Pentiment is Disco Elysium but if it sacrificed a portion of DE's storytelling for an outstanding visual art direction and level of detail and was focused on religion instead of politics. The way key decisions are handled in the game are taken in an interesting direction and its really cool to see the main town evolve over the course of the game based on decisions made. The only gripe I'd have with this game is the persuasion system feeling forced in just to incorporate game mechanics, which is a preference thing above all else.

Beautifully written, incredibly dense and thought provoking but overall a bit limited. A medieval murder mystery about different points in a small country town's history that is ultimately more about the impact and the history surrounding the murders than the mystery.

Timeskips are whats needed to be even remotely accurate to a medieval setting like this, but the lack of interludes between them hurts even when the suggested emotional impact can hit hard anyway. Getting to decide how the main character Andreas feels about his estranged wife is a fun concept, but it's ultimately a veil for an emotional beat that will happen regardless of what you pick. There's a lot of moments like this, and it's not like previous obsidian games or games like this one were totally transformative with their choices, but for an entirely narrative experience theres just very little difference in anything. What's left feels more like a visual novel with all the most annoying parts of a 90s adventure game tacked on.

Regardless the plot is very, very engaging. The mystery and the uncomfortable guilt of probably knowing you're going to finger the wrong person is sort of thrilling. The main problem, again, is that half of Andreas journey happens offscreen and as more and more information is recalled it feels less and less "focused on the town" and more "budget." I feel like even just one scene in any of the provinces you picked or even at home would've connected the story a little better, because otherwise you're left with these disjointed and sudden "mind palace" scenes where different characters explain Andreas' emotional state to him. It's a fun play on medieval theater at first, but as time goes it just feels confused.

Again, an absolutely fantastic story that's gotten me very interested in a lot of the history surrounding it (kudos to the devs for including a reading list) but not one I can imagine going back to.

An incredible historical murder mystery narrative set in a 16th century abbey. Phenomenal lettering work, which feels like a strange thing to fixate on in a video game, but the way different characters' dialogue is presented in different scripts or print based on their occupation or background (or more accurately, your character's perception of them—there's at least one instance where the font changes when you learn that a character is more educated than previously thought) is some fantastic attention to detail, as are the occasional appearance of typos that are then crossed out and corrected, and references to Jesus/God that are filled in after the rest of the sentence as the writer switches to red ink. That attention to detail extends to the narrative as well, which does a great job laying out the rich social fabric of the abbey, from the monks to the peasants, and the slowly brewing class tensions between the different factions, and the story goes to some surprising and genuinely heartbreaking places.

Also, slight spoilers here, but I loved how the game refuses to let you off easy when it comes to solving the murders and accusing a suspect. This ain't Ace Attorney; the evidence is never decisive and the suspects don't break down and confess when confronted, so there's this awful lingering feeling of "what if I got it wrong?" that you just have to sit with and live with as your meddling costs people their lives, and I think that rules.

Pretty split on this (He says, rating it 4 stars out of 5). For all of its immersive storytelling and inspired visuals there's at least as much tedium in the game's traversal which leads to the experience being much more unfocused than it should've been. Thinking back on my playthrough that happened a week from me writing this down, everytime I do think about the game it's because of the boredom I felt during large chunks of it. Walking around, trying to speak to every NPC at least once so I wouldn't miss out on any important information. There must've been a better way to handle this. I certainly didn't have this problem with Disco Elysium.

I obviously still loved my time with the game, but there's no reason for me to elaborate on that as most other reviews will put my thoughts into better and more coherent sentences than I ever could.

Certainly unique, original and made with love.
However, I feel like the story stays too safe.

Also, the game would have benefited from being shorter, imo. The first part of the third act is too long.
The whole thing left me somewhat unsatisfied.