DLC for Layers of Fear
Layers of Fear: Inheritance expands the plot from Layers of Fear and tells the story of the painter’s daughter, who comes back to her childhood home to face her past. Lead the daughter through what’s left of the mansion and take part in the madness that her father bestowed upon the whole family. Can she forgive her father, or will she resent all that has happened?
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Foi necessário essa dlc? Tipo, é legal ver o ponto de vista da filha na história, mas isso realmente acrescenta alguma coisa relevante? Até porquê a gente já descobre tudo na história original, como podem ver o medo aqui é quase inexistente.
Solid epilogue to Layers of Fear that wraps up the storyline nicely. While it doesn't innovate the original game, the perspective of the daughter is unique and interesting if you enjoyed the main story. Unfortunately, re-exploring the house just isn't as enjoyable as it was in the first playthrough, as the majority of the mysterious atmosphere disappears. Inheritance attempts to address this through childhood memories, but only with minimal success. The best parts of the hour-long DLC were (1) the endings, which I felt wrapped up the Layers of Fear story excellently, and (2) most of the additional soundtracks, which were just as great as the original game's. While the Inheritance is definitely worth a playthrough if you enjoyed Layers of Fear, don't expect anything more than an epilogue with the same mechanics and themes.
DLC cool mais trop court
Uma DLC bem "meeeh", não acrescenta muito pra história e é bem fraquinha.
Link to review of base game: https://www.backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/392524/
In a lot of ways, Inheritance feels like it was written as a response to some of the critiques that hit its vanilla predecessor- you get a seemingly more sympathetic protagonist in the form of the Painter’s Daughter, a story that is less about jump scares and more about demented childhood visions, art that holds greater consistency, and narrative choices that are a lot more clear-cut this time around.
Unfortunately, these responses are only half-successful, and they don’t offset the other problems that prevail. Nonetheless, let’s begin with those partial wins, starting with the protagonist since she segues nicely into the story. As I said, the plot is about the child of JD, now all grown-up, visiting her family home to gain closure over the abuse she experienced. Interestingly, there’s a bit of a retcon here towards her father; JD, as you guys know from reading my review of the base game, was not given a reason as to why he went ballistic and acted maliciously towards everyone. This time around, you get a couple of postulations: one is from the woman (who shall be given the initials DJ for future references), who believes her dad’s schizophrenia was genetic, and the second is hinted as stress from dealing with his physically/emotionally scarred wife (who suffered an accident) and having to essentially raise his girl by himself. At the same time, though, there were many occasions wherein the narrative doubled down on the perfectionist mentality being the cause of JD’s destruction, so you can see what I mean by a half-measure.
All this information is divulged via flashbacks, which are triggered upon visiting various rooms in the old estate. Dialogue is unfortunately very limited in terms of DJ’s reactions to what she sees around her, but regardless I did appreciate the writers at least incorporating SOME lines compared to the silent protagonist drivel of her dad- hearing her gasp, for example, as a lamp fell out of nowhere, was a great, naturalistic jumper that simultaneously made her more human.
Referring to the secondary half-measure, the horror gimmicks of the prequel have been mostly replaced with beats resembling a Gothic tragedy. I’ve always been particularly sensitive to tales involving childhood trauma, especially as it pertains to being yelled at, and Inheritance hits the right melancholic notes. Hearing DJ get screamed at for using the wrong color in a drawing, or witnessing her dog yelp from pain affected me more than anything in the first game due to this natural empathy.
Like her father, her mind bends spacetime around her, warping memories into supernatural perturbations. However, it works a little better this time around because, outside of a crayon-schemed swamp, Bloober Team was more interested in crafting simple alterations for her: you aren’t getting collapsing libraries, screeching banshees, or phantom merry-go-rounds, but conflagrations, toys en masse, and imposing doorways. Stuff still deliquesces like wax on a burning candle, but those kind of stunts are very much minimized. And though it’s not scary (that partly being the intention here), if you accept the whole enterprise as a 3D storybook rendering of a child’s suffering, it works a lot better.
Unfortunately, the trajectory of DJ’s arc is inherently goaded towards her accepting who her father was by way of two of the endings, which would have been fine if the game had successfully portrayed him in a better light (as I noted above, it does not succeed at). As such, the daughter is slightly unlikable. The third ending is better, but harder to achieve, and ends on a depressing note that implies the developers did not support players taking this path. When considered in conjunction with the very short nature of the DLC, I can’t say that the narrative is good, though at least it is an improvement from its originator.
Graphically, I’m not going to go into extravagant detail since these are essentially the same assets as Layers of Fear. The house’s power has been cut entirely, basking it in a darkness that has sapped away all the hues- a flashlight is provided that reveals decayed furniture, collapsing structures, paint stains, and all kinds of gunk. I complained about the caliginosity in the main title, however, the lightsource in Inheritance really makes a difference in spite of its limited range.
The glimpses into the past, on the other hand, mostly abandon the murky luminosity, giving way to colored lighting that concurrently evokes wistful reminiscence and schitzy memories, going a long way towards overcoming that uncanniness I had issues with in the main Layers. There was an attempt here at recreating a kid’s perspective, and, frankly, it worked for me: the aforementioned tall doors, having to climb to reach simple heighted furniture like tables, toys being utilized as puzzle answers, a little bit of everything is here. That swamp section I briefly skimmed over earlier is also a sight to behold, reminding me a lot of the Paper Mario series in terms of all the vistas being papyraceous and drawn upon like a kid was set amok with crayola sticks.
Unfortunately, while the lighting is fine, the developers decided to throw in groundmist on 50 percent of the areas you enter, as though someone left a fog machine running somewhere nonstop. It makes things pointlessly obscure and doesn’t add anything to the atmosphere besides feeling like a dumb, funhouse attraction at a carnival. There was also this one section that had a dog speeding around, and the model, in all sincerity, looked painfully cheap, like someone pulled it out of a sixth-gen proprietary engine.
Sound effects and music are essentially the same as the prequel, so I won’t spend time there. The voice acting is slightly improved upon since DJ’s actress, Kristen Lennox, is a more-rounded performer, taking on the mother in addition to the daughter, though she’s still honestly not that great. JD, on the other hand, has been replaced with a new vocalist named Chris Nichter- he is better than Braa, but still suffers from the same base issues of not being able to properly convey the harsher emotions necessitated from an abusive father and husband.
No changes have occurred to the gameplay outside of narrative choices being more noticeable for players to engage with should they wish to exercise some agency.
But overall, that’s it. If you liked Layers of Fear, Inheritance is a fine DLC that both adds a lot of context to it whilst also crafting a decent sequel to events past. However, if you were like me and didn’t enjoy the previous one, then Inheritance’s few improvements won’t do enough to convince you to give it a try.
In a lot of ways, Inheritance feels like it was written as a response to some of the critiques that hit its vanilla predecessor- you get a seemingly more sympathetic protagonist in the form of the Painter’s Daughter, a story that is less about jump scares and more about demented childhood visions, art that holds greater consistency, and narrative choices that are a lot more clear-cut this time around.
Unfortunately, these responses are only half-successful, and they don’t offset the other problems that prevail. Nonetheless, let’s begin with those partial wins, starting with the protagonist since she segues nicely into the story. As I said, the plot is about the child of JD, now all grown-up, visiting her family home to gain closure over the abuse she experienced. Interestingly, there’s a bit of a retcon here towards her father; JD, as you guys know from reading my review of the base game, was not given a reason as to why he went ballistic and acted maliciously towards everyone. This time around, you get a couple of postulations: one is from the woman (who shall be given the initials DJ for future references), who believes her dad’s schizophrenia was genetic, and the second is hinted as stress from dealing with his physically/emotionally scarred wife (who suffered an accident) and having to essentially raise his girl by himself. At the same time, though, there were many occasions wherein the narrative doubled down on the perfectionist mentality being the cause of JD’s destruction, so you can see what I mean by a half-measure.
All this information is divulged via flashbacks, which are triggered upon visiting various rooms in the old estate. Dialogue is unfortunately very limited in terms of DJ’s reactions to what she sees around her, but regardless I did appreciate the writers at least incorporating SOME lines compared to the silent protagonist drivel of her dad- hearing her gasp, for example, as a lamp fell out of nowhere, was a great, naturalistic jumper that simultaneously made her more human.
Referring to the secondary half-measure, the horror gimmicks of the prequel have been mostly replaced with beats resembling a Gothic tragedy. I’ve always been particularly sensitive to tales involving childhood trauma, especially as it pertains to being yelled at, and Inheritance hits the right melancholic notes. Hearing DJ get screamed at for using the wrong color in a drawing, or witnessing her dog yelp from pain affected me more than anything in the first game due to this natural empathy.
Like her father, her mind bends spacetime around her, warping memories into supernatural perturbations. However, it works a little better this time around because, outside of a crayon-schemed swamp, Bloober Team was more interested in crafting simple alterations for her: you aren’t getting collapsing libraries, screeching banshees, or phantom merry-go-rounds, but conflagrations, toys en masse, and imposing doorways. Stuff still deliquesces like wax on a burning candle, but those kind of stunts are very much minimized. And though it’s not scary (that partly being the intention here), if you accept the whole enterprise as a 3D storybook rendering of a child’s suffering, it works a lot better.
Unfortunately, the trajectory of DJ’s arc is inherently goaded towards her accepting who her father was by way of two of the endings, which would have been fine if the game had successfully portrayed him in a better light (as I noted above, it does not succeed at). As such, the daughter is slightly unlikable. The third ending is better, but harder to achieve, and ends on a depressing note that implies the developers did not support players taking this path. When considered in conjunction with the very short nature of the DLC, I can’t say that the narrative is good, though at least it is an improvement from its originator.
Graphically, I’m not going to go into extravagant detail since these are essentially the same assets as Layers of Fear. The house’s power has been cut entirely, basking it in a darkness that has sapped away all the hues- a flashlight is provided that reveals decayed furniture, collapsing structures, paint stains, and all kinds of gunk. I complained about the caliginosity in the main title, however, the lightsource in Inheritance really makes a difference in spite of its limited range.
The glimpses into the past, on the other hand, mostly abandon the murky luminosity, giving way to colored lighting that concurrently evokes wistful reminiscence and schitzy memories, going a long way towards overcoming that uncanniness I had issues with in the main Layers. There was an attempt here at recreating a kid’s perspective, and, frankly, it worked for me: the aforementioned tall doors, having to climb to reach simple heighted furniture like tables, toys being utilized as puzzle answers, a little bit of everything is here. That swamp section I briefly skimmed over earlier is also a sight to behold, reminding me a lot of the Paper Mario series in terms of all the vistas being papyraceous and drawn upon like a kid was set amok with crayola sticks.
Unfortunately, while the lighting is fine, the developers decided to throw in groundmist on 50 percent of the areas you enter, as though someone left a fog machine running somewhere nonstop. It makes things pointlessly obscure and doesn’t add anything to the atmosphere besides feeling like a dumb, funhouse attraction at a carnival. There was also this one section that had a dog speeding around, and the model, in all sincerity, looked painfully cheap, like someone pulled it out of a sixth-gen proprietary engine.
Sound effects and music are essentially the same as the prequel, so I won’t spend time there. The voice acting is slightly improved upon since DJ’s actress, Kristen Lennox, is a more-rounded performer, taking on the mother in addition to the daughter, though she’s still honestly not that great. JD, on the other hand, has been replaced with a new vocalist named Chris Nichter- he is better than Braa, but still suffers from the same base issues of not being able to properly convey the harsher emotions necessitated from an abusive father and husband.
No changes have occurred to the gameplay outside of narrative choices being more noticeable for players to engage with should they wish to exercise some agency.
But overall, that’s it. If you liked Layers of Fear, Inheritance is a fine DLC that both adds a lot of context to it whilst also crafting a decent sequel to events past. However, if you were like me and didn’t enjoy the previous one, then Inheritance’s few improvements won’t do enough to convince you to give it a try.