If you are a fan of puzzle games then I am sure that you dug your claws into the beautiful and mind-boggling puzzles offered by A Little to the Left by Max Inferno and Secret Mode. The game was originally released back in 2022 and it received another DLC earlier however, today, we are jumping into its brand-new DLC called Seeing Stars. Seeing Stars is the biggest DLC released for A Little to the Left so far and it brings some much-needed quality-of-life changes to the game as well such as a useful Hint System. This is our review of A Little to the Left: Seeing Stars on the PC in which we try not to scratch our head too much while solving some really difficult puzzles.
Seeing Stars does not start easy, unlike the base game. Right from the very first puzzle, you are in for a treat as you try to solve an organizing puzzle comprising some snacks. The game tasked me to sort out the best possible snack but for some reason, I spent a lot more time figuring out what I needed to do to solve it and move on with the DLC. I was certainly not expecting to get stuck in the very first puzzle. Turns out I could solve the puzzle by arranging items by stacking the ones eaten from the same side. This puzzle had two more possible solutions and each one was something that I was not expecting. Sometimes you can figure out what needs to be done instantly while sometimes you need to play around with the puzzle a little to figure out what needs to be done.
With A Little to the Left, you need to think out of the box with its puzzles because every puzzle is different and unique. Apart from the puzzles where you have to organize or arrange objects based on their size, the puzzles here are unique because the solution is mostly something that you will not have in your mind at all when you first see a puzzle. There was another puzzle that really surprised me because it had three vases and the largest vase in the middle was broken. To complete the puzzle, I had to break the smaller vases and use the broken pieces to fix the one in the middle. In another puzzle, I had to place down toppings on top of a pizza. You never expect what the next puzzle is going to be, and this is what sets this game apart from other puzzle games because normally, the puzzles go in a flow.
There is no gradual increase in difficulty in puzzles. A lot of times it will happen that you will get stuck on a puzzle and you might need to use the new Hint System to clear but you will clear the next puzzle instantly and then get stuck further down in the game. In addition, the puzzles are not similar to each other so you cannot just understand a pattern or formula and apply it to every puzzle in the game to solve it. In certain puzzles, an answer seems obvious but when you do it in that way, it is not complete because the developer had a completely different idea in their minds. In one of the puzzles, I expected to organize a tech cupboard, but it turned out that I even had to organize the tapes in an ascending order which caused me to get stuck on the puzzle for quite some time. You always need to think out of the box to solve these puzzles.
The new Seeing Stars DLC will keep you busy for around 10-15 hours depending on your proficiency with solving puzzles. I still have to complete some of the final puzzles because they require a specific number of stars to obtain before I can play them, and this is something that was missing from the base game. In the base game, you could have completed the final puzzle by skipping the puzzles but here in the Seeing Stars DLC, some bonus puzzles are locked behind game progression. You not only have to complete each puzzle in the game but also complete them in multiple ways to unlock all of the bonus puzzles at the end but trust me, they are worth all of the trouble.
To make your life easier, the new DLC brings a quality-of-life update for the base game as well and it adds a new Hint system for every puzzle in the game, including multiple solutions for a single puzzle. This Hint system can be accessed from the pause menu and then you have to solve a mini-game of the sort where you must use an eraser to erase a whiteboard that showcases you the complete solution. If you prefer, you can only erase a small bit to give you that small nudge but if you are completely stuck, you can erase the complete puzzle and access the whole solution. You can do this for puzzles with multiple solutions as well and go after those stars.
You will also find a new soundtrack to keep you company throughout the DLC levels. As a bonus, this time around, you will be introduced to more than one cat as well. At certain levels, when you complete a solution, these furry friends will jump into action and entertain you with their cute, little antics. The visual art style of the new puzzles follows the same theme as the base game, but I love the main menu takeover of the new DLC. It would be great to switch between the main menu screens based on your mood but still, the new DLC really takes over the game with its main menu design. The game runs absolutely flawlessly on the PS5 system and I can easily say that this is one of the best puzzle games that you can try out on your PlayStation console right now. You need to adjust to the controls because this is best played with a mouse but after spending some hours into the game, you get used to it.
Final Verdict:
Seeing Stars is a great DLC for A Little to the Left and if you enjoyed playing the base game, I am sure that you will love playing the new DLC as well. Each of the puzzles is unique and with multiple solutions on offer, you will be spending a lot of time on each head, scratching your head trying to find all of the solutions. If you love playing puzzle games that really test your cognitive skills and problem-solving skills, you are going to love A Little to the Left: Seeing Stars. With $9.99 price tag, it certainly offers hours of puzzle solving. If you are looking for an excuse to jump back into A Little to the Left or want to try out something new in the world of puzzle solving, you should definitely give the game and its new DLC a shot on the PS5.
Final Score: 8.5/10
