A good tutorial tells you more than you think

I've reviewed enough games to trust one signal above almost everything else: the tutorial. How a game teaches you says a lot about how much its makers respect your time and intelligence.

The best tutorials get out of the way quickly. They show you one thing, let you try it, and move on. Emberfall Saga did this well — I was making real decisions within minutes instead of tapping glowing arrows for half an hour.

The worst ones either dump a wall of text or lock every button until you follow a rigid script. When that happens, it usually predicts a game that never quite trusts you later either.

So next time you install something, pay attention to those first minutes. They're not just onboarding — they're a preview of the whole experience.