Part of the list review series. Reccomended by Ophelia.
So this one is just a case of really not being for me. A super atmospheric adventure game that close to borders on the level of walking sim with puzzles and shit. As a monke that relies on neuron activations for pure pleasure in my games, cineris somnia has very few of them and is a decidedly slow game that's more about drenching you in that atmosphere and everything.
And that just leaves me in a very weird place to review it from. Radio Zonde isnt entirely my thing but at least I knew which ballpark I was in. The most recent game i've played that compares to this is... flower sun and rain? Maybe? Does that count.
So with that big pinch of salt in mind i'll voice my main problem with CS. It basically boils down to production value. Animation is pretty poor, the level of fidelity isn't great considering the art style the world design is going to (I was surprised to learn this came out in 2018 when it looks so very Gen-7), and there's just a lot of little things that add up. The camera and control is a bit messy and awkward, and there's a clumsiness to the levels that I find hard to quite voice. The prime example of this is in the ligthhouse right at the start, where you end up climbing this super long staircase, and it just goes on and on and on... slightly too long. Without the right camera framing to signal you're still climbing, whilst your character is blatantly lacking the right inverse kinematics to deal with stairs, and whilst the 20 second long music track loops for about the 50th time.
And these bits are all good. These 20 second long music tracks going plin plin plon are pretty good. But my overall take away is kinda based on that - Those 20 second pieces of music don't feel like they were made for that 10 minute walk down to the lighthouse, looping over and over and over. All the elements of the game kinda feel like that to me. I'm far from an adventure game stan, but this just feels kinda... off.
So this one is just a case of really not being for me. A super atmospheric adventure game that close to borders on the level of walking sim with puzzles and shit. As a monke that relies on neuron activations for pure pleasure in my games, cineris somnia has very few of them and is a decidedly slow game that's more about drenching you in that atmosphere and everything.
And that just leaves me in a very weird place to review it from. Radio Zonde isnt entirely my thing but at least I knew which ballpark I was in. The most recent game i've played that compares to this is... flower sun and rain? Maybe? Does that count.
So with that big pinch of salt in mind i'll voice my main problem with CS. It basically boils down to production value. Animation is pretty poor, the level of fidelity isn't great considering the art style the world design is going to (I was surprised to learn this came out in 2018 when it looks so very Gen-7), and there's just a lot of little things that add up. The camera and control is a bit messy and awkward, and there's a clumsiness to the levels that I find hard to quite voice. The prime example of this is in the ligthhouse right at the start, where you end up climbing this super long staircase, and it just goes on and on and on... slightly too long. Without the right camera framing to signal you're still climbing, whilst your character is blatantly lacking the right inverse kinematics to deal with stairs, and whilst the 20 second long music track loops for about the 50th time.
And these bits are all good. These 20 second long music tracks going plin plin plon are pretty good. But my overall take away is kinda based on that - Those 20 second pieces of music don't feel like they were made for that 10 minute walk down to the lighthouse, looping over and over and over. All the elements of the game kinda feel like that to me. I'm far from an adventure game stan, but this just feels kinda... off.