Return of the Obra Dinn

Games that tell stories only capable of being relayed through the medium of gaming will always hold a special place in my heart. Since my first encounters with video games as a whole, I've never quite found any method of storytelling to even compare to it. Sure, the occasional film or manga or what have you might catch my attention, but those I hold at the peak of any other medium don't really come close to the experiences I've had with gaming.
Return of the Obra Dinn has once again solidified this idea for me, and it does so in such a way where I feel that everything within the experience is deserving of commendation. The actors, writing, art, music, and everything all together unite for an extremely fleshed out and cohesive experience that held my attention the whole way through. I believe this holds true for much of the game's playerbase due to the incredible completion rates seen on each of the achievements. Return of the Obra Dinn manages to create a very unique gameplay loop I haven't quite seen elsewhere, it's an incredibly fresh and engaging experience that I feel anyone with a brain could hold appreciation for. It might not be a grand story in comparison to other titles of today, but it sure as hell is a good one, a GREAT one.
A game that will constantly have you thinking, theorizing, trying new things, finding new angles, and most importantly, keeping you engaged following through its bizarre and beautiful storytelling. This is a game that I believe couldn't and shouldn't be passed up, if you're interested, play it. You won't regret it.

I wish I could play this for the first time again. Challenging detective mystery/puzzle game that isn't frustrating. I love the way the story is revealed through each death you investigate. Beautifully immersive black and white graphics, amazing soudtrack— nothing's been able to top this.

This game was so good that my wife, upon finishing it, forced me to play it while she watched.
Only downside is it's a once-per-life game.

i am both the most intelligent and dumbest mf alive playing this game. I can simultaneously figure out someone's identity with a super subtle detail and go most of the game not knowing an integral character's identity because I missed dialogue where someone literally called him out by name. 10/10

I put off playing this game for the longest time and I have NO IDEA WHY! This game was incredible, and I wish I could experience it for the first time again. It is 100% doable without hints or spoilers, so definitely don't do yourself a disservice by looking them up. Now I will just be impatiently waiting for the next game like this

Lucas Pope has a style, and that style is making you actually perform the challenges in the game instead of modelling them. In Papers, Please you had to actually find discrepancies in documents; likewise, in Obra Dinn, a mystery game that has you uncover the fates of many dead people aboard a tragedy-stricken ship, you don't get any sorts of "Compare Clues" button.
In this game, if you want to compare clues, you have to actually do it.
At the start of Obra Dinn, you are provided with the list of everyone who was aboard, a sketch of their faces, and a clock that lets you see the last memory of a corpse. Now it's up to you to cross-reference an incredible number of events, meticulously writing down everyone's cause of death while—and this is the game's main challenge—assigning identities.
Sure, some of them are relatively straightforward: there were two sets of siblings on the ship, and a couple of names are mentioned directly in the memories, and did you notice who was it that tasked you with unveiling the mystery in the first place? But straightforward identities are rare and far between, and in no time you'll find yourself having to distinguish between four rather identical Chinese seamen.
Most cases of death are, to the contrary, straightforward, but sometimes you'll have to actually think hard and model the whole situation, like when someone goes MIA or is wounded way before they bleed to death.
Does it all sound fun to you? Well, it bloody is. The game is brilliant at giving just enough clues to make you do educated guesses. You'll have to listen to accents, note the types of clothes, or who stands where on the sketches, or in which room a person is typically found. And I can't stress enough how awesome it is that there are no shortcuts, no gamisms, no buttons saying things like "Determine X's Origin." If you want to find a Polynesian of this ship, you'll have to actually turn your brain on and think which of them looks Polynesian, like you would do in real life.
No mystery game I've played has ever made me feel this close to being an actual detective. Even the good ones, like Ace Attorney, are mostly about guessing the creators' logic ("you won't leave this screen until you've clicked all the clues"). Obra Dinn, on the other hand, lets you loose—thus making all your findings feel yours, and yourself, smart.
The music is, as expected, stunning. The visuals are unusual, but not random: this game is, to a large extent, about the recognition of faces and other distinctive features, which the pixellated visuals make both easier and harder.
The only downside I can think of is that in the end, Obra Dinn is a bit too easy to brute force. Whenever you find a dead body and are sure about the nature of their death, you have zero reason not to try and assign an identity to it—any random one—because you might happen to guess right. (Each time you write down three fates correctly, the game confirms them; after that, you can change the names of all other victims, since this also confirms they were wrong, and try the guesswork cycle again...)
Then again, I guess it can't be helped, and it's up to the player not to detract from the fun by cheesing.
P. S. And, unlike oh so many adventures, it takes some effort to make sure all ambiguous causes of death accept more than one answer, like when a person was thrown overboard by a beast, you can choose "fell overboard" or "crushed by a beast". So, no game logic stupidity here either.

I played this game in short weekly increments with my Mom! Even though we live half a continent away from each other, I streamed it on Discord and she took notes. This was a great game for bouncing ideas off each other, and the slow, exploratory pace meant that it was fine if we got a little off-topic or started chatting.
Having just finished it now, we were both really impressed by how many different types of clues and logic may be necessary, and deeply satisfied by the gameplay loop. Story was compelling, and the mechanics highly intriguing. Would recommend playing it solo, too, but hey! If you've got a mystery enthusiast in your life, maybe this is your sign to get into contact with them and spend some quality time!