Every facet of gaming has its core components. A puzzle has intriguing mechanics that are fun to unravel. An adventure has an interesting story that warrants exploration. A mystery binds the two together with a cast the player cares about and stakes that make the experience worthwhile. And for all of its surface appeal, Return of the Obra Dinn has none of these and focuses mainly on making dry, repetitive gameplay last longer than it needs to.

In the game, you play an anonymous insurance agent tasked with finding out the fates of 60 crew members of the titular vessel which reappeared five years after being lost at sea. Right off the bat, the game wastes the opportunity for player investment by making the PC an anonymous woman with a job to do. How does she feel about being stuck on a spooky, lifeless ship by her lonesome? How is she affected by the gruesome fates of the crew? Is she more concerned with doing her job or with getting closure for the unfortunate souls that perished aboard?

Meh. Doesn't matter.

For a game whose central premise deals with the mysterious fate of 60 people, Return of the Obra Dinn sure doesn't seem to care about who they actually were. Through static 3D scenes and snippets of (admittedly very well done) VO, all it tells you about them is what they looked like, what they sounded like and how they died. Exactly what you need to complete the puzzle at the core of the experience and nothing more. Which makes logical sense, I guess, but stops you from actually caring about the people you are investigating, dismissing the game's "adventure" and "mystery" credentials to focus solely on its "puzzle" aspect.

When a game undercooks two of its three themes, it must mean the third is its strongest asset, right? Which is weird, because Obra Dinn's core mechanic – the gameplay that drives the entire experience – is little more than a game of Cluedo (Clue) ("so-and-so knifed by whoosis in the galley"); with strong overtones of Where's Wally (Waldo) — except 60 times longer.

The basic gameplay loop goes as follows: 1) find remains; 2) use a magical pocket watch to wind back time to the scene of a person's demise; 3) listen to a brief voiceover that sets the scene; 4) focus on as many faces as you can before a timer runs out and the scene fades to black; and 5) try to use this information (and additional notes from a book about the ship's fate) to identify the crew shown in the scene.

That's it.

There's no real investigation involved – no other avenues of inquiry you can follow and nothing you, personally, can do to shed light on circumstances. All you do for the entire game is listen, stare at an image, see if the book has anything to add and jot down "well, that guy was crushed by a barrel." Oftentimes more than once.

The game has an annoying tendency to slow your progress with needless animations (like a mist that's supposed to guide you to the next victim that – more often than not – has you running in a circle to stop in the exact place you started); pointless repetition (as accessing some scenes is only possible from within other scenes, so if you miss identifying someone in sub-scene four, you have to wade through the preceding three scenes once again); and even patronizing "Well done!" messages that occur every time you fully identify three crew members (which merely restate what you already put down).

I have nothing but respect for solo developers and seeing a critic dismiss five years of work can't feel all that great, but it took me six hours to finish Return of the Obra Dinn and, honestly? It wasn't fun and I wish I spent 'em playing something else instead.

Return of the Obra Dinn is an odd duck that I have a hard time recommending. Puzzle enthusiasts might be annoyed by the game's tendency to needlessly slow progress and players who want a great narrative or an intriguing adventure may be turned-off by the gonzo story and paper-thin cast... Who the target audience of this game was supposed to be may be the real enigma to unravel...

As to how I feel about it? Why — that's no mystery at all.