Review (2025 September)

Portal is a series of first-person puzzle-platform games developed by Valve. The series has only 2 games in total: for convenience, I will call them Portal (instead of Portal 1) and Portal 2. Note that Portal with RTX is only an enhanced version of Portal, visually different but with the same content. Portal and Portal 2, same price on Steam to this day with obviously different volumes, it is a hot debate among players as to which Portal game is better.

Right after I completed Portal in 2022 and Portal 2 in 2023, I praised Portal as a unique and decent puzzle game but disliked Portal 2 with some specific reasons. As time goes by, my comments with Portal stay the same, while some of my criticism towards Portal 2 have changed to some extent. As this is the page for Portal, please move here for Portal 2 stuff.

Portal is a pure puzzle game. As there were not many puzzle games like Portal at that time, detailed tutorials were required. During the long tutorials, careful players can group the fragmented information (e.g., narration and environment) to form some kind of story while solving puzzles, others may not even feel like there is a storyline hidden behind. Until players reaching Chamber 19, Portal finally starts to deliver some detailed story pieces. Guess what is the last chamber in Portal? Chamber 19 mate ;). That said, a short but compacted puzzle game: For a puzzle lover, Portal is more than enough; For a story reader, Portal is bland.

Meanwhile, though with a short storyline, Portal does has some extra contents.

• Developer Commentary: For players to see how the team developed the game.

• Advanced Chamber: Similar but enhanced, familiar but harder, for challengers.

• Challenge Mode: You solved it, but can you do it better? Fewer portals? Fewer steps? Less time? Test out your limit!

In short, Portal is similar to an indie game that is picky on players. If you enjoy the weird but interesting stuff, you will love Portal. If none of them interests you, Portal is probably just a fancy puzzle game, nothing more.