Saira

When it comes to puzzle games, originality has a lot to say in the matter, because it is pretty difficult to come up with something new after all this time. However, creative minds always find something no one else has thought about before, or at least not in that specific form. Hence, art is not going to start repeating itself too soon, which is definitely good news for those who enjoy it.

Saira is a pretty artsy game at a first glance, because it features some interesting ideas regarding the art direction and the general idea behind the entire thing. However, once you play it for fifteen minutes or so, you start to notice a few things that look like they were taken from other places, albeit slightly modified in the process to feel like something else.

As such, the story talks about a girl by the name of Saira, whose profession happens to involve photography and the most dangerous places in the galaxy. As she keeps on pursuing her passion, something strange happens and every other human from the universe vanishes. In order to find out what happened, Saira needs to go visit a variety of planets and unravel the mystery on her own.

As far as the puzzles are concerned, most of them require you to find various items, but the way to them is sprinkled with even more challenges. In order to emphasize on the idea that she is a photographer, you will have to take pictures of certain clues, in order to use them later on in various other puzzles. Other than that, the riddles are not very complicated, but they can give your brain a workout every now and again.

Visually, the game looks pretty good and the artwork is indeed quite striking, although only a handful of the landscapes are worthy of remembering. Even so, the exotic planets feature different looks and atmospheres, which means that every chapter is somewhat unique and special by itself, as long as you manage to get over the fact that the puzzles always seem to be the same.

In the end, Saira is interesting enough to be worth a try from every platformer enthusiast out there. Not only that, but some of the puzzles are unique and you can really lose a bit of time with the game, as long as you do not mind the constant backtracking you’ll have to do.