playing through this puzzle game and cause of that, it's hard for me to recommend this game.
FINIS is a puzzle game with a difference, where the game creates a psychological evaluation through colors based on the Lüscher test. That sounds intriguing, right? However, the execution of it felt quite lacking.
I was not familiar with the Lüscher test prior to playing the game. When you start the "Evaluation" mode, you are immediately thrown in the first puzzle. It's an apartment situated in a futuristic city. Next to a window there are four colored boxes or mechanisms you can interact with and you can change the symbol of each box. Basically, I need to find the right combination. Inside the bathroom there are two buttons that change the time of day.
I press the night button, the world shifts to night and on a wall colored lights start to flicker on and off. Each corresponds to one of the boxes. I pay attention, find the right combination, enter the combination in the mechanisms and a "fridge" appears next to the door. Puzzle completed. I enter this fridge thing, the door closes and I tap one of the buttons at random. Next puzzle loads in. Now I am transported into a destroyed apartment building, different universe and I have to solve a puzzle box, again, by entering a combination.
Next to this box there's what looks like a military map with some attack plans scribbled on top of it. I take a look outside a destroyed window and see a light that is flickering on and off with different timings. "Hmmm, that feels like morse code, doesn't it?" - I think to myself "But what to do with it?". In a tiny piece of papar, that's easily missable I learn what the morse code means. I focus on the light once more, take note and enter the combination in the puzzle box. Puzzle completed, fridge appears, I jump in, select another random color without thinking about it and next puzzle loads in. I complete the next two puzzles, then I am presented with my psychological evaluation and that's seemingly it.
What?! I just got a "psychological evaluation" after I completed 4 puzzles, that I selected completely at random and had no coherrent theme or link with one another? What?!
Completing this "Evaluation" mode unlocked another mode where I could just play through all of the puzzles one by one and that I did. There are 21 puzzles in total and let me tell you, they are just as weird if not even weirder that the 4 I played for my evaluation.
There's no connecting theme across them, there's no core puzzle mechanic that evolves as you complete them, there's no line of logic, nothing, they are absolutely random.
In one puzzle you have to prepare a meal for a dragon (yes, a fucking dragon) and in the next you drop an atomic bomb... how are these two even remotely connected?! Another one places you inside a spaceship where you have to drain a body of fluids, jettison that body out of the spaceship and solve another color combination puzzle that basically broke me cause no matter what combination I tried based on the "clues" I found, nothing worked. It was the first time I ever emailed PR to ask for a guide cause nothing worked. The solution was that once I enter the combination, I needed to go away from it so that it triggered the next step, but there was no indication that had the correct combination whatsoever and that's like puzzle games 101.
I stopped playing after that, I just couldn't be bothered to continue. That was one of the reasons, the other being that I was constantly fighting against the game bugs and audio and visual glitches. Before I continue, know that this game is developed by a solo developer so keep that in mind for this next part. The game looks and feels unfinished, like an alpha stage of a game. The menu looks terrible and unfinished, the reflections are completely broken and puzzles would just bug out, doors not opening, buttons couldn't be pressed and puzzles would not solve.
Game making is hard and if you are a solo-developer, that's even harder, but FINIS is not well, a finished game. Having said that, even if the game's presentation was in a better state, I would still not recommend the game due to the whole random nature of the puzzles. Unfortunately, you should skip this game. Thanks for reading!
The game was reviewed on a PS5 using a promo code provided by PR. FINIS is out now on PlayStation, PC and Xbox.
