The Star Named EOS Movie Review – A Touching and Heartwarming Story

The Star Named EOS follows Dei as they look through photos her mother sends in letters during her travels and piece together the journey by recreating her photos. You work in different settings and solve compact puzzles to find patterns and codes and discover hidden objects to move on.

However, not everything is as it seems – a book may provide a path for you, or maybe a code awaits you as you look around the room. That’s as much as I can say without being too specific and giving away any solutions, to be candid, but remember to look at everything and fully explore your surroundings.

There’s a nice mix of puzzles here, some are straightforward to solve and others will have you reaching for your notebook and scratching your head. A few of them confused me, but with a little thinking and puzzle solving the solution presented itself. Or I stopped being a stupid goose and used what was in front of me.

That said, there’s no facilitate if you get stuck. Similar point-and-click title The Room had hints available, and Paper Trail even had workarounds if you get stuck to show you how to proceed with your paper folding.

Unfortunately, there are no hints, tips, or solutions in Star Named EOS. As someone who loves the idea of ​​puzzle games but always ends up getting stuck and stressed (that’s my problem, for sure), I would have liked to see even the smallest hint, like a small glint on an item you should be looking at or which way you should be facing.

While solving various scenarios, I also noticed that you can apply the Switch’s touch controls while in the puzzle itself, but not to look around the room or enter a zoomed-in view of a specific puzzle. Many games do this, and I always wonder why it’s not fully touchscreen, especially since the Switch’s controls are a bit iffy at times.

The game is also truly stunning, with hand-drawn landscapes and animated scenes, with enough detail to draw the eye even in the obscure corners of each environment. You may recognize the graphics from Silver Lining Studios’ previous title, Behind the Frame, a similarly hand-drawn puzzle game that transfers its look and feel to EOS. The games don’t feel connected in terms of story, though.

Paired with this is a full voiceover by Suzie Yeung (known for Honkai Star Rail’s Hanya and Genshin Impact’s Eula) narrating the experience, and a very pretty soundtrack reminiscent of the piano ballads in Genshin Impact’s Liyue Area, mixed with a smattering of the cheerful melodies from Sims 4. Oh, and by the way, the soundtrack is available to download on release day, which I highly recommend as it’s stunning and emotional.

Silver Lining Studios’ heartwarming puzzler runs well on Switch, with minimal loading times and no hangs. However, I found myself stuck on a screen after completing a certain puzzle because the exit button didn’t appear until I restarted the game. Thankfully, the game autosaves, so nothing was lost, but it was a bit inconvenient.

Regardless, I had a great time with The Star Named EOS. Better puzzle solvers than me will certainly have an even better time, but the story is intriguing and deeper than you might think, making you want to move on to the next scenario and discover more.

If this intrigues you, we can recommend similar hidden object games for Switch, as well as point-and-click games you might enjoy.