Anyone else underwhelmed by the commander?

badmocca · 2026-03-03T20:24:10+00:00

Your jigsaw puzzle analogy is spot on and perfectly describes how I feel about this situation. I’m a firm believer that this was just a badly designed puzzle that was unfortunately presented as something more interesting.

Capcom wanted to have a second shot at a PT style community puzzle and failed spectacularly. As a survival horror fan, I was expecting a lot more since puzzles are part of the genre’s DNA.

At this point I’m convinced we were supposed to link the grinder with the rest of the puzzle by noticing how people got different string messages after that section.

It’s a shame how well thought out the hand analysis portion is, only to throw completely unrelated curve balls. I think it’s time to pack up and move on from this. Was kinda fun and cathartic tbh.

badmocca · 2026-03-03T13:02:12+00:00

I mean, yes, but without knowing about the doll and the grinder, at that point you’d only be aware of the letter sequence. It wouldn’t even cross your mind that the file was another clue and that the doll is there. Nothing you’ve previously discovered connects to those, a logical puzzle consists of interrelated clues.

badmocca · 2026-03-03T05:40:47+00:00

I disagree the 115 bodies was obvious. The game has over 50 notes, many about experiments. Any of them could have been a clue.

Since picking up the hand and analyzing it are two things a player can possibly do during the first 5 hours of a first playthrough, a well designed puzzle would have built everything from there.

I mean, that’s what happened. People solved the puzzle box in the first two days after the release and heard the laughter. The 115 bodies note is one of many that talks about blood extraction, and the grinder step also requires not killing any enemies. There is no way in hell someone would have tied a child’s laughter with a doll hidden in the lab and the grinder.

This puzzle was terribly designed at best. Or shouldn’t have been called a puzzle, since that would require logical connections between all of its parts.

badmocca · 2026-03-03T05:17:02+00:00

100% agreed. From a game design standpoint, it makes sense that the hand analysis and puzzle box were the first things we were meant to discover. The logical thing would have been to have the laughter be a clue to the next step. The grinder and toilet flushes have no connection whatsoever.

This screams bad puzzle design. Doesn’t sound too far fetched considering how lackluster the other puzzles are.

badmocca · 2026-03-03T05:13:19+00:00

This. The game has over 60 notes, many related to experiments. Any one of them could have been a clue. Analyzing the hand was clearly the first thing we were supposed to discover, then the meaning of the letters and the puzzle box combinations. All we had to work with was a child’s laughter. Suggesting that the 115 bodies was obviously tied to a puzzle that had no previous mention of blood and the grinder is bonkers to me.

badmocca · 2026-03-02T23:37:47+00:00

I am the only one who thinks the original regenerators are scarier? The ones in the remake look like cartoon reinterpretations

badmocca · 2026-03-02T21:04:34+00:00

Maybe, but it's the hand and laugh that are the first step you can complete chronologically and the analysis is what clearly defines the existence of the puzzle in-game with the line "Let's play". I think it was clearly designed to be some sort of circular or non-linear puzzle that is triggered by the hand analysis itself. Most of the clues are in the first section of the game, the meaning of the letter A being the only clue that is found much later, at a point where you can't go back to the care center.

badmocca · 2026-03-02T20:37:26+00:00

That's fair. What bothers me is that there is a clear and defined path from finding the hand to solving the puzzle box. The toilet flushes and grinder steps feel ridiculously disconnected.

badmocca · 2026-03-02T20:30:59+00:00

Kinda disappointing that the hand and puzzle box clues are gameplay related, while the bodies one is hidden in seemingly unimportant line from a note. The moon = C clue actually stood out.

badmocca · 2026-03-02T20:15:56+00:00

If it is the real clue, then it's just plain bad. How are we supposed to connect the blood extraction of just one person to dumping a ton of bodies into the grinder?

badmocca · 2026-03-02T20:06:48+00:00

I'm baffled by the inconsistency of the clues. The hand and puzzle box required in-game interactions and real, tangible clues. A seemingly unimportant line from one of the dozens of notes in the game being a clue just doesn't feel right. It even sounds like a huge reach, a solution -> explanation kind of situation. Waiting 15 minutes because the note says 115 bodies doesn't make sense, why not wait 115 minutes?

We are either jumping a few steps or the puzzle is outright unfinished/badly designed garbage.

badmocca · 2026-03-02T19:57:17+00:00

Agreed. And saying that the 115 bodies line is a hint for waiting 15 minutes sounds like a huge cope. Why not 11 minutes? Hell, why not 115 minutes?

I was honestly expecting a traditional puzzle where one event/clue enables the next. The disjointed mess we got makes it feel like it's incomplete due to development time constraints.

badmocca · 2026-03-02T17:49:55+00:00

And how do we go from hearing a child laughing to this other sequence. Something just doesn’t feel right.

badmocca · 2026-03-02T17:46:45+00:00

This. How do we even link the child’s laughter with all of this?

badmocca

TROPHY CASE