After almost a year away from playing games, I returned to it with Technobabylon. I bought it last year, because I had played the free episodes versions, and although I thought that the third one was really bad with its minigames, I really liked the first two, specially the second part. And, well, I didn't like it. Of all the games from the Wadjet catalogue I've played, I feel this and the last Blackwell are the worse. The only one I think is worse is A Golden Wake, but I haven't finished it yet.
What I liked? I liked the pace: as somebody said on a previous post, I think the change of characters is really well integrated and they move the story well. The world construction and the personality of the main characters were also interesting. The story has some nice moments here and there, and the graphic design and the music are top notch to my taste.
…but the dialogues, for christ sake, are terrible. They're affected and cliche almost all the time. I think I can live with that, but the worse is that they usually used to state obvious things regarding what the characters are doing or have to do. In my opinion, this is one of the sins of most modern adventure games, dating back to at least The Black Mirror. Together with this I didn't find the motivations of the characters believable, but I think that's rather subjective. In any case, that ruined the story for me in various parts.
I also disliked the fact that in various parts where crucial things are supposed to be happenging, the characters still take the time to talk about their past or about things that aren't important at that moment. That eliminates the plausibility of what's going on, making the game feel cringe worthy.
The puzzles range from mediocre to ok. Even those that could be great, weren't well implemented: too easy, too obvious. Almost all were just a formality. Regarding this, I think the possibilities of science fiction setting were wasted in this regard; same thing happens with the use of different characters at the same time.
Finally, two more things. First, Technobabylon has come up with (at least I haven't seen it before) a new form of taking away further agency from the player: regarding the way characters acquire a lot of the items. A lot of the items are given by another character without any reason, or characters just open something and take the items inside without the player even having to extra click or anything. And that's the only thing one needs to solve several of the puzzles presented. I'm not sure I'm explaining this well, but this and, second, the fact that the "rooms" are streamlined (another thing I dislike about modern adventure games) made my playing a boring experience.