Maquette Reviews
Check out Maquette Review Scores from trusted Critics below. With 23 reviews on CriticDB, Maquette has a score of:
Maquette is a short, impactful experience. Through clever use of its puzzle mechanics, it forces you to think in ways only the best of the genre tend to do. While the story and writing aren’t as good as the other parts of the title it is still an easy recommendation for anyone to check out for a night or two through Game Pass.
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Maquette’s strength mostly lies in its beautifully told narrative and wonderfully voice-acted characters, and if this were a review of the story alone, we might give it a higher rating. The gameplay is interesting, however, there’s often only one right answer. Plus it’s hard to ignore performance issues like stuttering and the dreaded restarts. For us, playing Maquette was a lot like Michael and Kenzie’s relationship. It was sometimes wonderful, sometimes frustrating, and, though it’s probably not something we’ll return to, it was worth our time – even if it didn’t last long.
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The puzzles compel, while the narrative stalls, and there is something worthy in that mismatch. I only wish that the breakup at its core yielded something worth holding on to.
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Overall, Maquette is a solid and unique puzzle game with a sentimental, well-performed story that may hit a little too close to home for some, while maybe providing some closure for others. If only the developer found a way to intertwine the puzzles and the story together to feel more complete.
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If you can pick up Maquette from free as March 2021's PlayStation Plus title, it's difficult to argue against. But if you're looking to pay full price for this 3-hour puzzler, you're money's better spent elsewhere.
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Maquette may not have been the best choice for me to review. I mean, you wouldn’t expect a person whose dog just ran away to review a dog walking simulator, would you? So really, this gal who’s suffering a recent broken heart probably shouldn’t be playing a romantic narrative puzzle game. At the moment, I can’t even listen to music because nearly every single song is about romance. So yeah, deep diving into this game which is also voiced by real life Hollywood couple Bryce Dallas Howa...
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Maquette pairs a novel puzzle-solving apparatus with a plaintive romance saga.
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I have spoken many times about how much respect I have for Annapurna Interactive. They have made it their mission to publish games that are usually a far cry from the norm. While not all of their titles achieve the success they were hoping for, such as Telling Lies, most of them provide enjoyable and thought provoking experiences like The Pathless, Gorogoa, and Outer Wilds. So when I saw the announcement for Maquette, a trippy puzzle game from one of my now-favorite publishers, I was immediat...
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Even with the annoyance of the narrator being so utterly clueless, there's no question that Maquette is effective at illustrating the pain of a good relationship gone bad. The integration of puzzles and story never gel as it should, with only the setting feeling like it was at all related to the narrated events, but even so the pace of each was strong enough that it never feels like things lag -- solve puzzle, get story. Usually just a few lines at a time, hovering over a wall or other piece of environment, but it still felt like a nice...
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Breakups are the absolute worst. They leave a crater in your life that stretches for miles in every direction. The event itself burns like mercury stew, so why not wrap it in a protective layer of puzzle game? Maquette explores the existential horror that is heartbreak with a complex set of recursive puzzles, plunging you into a beautiful prison which somehow contains itself forever in every direction. While the game’s emotional tone comes in fits and starts, the puzzle world itself is almost indescribably beautiful. Seriously, if what I say next fails to make sense, there’s a handy gameplay trailer...
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The Unfinished Swan meets Marriage Story in this debut game for Graceful Decay, as the developer explores the highs and lows of being in love in this brilliant puzzle game based around resizing objects in a scale model of a couple's relationship.
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Maquette's world-bending puzzles are fun at first but, alongside its cliché story, they do grow tiresome as the game draws to a close.
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A welcome surprise to PlayStation Plus’ March 2021 free games, I was able to get my hands on Maquette a few days prior to launch. Unique puzzle games seem to find their way into my hands and Maquette is definitely one of the more intriguing ones available right now.
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A love story told through a first person puzzle game that delights in playing with scale and recursive environments, even if its conundrums eventually feel a little undercooked.
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Maquette has a great puzzle mechanic as its central hook, though it sometimes struggles with obtuse implementation and fussy controls. Nonetheless, the narrative arc of the young relationship at the center of the game is well worth a bit of frustration to experience. Some lovely visuals and music make playing Maquette that much more rewarding.
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In its roughly three-hour runtime, my only complaint is that we’re strictly given Michael’s perspective throughout the entire affair as it’s his thought scribbles you read. It would have been neat to be able to replay the game and have all those replaced with Kenzie’s point of view so the story isn’t so one-sided. There were also a few story beats that felt like they passed over too quickly. At one point I did a bit of a double take as a major development in the story was left in the void of a time-skip, and I very much would...
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Definitely give Maquette a try if you like puzzle games, but be aware that you’re likely to come up against numerous brick walls as you vie to reach its conclusion. The earlier puzzles are truly satisfying to crack but they quickly lose their charm, while later conundrums might leave you scratching your head in frustration. What doesn’t lose its charm, though, is the small yet beautiful narrative that you’ll want to savour every moment of. It’s just a shame there isn’t more of it.
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Maquette is a tricky game to explain in words, but here goes. This first-person puzzler is set in a recursive universe — meaning each iteration of the world contains within it a smaller version of itself. By extension, that means there are ever-larger worlds beyond your reach. It's one of those concepts that's easier to understand with a visual, and the moment you enter the game's main area, it all clicks into place.
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Maquette is a great puzzle game that uses perspective and out of the box thinking very well. The story of Michael and Kenzie is neatly entwined within these puzzle, adding heart and soul to the game as you make your way through the world, big and small.
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The visuals, music, and unique puzzles all come together to illustrate the miniature worlds we build for ourselves over the course of a relationship. Maquette is a peek inside of one of those personal spaces that may look unremarkable from the outside, but is a wondrous world to the people at the center of it. 7/10.
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Maquette has a strong narrative bolstered by top-tier voice performances and honest, relatable writing. The puzzle mechanics are unique and exciting, but the game is let down by signposting issues and obtuse design choices.
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For a game that's all about finding closure in our lives, Maquette makes it exceptionally difficult to get to its end credits.
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Maquette is an incredibly clever and absolutely gorgeous first-person puzzle game, even if it doesn’t really push the boundaries of its own recursive concept in any particularly surprising ways. That left me feeling like its straightforward story and puzzles were a missed opportunity to do something more, but playing through Maquette’s brief adventure was at least a lovely, mind-tickling evening well spent.
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