No witnesses

See No Evil does a respectable job of twisting and augmenting familiar puzzle mechanics. Sure, you push blocks to hold down buttons, and reflect lasers sound waves using angled mirrors bent pipes -- but you also use these tricks to manipulate enemies into hitting unreachable switches, or to distract them away from catching you.

In theory, this is a refreshing combination of sneaking and puzzles (like Boktai, sans combat). In practice, though, See No Evil suffers from some fundamental problems: visual ambiguity and fiddly movement.

The game is shown at an isometric 3/4 overhead perspective, and the art for objects and characters shows depth, but that depth doesn't exactly match up with collision; I frequently activated buttons that I was trying to walk around. Meanwhile, sound wave reflection puzzles require precise positioning while facing in a specific direction, and there's no control to rotate in place -- so getting it exactly right can take several walking-in-circles attempts.

Occasionally these issues combine: trying to push a block around tight obstacles is ... not fun.

As for the story, it's surprising enough that See No Evil has one - this kind of puzzle game tends to skimp - and it's admirably integrated with the game's presentation and mechanics. Between-level exposition scenes shed light on the game's macabre backstory, explaining why your enemies can't see, and why they're resisting your journey; it's kinda neat.

But, not neat enough to goad me into playing more. See No Evil certainly isn't the most frustrating puzzle game I've played, but its precision issues are just frustrating enough to turn me off.

Better than: Great Permutator
Not as good as: Toki Tori (2008)
Definitely not as good as: Mark of the Ninja: Remastered

Progress: Got to Chapter 3.