The Past Within Review: The Most Anticipated Puzzle Game! – Is It Any Good?

Rusty Lake’s new co-op game is called The Past Within. Play with someone you trust. One of you goes to The Past, and the other goes to The Future. Look around you and tell others what you see. Find the answers to the puzzles to learn what Albert Vanderboom’s plan is.

In this review, we will go over the history of the game, explain its playstyle and then review it by splitting it into Pros and Cons. Then at the end, we will give our final thoughts and whether you should try it out or not. Let’s get started.

Is It Any Good? – The Past Within Review

The Past Within is the newest game that just got released on the 2nd of November 2022 and is part of the big franchise of puzzle games made by Rusty Lake. Rusty Lakes’s games have a big following and they are very worthy of your time.

The Past Within follows the same cycle with the puzzles offering you a brand new experience and storyline that you or you and your companion might try to solve together. There are interesting puzzles that sometimes both of you will complete together, or one will observe and help out while the other finishes the puzzle.

Anyhow, with the game’s history and description out of the way, let’s begin the review. To be simpler to understand for you, we will split it into Pros and Cons sections.

Pros

Let’s first talk about the many good things that The Past Within offers.

Gameplay

The gameplay is really how you expect it to be. You will get very get interesting puzzles that it will be simply fun to play. There are some players that have spent over 30+ hours already and saying that they simply cannot stop playing them.

They are made to be beginner–friendly just in case there are new players to the franchise, and very simple. You will get the normal puzzle that will make you scratch your head, but overall it finds that balance of being hard enough but also tons of little ways of how you can get to the conclusion of how to pass it.

Puzzles and controls are pretty easy, and they help you get better at describing symbols or figuring out what to do. When you choose some other option, there is a small chance that you will use the answers again, so you shouldn’t do that, offering some replayability.

Visuals

The Past Within is very different from the previous titles that came out mostly because of its brand-new looks. It is now in fully fledged out 3D mode! It simply looks fantastic and a real joy to enjoy these amazing characters and how they are drawn out.

The environment of it is also done amazingly. You will get your eyes to sometimes focus on smaller things yet relax and enjoy on the bigger pictures that you might expect. Even at times you will really get frightened while playing because of the well-designed ambient.

Sound

The sound design is awesome as has always been in the previous titles. You will get the joyful and happy tune when you are doing a fine job supported by the mysterious and tricky notes when you are having difficulties.

Price

The current price of The Past Within is 4 euros but with discounts(which it has right now) it falls down to 2 euros per copy!

You can have an escape from the modern world with your best friend or spouse, or even just by yourself for the price of a drink. With this price, you wouldn’t have to think about whether should you try this game out or not. It is simply a steal and will be worthy of this money.

Co-Op Works Fantastic

If you are on the lookout for that simple and very interesting game that you can play with a friend that will make both of you invest and escape the modern-day world, well look no further than The Past Within.

It has a Co-Op that executes itself tremendously. You will have a lot of options to explore things together and come up with a way to conclude and finish up a puzzle. It isn’t like some of the puzzle games where one character is doing it all. Here you will both be invested.

The Past Within can only be played with other people but you can also play it by yourself by opening two windows while simultaneously playing the game. Two players have different roles and points of view. So, following your initial playthrough, which will take about 2 hours, you might want to play again as a different character.

Cons

Very interesting and good, yet there are very big issues that can be said.

Short

Extremely and painfully short. You will begin enjoying it and getting into it with a companion seeking more and more and expecting that something else will come up but you will end up with just looking at the credits.

I wouldn’t mind the length of the game if there were more riddles and story elements. In fact, the puzzles are not hard at all which results in finishing this game sometimes in under 1 hour! You might spend an hour or two more if you decide to go for the achievements but they are just repetitive and grindy.

It is the biggest minus that this game has resulted in very mad players that are big fans of this franchise.

Few Features

Several of the puzzle games are just the same as others and really have a limited amount of features. There are several puzzles where you have to keep following the same instructions, which isn’t very fun. It can be annoying at times.

There are two modes that you can play but to be honest, there’s not much reason to try both modes. Both the butterfly and the bee puzzles are the same, but you get either a bee or a butterfly model. The order of the answers might change, but it’s still the same thing.

Overall & Rating

Although this game is simply amazing when you play it since you will both get head-scratching moments but never have that stuck moment that everyone knows with occasionally happens in puzzle games.

If you do not mind the very short time that you can play, this game is definitely a must-buy if you are a puzzle lover. That’s everything you need to know about The Past Withing. We hope that you agree with our rating!

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