Something that set Baba is You apart for me compared to any other puzzle game I can remember playing is the puzzles themselves were actually "funny." Not like Portal, where you solved puzzles alongside a funny narrative, but in the actually language of the puzzles themselves there are setups which get subverted in absurd and delightful ways, often in multiple layers, as you work your way through to a solution. Playing made me feel like the math part of my brain was laughing.
The game doesn't hold your hand, and I think it took about 10 hours for me to learn enough of the puzzle language for things to get really good (and then it started to descend into frustrating fiddliness in the deep endgame), but the middle 30 hours or so we're some of the most gratifying gameplay I've experienced.
It kind of felt like the anti-Witness. The Witness was fastidiously fair and so carefully constructed I can look back at it and marvel, but actually playing it was pretty formal and mirthless. Baba is You can be a little sloppy and unfair, but it's warm and fun and funny, and the actual craftsmanship of the puzzles themselves is still top tier, in it's own way.
The game doesn't hold your hand, and I think it took about 10 hours for me to learn enough of the puzzle language for things to get really good (and then it started to descend into frustrating fiddliness in the deep endgame), but the middle 30 hours or so we're some of the most gratifying gameplay I've experienced.
It kind of felt like the anti-Witness. The Witness was fastidiously fair and so carefully constructed I can look back at it and marvel, but actually playing it was pretty formal and mirthless. Baba is You can be a little sloppy and unfair, but it's warm and fun and funny, and the actual craftsmanship of the puzzles themselves is still top tier, in it's own way.