[buddi]

I liked them both, but not a LOT. I think Kate Walker is well fleshed out as a character, although I did find her a little dull and bland for my taste. The second one especially, I found the characters quite compelling. I love the aesthetic, particularly the clock work mechanisms. There's some really beautiful scenery and the sounds work is great.

On the down side, Oscar the robot conductor drove me nuts. I don't recall the puzzles being particularly difficult, although I do think I had to look at a walkthrough a few times, but they did feel a little tedious at times. Lots of fetch quests to persuade people to help you, you kind of get to feel like, sigh, here we go again every time you pull into a new station. There were a couple instances of pixel hunting, I remember one point where you have to pick a flower and the hot spot is so absurdly tiny that its hard to hit even once you know where it is. I agree with people that didn't find the game world interactive enough, especially since there was about a thousand doors you could click on to hear Kate say, "no need to go down there." The closing cut scene of the second game is really very lovely and even made me sniffle a little.