Order of the Sinking Star Is A Beautiful Puzzle Adventure That Isn’t Afraid to Challenge You (Review)

Order of the Sinking Star made me feel like a genius. Then, about five minutes later, it made me feel like an idiot. Across its four worlds and multiple characters, this would often be the case: a constant back-and-forth between moments of brilliance and slamming my head into my desk. With over 1,000 levels, multiple characters and mechanics, and four paths to choose from, the sheer diversity offers so much to experience. Fans of Jonathon Blow’s will once again see why his games are so hard to put down. Even when it occasionally left me wishing it explained itself a little better, Order of the Sinking Star is a gorgeous and wonderfully strange adventure that consistently makes finding the solution feel worth the struggle.

And struggle is the correct word. I would spend so much time on a puzzle, only for a light bulb moment and solve it instantly. Sometimes this came from brute-forcing the level, or backing out and trying another. All throughout the adventure, I was constantly learning new mechanics on my own, though some did leave me wanting some tips, and exploring a strange narrative that took its time piecing itself together, though I wish revisiting these pieces was easier.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Pros	Cons
The beautiful visuals give each world a distinctive identity.	Some puzzle mechanics could be explained or demonstrated more clearly.
The slow-burn narrative develops into an engaging story with an intriguing world.	Revisiting previous story moments and conversations can be unnecessarily tedious.
The puzzle mechanics are clever, varied, and surprisingly deep.
The diverse puzzles and flexible difficulty options let players choose their challenge level.

Order of the Sinking Star Is Delightfully Puzzling

Order of the Sinking Star wastes no time showing off just how beautiful its world is. From the very moment you are thrust into the action, or rather, puzzles, and offered the freedom to explore four worlds. Each environment is packed with small details that have no effect on gameplay, but help give a visual identity and lean into the worldbuilding. Exploring the overworld is almost as thrilling as jumping into the many, many puzzles, especially when Order of the Sinking Star incorporates the puzzle mechanics into the overworld itself.

Of course, the puzzles are the real stars of the game, and Order of the Sinking Star delivers an impressive amount of variety. What I love is how the mechanics seem incredibly simple on the surface, but are deceptively deep once you get in. Levels often come in sets, with the simple mechanic leading into more and more challenging uses. Mastering the art of pushing, pulling, and swapping blocks doesn’t sound difficult, but more than once I was stumped and had to reset multiple times.

Order of the Sinking Star doesn’t endlessly remix the same idea either. It is constantly tacking new mechanics on old ones and mixing things up. Learning how each ability interacts not only with the environment, but also the other characters, provides a thoroughly fun experience. No matter what direction you choose in the overworld, you are constantly learning and combining new abilities and concepts in increasingly complicated ways. When worlds collide, and dimensions become 3D, the game truly opens up and ramps up the challenge.

Tying everything together is just how superb the soundtrack is in Order of the Sinking Star. Sometimes it simply fades into the background, or when I’ve spent far too long on a level, I find myself jamming to it and focusing. The music complements the environments and world, offering a peaceful, atmospheric, or contemplative score that almost never becomes distracting. Even after dozens of puzzles, I constantly look forward to what new discoveries I will make.

Order of the Sinking Star’s Narrative Gets You Surprisingly Invested

It would be easy for Order of the Sinking Star to let its puzzles do all the heavy lifting, and at first I was afraid this would be the case. The story starts off slow and leans into mystery. But the more I played, the more it pieced itself together and allowed me to connect the dots. It does take a while, especially considering much of it is scattered across four worlds, multiple characters, and discoverable audio logs. That approach lends an extra layer of mystery to an adventure already filled with questions waiting to be answered.

To truly understand Order of the Sinking Star’s narrative, you have to pay attention. Who would you have to do that in a puzzle game? But much of the story comes from conversations between characters, and I admit I missed some of it because I was so focused on solving the puzzle in front of me. But the game forces you to piece things together on your own rather than simply info-dumping on you. It also makes it completely optional, because you can easily enjoy the puzzles without paying attention to the story.

The characters themselves are also a major part of why the narrative works. Their conversations and interactions reveal plenty about their individual personalities, but they also help establish their relationships with one another. And they almost feel like real people, because they act differently around one another. One of my favorites is between the Warrior and the Bard, but they all shine. The Queen is another compelling character, and don’t even get me started on Magistrate Reynard.

Admittedly, the story is a slow burn, and the opening hours can occasionally feel a little too deliberate. Order of the Sinking Star takes its time establishing its characters, worlds, and mysteries before drawing you in. Once the narrative starts rolling, however, it becomes remarkably easy to get hooked. It is easy to overlook the narrative in Order of the Sinking Star, but it truly adds more weight to the great gameplay.

Diversity and Difficulty Go Hand-In-Hand in Order of the Sinking Star

Despite how approachable many of its basic mechanics initially appear, Order of the Sinking Star hides a surprising amount of depth beneath the surface. Many of its individual abilities are immediately easy to understand: one character pushes blocks, one pulls them, this one swaps places with blocks, and so on. But the game steadily finds new ways to test how well you understand them and can combine them. On many occasions, I had to rethink abilities I thought I had already mastered as more and more characters and obstacles were added.

It is these different abilities and elements that complicate things and ensure puzzles don’t feel repetitive. Just when I mastered the first three characters, another was added that could not be harmed by monsters and protected those standing adjacent, and later another who could crystallize anything he touched. But what is most impressive about this is that The Order of the Sinking Star doesn’t just make puzzles bigger; it gradually adds layers. The four worlds complement this, effectively allowing you to choose how you play, almost like a choose-your-own-adventure.

As much as I love The Order of Sinking Star, there are two gripes that its freedom does not eliminate. The game trusts you to learn on your own, but I wouldn’t have minded some direction, especially when first using the Cave Miner to the west. Having a hint option for some mechanics would have been an easy way to resolve this. But perhaps my main complaint is how tedious and difficult it is to replay conversations and audio logs. The story is a slow burn and takes time to get invested, so some details escaped me, and I would have loved a simple menu to get a refresher on the story so far.

Order of the Sinking Star is the kind of puzzle game that continually finds new ways to surprise you, whether through another clever mechanic, a beautiful new environment, or an unexpected story moment. Its occasional lack of explanation can make certain challenges more frustrating than intended, while revisiting important story moments is unnecessarily cumbersome. Regardless, these issues do not overshadow the game’s best aspects: surprisingly deep mechanics, tremendous puzzle diversity, gorgeous visuals, and an endearing cast that makes the narrative increasingly difficult to walk away from.

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A PS5 copy of Order of the Sinking Star was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.