the original silent hill was an eccentric swing in the context of its contemporaries in survival horror, and while its still an enduringly vivid and creative piece of art it also spawned iterations and imitators that have at least Somewhat diluted its raw lightning in a bottle quality. i knew that sh4 was considered to be The Weird One of the team silent run but io was EXTRA delighted to find that its So Weird that it may have recaptured this semi-lost quality of the original within the context of its own series...everything is uncannily Just Familiar Enough, with enough big swings to knock familiar rhythms off-balance. even within its OWN rhythms! that second half is so audacious lmao.

worth it for the high display of white-hot creativity alone, stuffed to the gills with loving details even by the standards of team silent...stimulating to think about, and often impressively abrasive to experience considering that this has by far the least demanding combat and puzzles in the series (at least for me). less of a display of raw skill and more of increasingly taxing mental tenacity, which gives the whole thing a texture that i think is p unique to this entry!

everything else is just the super awesome the cell/rob zombie halloween killer psychodrama, the outsider perspective of SH1 but on a much more complicated victim. during the actual play experience my reaction was mostly "wow cool!" but sitting with it afterwards it Does slowly get its teeth in u...the childish wording in young walter's messages scattered thruout the second half is really crushing, and stirs some very unpleasant Pastor's Kid feelings in me. despite being in many ways so separate from the original three games (and not even conceived as in the same series supposedly), the added text on religion makes the first four games as a unit feel retroactively way more complete. beyond generically Insane cult members, the main acknowledgement here is that the faith does actually provide for walters needs, in ways that are not by the world at large. it is a refuge as much as a place of pain, but its pain that happens in consistent terms, and is easier to embrace then the chaos of the corrupt outside world. cheryl was emotionally formed enough to accept the past and her pain without giving into the desire to see the entire world destroyed for hurting her, but for walter its easy to see the world's destruction as the only sustainable peace. theres something in that...the mechanical stress of the otherworlds broken up by the relief of going back to your room, hiding from the world.

the more i think ab it the more this is a rly dense and symmetrical text and i wont be able to write on it definitively today, but ill close by saying this is all a really fun wrinkle in my ongoing theory that silent hill is about Parenting...about being affected by things that happened in ur formative years, and also about Bringing Your Own Things Into This World, and the two crossing over. anything thats responsible for the way you are, or that you see as the safe beforetimes that u must return to, could be your Mother...why not an apartment! what an outrageously cool video game!!

It's a shame that this game seems to have been overlooked in a very stacked 2023 because this is as close to perfect a puzzle game can get, in my book. The difficulty balance is great; yes, I stared at the screen for long periods trying to solve some of the puzzles, but they're never too hard or frustrating. The variety this game offers is quite something. At certain points across the campaign it became a top-down shooter, a stealth game, a war game, a tower-defense game and even an RTS.

This is called Humanity because that is the subject of the game. It tackles that subject with an overtness that doesn't dull its effectiveness. The use of humans as "pawns" in the problem-solving is not only an awesome display of tech by the devs, but also central to the message of the game.

Pentiment has an official reading list, partly composed of some of the books that the team used for reference when building the game's art, plot, and characters. They're an interesting collection of books, and since my love of Pentiment overflowed after finishing it originally, I poured that excess enthusiasm into reading them. Now that I have read them all and replayed Pentiment with the knowledge in hand, I thought it would be interesting to dive into the inspirations and how they helped me to have a more complete understanding of the historical and cultural background of the game. Hopefully it won't be too dry, but also bear in mind that this is a very loose analysis. I'm not going to go back and find passages to cite unless they're super important to the point I'm making. I'm enough of a nerd to read five books for a backlog review, not for an academic article.


First things, the books: I read the following from the reading list, which you can find here: (https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/11/10/recommended-reading-of-medieval-history-from-josh-sawyer/)

1 The Name of the Rose: Umberto Eco

2 Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen Richard Wunderli

3 The Cheese and the Worms, Carlo Ginzburg

4: The Return of Martin Guerre, Natalie Zemon Davis

5: The Faithful Executioner, Joel F. Harrington

6 Dürer's Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist—Susan Foister and Peter Van Den Brink


The Name of the Rose is perhaps the most important book on the list in terms of understanding the inspiration behind Pentiment. I admit I watched the film before reading the novel, but they are rather different beasts. Besides certain common elements between Pentiment and Name of the Rose, like the fictitious Abbey, certain elements straining the credibility of the historical setting (tassing having all strata of social classes present, the 15th century scriptorium vs. a random ass mountain abbey having a gigantic labyrinthine library), and main characters borrowing from real historical figures who are name-dropped in the story (William of Ockham in Name of the Rose and Albrecht Durer in Pentiment), the main connection is that they both use the classic detective murder mystery setup as a framework to explore both theology, historical moments, conflict, etc.

This is the part where the movie most differs from the book; it makes sense given that you can't really fit all that into 90 minutes. It chooses to keep the juicy murder mystery and some background political intrigue but dispenses with the broader narrative of the book, which is about apostolic poverty and the Avginon papacy. Essentially the gravity of the murders add a sense of urgency in solving them because the Abbey is defending its political independence as neutral ground for a meeting of the pope(or anti-pope really)'s men and several monastic orders and representatives of the holy roman emperor to debate the merits of how the church should function, if it should reject all property and live as paupers, which has both a religious significance but also a political one in the conflict between the Avignon Papacy (essentially for a while the pope left Rome and went to France and this had a pretty massive impact upon european politics of the time with a politically ascendant France) and the HRE and the various religious orders like the Benedictines and Franciscans. This is mirrored in Pentiment, which also uses the murders of Baron Rothvogel and later Otto as a framework to highlight both the purpose of historical memory, the nature of justice and peace in early modern Europe, the importance of religion in their communities and how alien that can feel to modern audiences in rich countries, life, death, our ideas of the past and how they influence us in the present, and a whole bunch of related themes.

Similarly, in Act 1, the murder is also presented as politically inconvenient for the abbot, who seeks a speedy resolution to the issue much like the abbot in The Name of the Rose does, but for the different reason that his Kiersau Abbey is an oddity in the church, maintaining practices such as a double monastery, which have long been frowned at by the catholic authorities but have simply remained unnoticed due to its insignificance. A long, embarassing murder investigation could bring the hammer down on them, which leads to the Abbotts callously attempting to throw Andreas' mentor, Piero, for the murder so that the monastery may continue without issue. There is also the matter of the scriptorium and adjacent library with a secret entrance by the ossuary in Name of the Rose and Crypt in Pentiment (though in truth, I think Brother Volkbert confirms that the crypt just holds bones, so it's probably also appropriate to call it an ossuary) being direct references.

In both stories, the skill of the detectives is a bit suspect. In the case of William of Baskerville, whilst he is definitely closer to the Platonic ideal of your Sherlock Holmes figure, being less of an unbelievable omniscient who has information, the reader doesn't like many of the examples of bad detective fiction (cough cough, BBC Sherlock). His assumptions and thought processes are reasonable (for the most part), but he sure takes his time in solving the case. In fact, he arguably fails pretty much everything he sets out to do. Seven people lie dead, the library got burned down, and the matter of apostolic poverty they had come to debate eventually led to it being branded as heretical, though the Avginon papacy did disappear in due time as the seat of the Holy See returned to Rome. Of course, he does have a sort of moral victory over the reactionary Jorge who set the murders in motion to hide the existence of a lost tome, which would, in his view, help to elevate comedy and laughter, which he views as subversive and leading to heresy and the corruption of the divine truth. It is fitting given the frequent debates in the book that the climax would involve essentially a philosophical discussion. This parallels somewhat Pentiment's ending, wherein Father Thomas brings down the Mithraeum below the church to erase the proof of St. Satia and St. Moritz being essentially just Diana and Mars, pagan figures worshipped before the Bavarian Christians settled on tassing. Andreas is also not the greatest sleuth, though, in large part, being an interactive medium, the character of Andreas' skills depends upon players' actions. Nevertheless, the constant of Andreas having to make difficult choices using incomplete information is a constant; it's impossible for him to ever fully uncover the truth of the matter with the limited time and resources he has to investigate the murders, and much like many things, including historical events, it's not really possible to actually 100% discover the "true" killer. There are likelier candidates, of course, and a good argument can be made for the most reasonable culprit, like in Act 1, where it is rather doubtful that Ottilia did it; I think Lucky is almost certainly the murderer; and it's interesting just how much a second playthrough can change a lot of what I thought. In Act 2, it's rather less clear, with Hanna and Guy both having threads pointing to them.

Either way, there is also the matter that Andreas and Pentiment as a whole are also concerned with the perception of truth rather than the whole matter of it, similar to the Name of the Rose: case in point: when Andreas returns to Tassing a few years later in Act 1, the Innkeeper will refer to a warped version of the events of the original murder, suggesting that either way the truth of the events has already passed into unreliable folklore. There is an angle to consider when choosing a culprit in both acts when considering the consequences for the community. Its still refreshing to me in an industry that still has seemingly not moved on from boring black and white low honor vs. high honor binary choice bullshit that Pentiment presents you with the infinitely more interesting to my mind issue of Ottilia Kemperyn. An old, misanthropic, heretical widow whose husband's death was caused by the murdered Baron Rothvogel's savage beating has essentially given up on life. Her house is just about to be taken away from her by the church because she has no heirs and cannot own property herself. If one were to invent utilitarianism in the 15th century, one could argue that letting the obviously innocent Ottilia take the heat for the murder of the Baron is the optimal choice; indeed, standing up for her by challenging the church's claim to her house does cause her to retain the house onto Act 2, but the church is predictably angry at your actions, and you've done little more than buy a woman a few more miserable years of her life. Of course, in doing so, you will be utterly perverting justice and sentencing a woman to the executioner, whose only crime was being born a peasant woman in the 15th century, with all the trials it entails. These tough choices are not limited just to Andreas, with Act 3 the townsfolk are still reconciling their choices in dealing with Otto's murder in 1525 and subsequent burning of the abbey (which mirrors the ending of The Name of The Rose with the Abbey and Library burning down also) and whilst they all have different perspectives on the issue, its interesting that some regret the foolishness that brought the hammer down on them and resulted in bloodshed whilst also recognizing that that very sacrifice led to their current positions, there is some optimism in the ending, with some arguing that the Abbot's ecclesiastical authority being replaced with the lord's secular one has been beneficial, with slightly less strict oversight and Lenhardt being murdered at least had temporary material improvements for the peasants who wouldn't be completely gouged by the new miller. As with everything, one can only move forward; the wheel of time stops for no man, and making peace with our mistakes and seeing a broader perspective is supremely important to life.

Peasant Fires doesn't cover the more famous 1525 German Peasant rebellion, but rather the lesser known Niklashausen rebellion of 1478, wherein a drummer whipped up a mass of pilgrims to rebel against the ruling authorities, claiming that he had received a divine vision of the virgin Mary, who called on him and the faithful to overthrow the corrupt church and kill the priests, that god had ordained for all land to be held in common and the feudal lords of the time had corrupted his will. The book explores the role of festivals in medieval Europe, with some serving as outlets for repressed anger at the authorities, like carnival being a time of playfully "reversing" the established relations of nobility, royalty, and peasantry. It highlights how, for most peasants, the calendar would be seen through the lens of the various public festivals throughout the year, from Christmas to Carnival to Lent to Easter, etc. Despite the much harsher working conditions, there were many more public holidays for the Europeans of the 15th century than there are for the Brits of today. Its influence is most apparent in Pentiment's Act 2, with Otto claiming a holy vision has revealed that the Lord is with the townsfolk of Tassing against the increased taxes and restrictions of the Abbot, mirroring the drummer. Otto's murder occurs during St. John's Eve, a very popular summer festival, with anger boiling over with the Abbot threatening excommunication to anyone he finds in the forest getting up to mischief. In both examples, the peasants are drawn to revolt against ecclesiastical authorities due to the increasing restrictions on their rights and material conditions. In Tassing, there is a noticeable decline in living standards, with the poor Gertners being particularly destitute due to increased taxes.

In the 1478 rebellion, the drummer started rallying people to the cause by preaching near the pilgrimage site of Niklashausen. In Pentiment, the Abbot further angers the peasants by closing the Shrine of St. Moritz, which is also a pilgrimage site and source of some religious comfort to the Catholic denizens of Tassing who often prayed to Saints for deliverance. The book goes into some depth regarding pilgrimages in the early modern period. While the sale of indulgences is much better known given its importance to the reformation, it is often overlooked that pilgrimages served a similar purpose. The idea of purgatory was such that pilgrims could reduce the suffering of themselves and/or deceased relatives by visiting a site of pilgrimage and receiving a partial indulgence for time in purgatory. It was another way in which the peasants would be essentially emotionally blackmailed into either donating or traveling to a holy site, which of course also had the effect of increasing the prestige and economic power of a church that hosted one of these relics, like the hand of a saint, a piece of the true cross, or what have you.

The main issue with the book is that the sources are very spotty, and so the author basically speculates on a large chunk of them. He at least admits that this is the case and makes clear what is his own imagination and what’s supported by the evidence, but still, it's a rather short book to begin with. Its illuminating at the very least regarding just how fucked medieval peasants were economically, the role of festivals and pilgrimages, and the power of mystics in inciting rebellion.

The Faithful Executioner is a work of microhistory focused on the life of the executioner of Nuremberg during a particularly busy time for such a professional. It has the advantage of drawing upon an unusual source: a detailed journal written by the said executioner during his time working for the city. It was rare for a man like him to be able to read, much less to leave such thorough notes about his work. It's a very interesting tale, which I recommend picking up. It's both a greater history lesson about the role of the executioner and the specific conditions in 16th-century HRE, which led to a significant increase in their work, and the personal story of a man’s quest to advance his and his family’s station from the unfortunate place it was put in. It also does a lot to make us understand the perspective and social attitudes that influenced this institution, which is, to our modern eyes, quite cruel and ghastly, without just making an apology for the indefensible. Its relation to Pentiment is obvious; it is a work that is deeply concerned with justice, crime, and punishment, and the appearance of justice and truth is often times more important than the actual thing itself. In chapter 1, whichever culprit gets selected will get executed violently and publicly, either by the executioner’s sword in the case of the male suspects of lucky or ferenc or being choked to death in the case of the female suspects. Interestingly, in the faithful executioner, we are told that execution by sword at the time was usually reserved for the nobility (even often times being the result of a bribe to the judges to forgo the more slow and painful executions down to the more “dignified” decapitation). I imagine, though, that the choice of the sword was more of a creative decision, being the quickest way to show the culprit being killed. In the case of Prior Ferenc’s execution, it was slightly botched, requiring three slashes to finish him off. In the case of the faithful executioner, part of the titular executioner’s great reputation, which allowed him to eventually appeal his status (executioners were part of the official underclass, unable to perform “honorable” professions, and were oftentimes banned from joining a guild and other legal discrimination), came from the fact that he very rarely botched an execution; indeed, the executioner himself could be in danger when performing a beheading, and it was common for crowds to turn on the executioner if it took more than 3 strokes to fall the criminal. Its not surprising to me that states eventually realized how counterproductive public execution was, with modern ones being performed in some prison room away from the public. The fact is, and Pentiment explores this as well, that it's all well and good to believe that someone deserves to die or that they had their brutal end coming to them; certainly, there are many rapists, murderers, etc., and even if one opposes the death penalty on principle, we would not be sad to hear that they were killed. And yet, I dare to say that if you were to witness such a person being violently killed, well, most well-adjusted people would respond with horror and even sympathy for such a situation.

Certainly, I don’t weep at the thought that some of the hanged nazis at Nuremberg were actually left choking for quite a few minutes before expiring, but even with them, were I to be in the room, I would look away from such a horrible sight. Humans are empathic for the most part, and it's hard to see such things without feeling bad.

It's a sobering moment watching the execution of Ferenc, who might be suspected of performing occult rituals and murdering a man in cold blood, but it's another to see him praying for mercy before being brutally cut down. The victory is hollow; there is a reason why Sherlock Holmes stories end with the suspect in custody and not Sherlock Holmes gloating in front of the gallows with the criminal’s corpse hanging forlornly from the scaffold. Okay, okay, that's enough unpleasantness. Let's move on from this grizzly subject.

The Cheese and the Worms is another work of microhistory, this time on the subject of Mennochio, an eccentric miller in 15th-century France who used his rare literacy and access to a variety of books passed around by his neighbors (who were unusually literate for the time also) to develop his own eclectic brand of religious thought, which eventually got him into trouble with the Inquisition, who were mostly baffled by what seemed to be a unique brand of heresy invented by essentially one random peasant guy, far from the norm of wandering preachers, secret societies, and the like. Its influence is most apparent in the figure of Vaclav, a Romani knife sharpener who will share his equally weird beliefs if you’ll indulge him, which, funnily enough, if you do, he gets burned at the stake for heresy, as evidenced by the town-wide family tree next to the mural in the game's ending. In the case of Vaclav, they’re a weird syncretism of gnosticism, Christian mysticism, and just his own blend of strange esoteric religious theories. The role of increased literacy and the printing press allowing more people to read “dangerous ideas” is brought up often during Acts 1 and 2, with Father Thomas and others being wary of the effects it could have in riling up the peasantry and the danger of certain ideas spreading. The elephant in the room is, of course, the protestant reformation and the 1525 peasant rebellion, which were greatly aided by the increased availability of the written word, further increasing the demand for a translation of the Bible written in German and other vernacular languages as opposed to Latin, which was mainly spoken by the priesthood. Its no surprise that this eventually led to an explosion of different Protestant denominations, as anyone who could read the Bible for themselves could develop a novel interpretation of the scripture.

In the case of Menochio, while from a modern perspective it seems very repressive and authoritarian to be jailed and later executed for having unorthodox beliefs like the universe being created from a primordial cheese eaten by worms who became God and his angels and created the world, it's hard to be sympathetic when the dude just could not shut the hell up about his beliefs. Like, idk about you, Im an agnostic or atheist or whatever, but if I could possibly be executed for it, I would not go around telling people about how god is fake and cringe. Its also funny reading the accounts of the inquisitors, who for the most part, whilst obviously terrible and repressive, would let most cases like a single heretical peasant off with essentially a slap in the wrist, say you’re sorry, do a penance, your priest vouches for you being a good man and for the most part be allowed to rejoin society, but bro just couldn't do it. The number of executions the inquisition actually did was a lot less than we would think; it was usually reserved for wandering preachers, big religious leaders who were trying to get a schism going, etc.

The Return of Martin Guerre is interesting because its “plot” is basically 1-to-1, almost adapted into Pentiment’s character of Martin Bauer. The book was written by Natalie Zemon Davis, a historian and advisor to the French film of the same name based upon the real-life historical figure of Martin Guerre. After her experiences with the production, she decided to write a more “official” account of the story without the necessities of a 3-act structure and cinematic storytelling. Martin Guerre was a peasant in what is now modern-day Basque Country (part of Spain and France) who one day disappeared from his town and, unbeknownst to them, went off to Spain to join the army and eventually got wounded in battle during the Italian wars of the mid-16th century. Meanwhile, a man claiming to be Martin Guerre who bore an uncanny resemblance to the man arrived in Martin’s home town and, after some initial skepticism, was able to slide into his old life through his appearance and seemingly access to knowledge that only the real Martin Guerre could know. It also highlights that under the law of the time, Martin’s wife would not be allowed to remarry, and the way in which women were treated, her standing in society, and her ability to fend for herself were adversely affected by having an abandoned husband. Even worse, the real Martin could have died off in battle, but even this would not necessarily be enough to be able to remarry unless she could somehow prove her husband had been killed. It's not surprising then that she may have been, let’s say, willful to “be fooled” by the impostor, knowing that this was a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to solve her situation. Even more so after “Martin” received his deceased father’s inheritance and greatly increased the wealth of his household.

In Pentiment, Martin Bauer similarly runs off during Act 1 after stealing from the murdered baron and “returns” before Act 2 to take over the household after the death of his father. If pressed, you can uncover the fact that this man is actually Jobst Farber, a highwayman who ran off with Martin and eventually, when he died, used his resemblance to the man to take over his life. Similarly, in Pentiment, Martin’s wife Brigita seems consciously or unconsciously aware of the deception but begs Andreas not to rat him out of town, as he’s been a much better husband than Martin ever was, and in a purely utilitarian sense, his identity theft is seemingly the best outcome for everyone. If one remembers Act 1’s Ottilia Kemperyn, households without children or men to inherit property are very much unprotected, and it's easy to see why Brigita prefers to turn a blind eye to this Farber character’s lies. In the real-life case of Martin Guerre, the prosecution was initiated by Martin’s father-in-law who suspected foul play, but “Martin”’s wife was supportive of her impostor husband. Indeed, what ended up resulting in his execution was actually the return of the real Martin Guerre to the town, who, amusingly enough, seemed less able to answer the questions of the judge in regards to information that the real Martin Guerre would know than the fake one! Thankfully for the wife, sometimes misogyny works out in women’s favor, and she was essentially unpunished (and the real Martin Guerre was reprimanded for abandoning his wife and family) for what could have been considered adultery and false witness with essentially the old “ah well, she’s a woman, it makes sense her feeble mind would be fooled by a talented huckster like this” argument. Not as much of a happy ending for the impostor who got executed but was surprising apologetic, much like Martin Bauer is if you accuse him of murdering Otto Zimmerman during Act 2 of Pentiment.

The final book, I’ll admit, is one that I basically skimmed because it was really fucking boring, and I already read a biography of Albrecht Durer a while back, so a lot of it was just stuff I already knew. It was worth owning, if nothing else, A3 copies of Durer’s famous works. Albrecht Durer informs the character of Andreas quite a bit (though he is also a bit William of Baskerville and Andrei Rublev); indeed, his Act 1 design is heavily inspired by a famous Durer self-portrait. They are both painters from Nuremberg; they both (in Act 2) seem to really dread returning to their wives, which they hate back in Nuremberg; and during the lunch with Brother Sebhat, when a kid is having the concept of different ethnic groups and skin colors existing, Andreas chimes in that in the Netherlands he saw art from the New World that was greater than anything Europeans had ever done, echoing Durer’s admiration for New World art in particular made of metal; him being the son of a goldsmith, it makes sense he’d feel particularly fond of such things.

The use of Durer’s famous Melancholia 1 painting is a key aspect of Andreas’ character journey. In Act 1, his inner psyche is depicted as a court composed of King Prester John (a mythical figure in European folklore often thought of as the Ethiopian emperor), Beatrice from the Divine Comedy, St. Grobian, and Socrates. Whenever Andreas is debating a difficult decision, they can be called upon to give their two cents in a sort of id, ego, and super ego-type arrangement. In Act 2, however, it is only Beatrice who gives advice, her moderation and temperance having devolved into self-doubt and fear. At a key point, Andreas finds his court trashed and all absent safe for Beatrice, sitting in the pose of the famous aforementioned melancholia print: “Now I am all that remains, the melancholy of life’s autumn,” a manifestation of essentially a mid-life crisis for Andreas after becoming a successful artist but feeling hollow inside. Its fitting as well given the beliefs about mental health, a common conception of artists and creatives at the time as “melancholics," and a conception of depression and mental illness as markers for creative genius that sadly persists to this day.

4500 words later, and I'm both embarrassed by how long this has been and frustrated by how much more I could have gone into details on each of the entries, but I think that's enough for now. If anything, I hope this encourages anyone who’s played pentiment to check out one of the books and maybe draw their own connections I might have missed or forgot to include. Whenever I think about what differentiates a 5-star game from a 4.5- or 4-star game, I think this is it. A 5-star game will get me to read six books totaling probably like 1000+ pages. I’m currently reading through The Brothers Karamazov as part of The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa’s readable books list (so far I’ve read Winesburg, Ohio, Confessions of a Mask, and Rumble Fish), and maybe I’ll write a similar piece at some point for each (though bear in mind I started reading the first book in this collection a year ago, so y'know).

Sights & Sounds
- Although the promotional art seems to be having a bit of an identity crisis (I've seen marketing material sporting 3 different styles), the in-game art is at least consistent. The majority of what you'll see is the game world's intriguing pixel art
- Smaller sprites like Lila and most of the enemies lack detail owing to their diminutive stature, but larger characters and bosses are richly detailed and often wildly creative
- The world itself looks like a more sparsely populated Hieronymus Bosch painting. Everything you encounter features an absurdist, almost psychedelic design. All the while, environments are strikingly colored in a semi-opppsing magenta/teal purple/orange palette, making the world look bathed in either sunrise or sunset depending on your location
- The music is passable; much of it is pretty but forgettable except for the boss tracks, which are universally good (check out The Pianist's theme, for example). Most of the tunes are comprised of synthesizer samples, but some identifiable instruments (piano, violin, percussion) are used often to great effect.

Story & Vibes
- Although the general thrust of a story exists in Lila'a Sky Ark, the details are esoteric and the allusions and references ultimately lead nowhere. Even though I always knew (approximately) where I was supposed to go usually knew what to do when I got there, I never felt like I understood why. I can see that the world is under attack by monsters who want to steal its creativity, but why? Lila is the only human-looking entity, but why? And what the hell is the point of the Gaint Cat Slug?
- Part of my ignorance is my own doing. Didn't research the game enough before diving in. Apparently, Lila's Sky Ark is meant to be the prequel to Monolith of Mind's first game, Resolutiion, so I suppose I'll have to play that to perhaps retroactively clear up some confusion
- Given my own misstep, I won't judge the game's narrative too harshly, but I still think it's valid to criticize the fact that the absence of a self-contained narrative works against it's ability to stand on its own strengths. It often feels like you're trapped in a lore-rich environment with no foothold to latch onto to begin even guessing what's going on

Playability & Replayability
- But is it any fun to play? Well, yes and no. Movement feels good, so things like traversal and dodging should feel snappy and natural to anyone that's played a game evoking Hyper Light Drifter. However, instead of using impressive-looking melee attacks and skills, you... uh... throw boxes
- That's right. All combat in LSA (ha, I get it) centers around gathering environmental items, cramming them in your backpack, and hurling them at enemies' heads. Initially, this feels woefully awkward, but after a few hours of experience, it'll only feel mostly awkward
- Some of the throwables you'll encounter have special AoE effects and/or higher damage, so be sure to retain these for difficult enemies or boss fights as most standard enemies can be undone simply using the boxes and pots you find
- You may even locate or purchase recipes for some of the powerful ammo pickups, which can be crafted by a gigantic Slow Loris in exchange for the game's currency
- Exploration is at least interesting. As imaginative as the art design is, you truly never know what lies on the next screen. I think this was the highlight of LSA for me. Everything felt constantly new and weird, which really motivated me to scour every nook and cranny for collectibles (mostly glasses for your giant robot cyclops father). It's unfortunate that the gameplay and story were so mediocre
- I don't know if I'll ever revisit LSA, unless I play Resolutiion someday and love it. I fear that it may also be a visually appealing but ultimately mediocre experience, though
- If you get stuck, the devs have published a beautiful guide in the Steam walkthrough section for this game

Overall Impressions & Performance
- Lila's Sky Ark is not a bad game; it just doesn't live up to the intrigue of its world by not giving you any chance of understanding it beyond wild conjecture. If the narrative would just click into place, I could likely see past the awkward combat mechanics and have a fuller appreciation of the game. Without it, though, I'm just a bit lost among the pretty colors
- Ran well without bugs on the Steam Deck

Final Verdict
- 4.5/10. Strong art direction and interesting exploration can only take a game so far. What's the point of building an imaginative world full of lore if you refuse to share any of that lore with the player?
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Looking for a new game to play on Steam? Don't feel like spending any money? Good news! I'm giving away a whole bunch of games on Backloggd, and all it'll cost you is a review.
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This game didn't make the list, but here are some games from 2022 that I really liked

When the opening of a game insists I have a notepad, I know not only is time to get that big brain working but I’m probably going to enjoy myself.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (LATLE) is the latest release from Simogo, arguably the best developers of single player mobile phone focused games in the past, as that pocket of gaming has changed they’ve started moving into more big screen games and the transition has been buttery smooth.
Device-6 and Year Walk are cult classics, while Sayonara Wildhearts crossed the divide releasing on iOS and consoles came and was another beautiful experience which was as different to their previous games as they are from each other.
Simogo may not be the biggest name, but it’s one I (and you should) sit up and take notice of.

LATLE is no exception to this, to say it upfront, I loved this game, I enjoy the genre, loved the style, was taken on a fairly fun journey with its narrative and really grew to appreciate all the smart innovations the game has, playing with genre and playing with mechanics in a way which sometimes shows their mobile game heritage, in a positive light.

Notepad and pen beside you, the game starts you off as the female protagonist leaving her car outside of a large and slightly ominous looking hotel.
Immediately you can fiddle with things and make decisions and when you take a look in your car’s glove box LATLE shows how it is going to play around with the medium, fourth walls and the like by giving you instructions to the game within the game.

You’re entering a world of a puzzle game, and whilst puzzle game is definitely what genre LATLE is, it almost feels reductive.
I’ve seen some comparisons, format wise, to Professor Layton and I agree with that, but it is also a simplification.
Sure, much like Layton there are many puzzles scattered around the world, every door needs a key or has a code and to get those you probably need to solve a puzzle, some being maths, some being simple logic but unlike the Layton games every single one of these puzzles does tie directly into the theme.
As the game progresses this may not seem true at first, but recurring numbers, names, words and themes appear that help illustrate the feeling of place you are in.

Another key difference is that LATLE is for the most part, non-linear, the hotel is not an open-world but it is a large space that means if you come up to a lock you can’t quite open, a puzzle you don’t understand yet, cannot parse, it’s fine. Simply move somewhere else, find another room, another puzzle and have a go.
A feeling that often comes up when talking about puzzles in games are eureka moments, LATLE is full of them and it is also full of another feeling I have written about enjoying and that is a domino effect of these eurekas.
That lock you couldn’t open, well maybe the other puzzle you succeeded with gave you the key, more likely though, it gave you a clue to something else, which in turn gave you a new perspective on the puzzle you were stuck on first of all. Then in LATLE it’s quite likely behind that door is yet another puzzle that will either hold you up for a moment or will have been figured out before you’ve even seen it via information you gained three or four brain teasers ago.

LATLE’s non-linear structure allows for situations to commonly arise where you will discover something a few hours in, not have the ability to proceed past it but already have an idea at what you’re looking for or you’ll need to find out. Hours later, you will have almost forgotten about this only for it to leap back to the front of your mind as you solve a seemingly unconnected mystery.

The hotel is a labyrinthian or even maze-like design, a distinction the game itself will teach you if you don’t already know, and have you thinking about.
You progress through multiple floors, into different rooms, even outside to different places.
As you progress shortcuts, unlocked with puzzles, make this grand house a home and you quickly start getting used to where you are and how things work - however, it never ceases to surprise.
Everything in this hotel adds to its narrative, the room numbers, the decoration, they make you think about where you are, who each character is, when things happened and why. To further explain any of this would be untying a knot that is best left tight before you play, but I feel the need to bring up the game's story because not only did I find it intriguing, quite enjoyable if not as deep as I expected, I found it very clever that even when I had “figured it all out” the non-linear structure of the game did not ever spoil me - if it did, those things felt more like natural revelations and were never an annoyance.

Simogo’s mobile heritage shows its face in a couple of clear ways in this title.
The first is the art style. It could be argued that LATLE has a very simple look, monochrome with a touch of neon pink-red for those “laser” eyes and other details, this game’s looks are not about fidelity but it absolutely oozes with style.
It’s a look that doesn’t blow you away with how incredible the use of reflections, amount of polygons or textures are, but how stylish and incredible things can look with restrictions and great direction, a direction which does take a few unexpected but very welcome turns.
This is all backed up by some wonderful music, the closing credits being something I have listened to away from gaming, that not only is drenched in the cool stylings of the game but somehow also echoes some of the narrative oddities of the game.

The other clear mobile game inspiration is in the way the game controls. Simogo’s aim is for their games to be as accessible as possible. LATLE uses any stick or d-pad for movement and all the buttons for the same simple “action” command, which the game shows what you will be doing on screen to never be too confusing.
I have seen a lot of hate for this scheme, and I understand. Most people who game even casually have learnt some language about games that is almost the same in everything you play and for me the one thing LATLE is lacking is a simple “cancel/back” button.
The game never locks you in too tightly, but sometimes misclicking one thing sends you on a path of tapping or scrolling through just to go back, only seconds of annoyance but this will happen often if your mind is (like mine) programmed to have a back button in games and those seconds will easily add up to minutes over the whole experience.
They are things I enjoyed about the scheme, one key thing was that I could play one-handed.
Using the left stick and the left shoulder button to take actions left my right hand free to scribble and flick through the pages of notes I had been taking. After a few hours this became natural and enjoyable.
Although I will admit, playing any game in between meant that when I returned to Lorelei and the Laser Eyes there was always a moment of readjustment.
I think there is one very simple solution to the issues people may have with the controls, options. Choosing from one simple or super-simple control scheme would release frustration that I can see a more stubborn person quitting what is a fantastic game over.

While I am speaking about small grievances I will mention one other thing and that is navigating the world.
Now the protagonist's walk speed is good, the camera is always cinematic and only occasionally did I find myself bumping into things due to the monochrome nature of LATLE’s look.
However, as the hotel starts to get larger as you unlock more doors that good walk speed does become a little annoying and Simogo has added a mechanic to help that.
Coffee.
A small mechanical spoiler, but around the hotel are espresso machines, which once you find a mug, can drink from and you will move faster for a while (and eventually need the toilet).
My personal issue here though, the discovery of that damn mug was deeper into the game than I would like. Perhaps I have been thwarted by non-linear gaming here and I’m sure speed runners or the like will find a way to get the coffee cup quicker but I wish it was something you’d discover an hour in.
The game has the metres for caffeine and bladder from the start of the game, so it’s hidden in plain sight as is.

I’d like to finish this review off with one small-complaint bundled within a lot of praise.
Lorelei and the Laser Eye’s puzzle design is fantastic, the hotel feels like a great big toy box, the puzzles feel simultaneously contained while connected.
If you need to unlock a safe, everything you need “physically” is within the space you are in most cases and the game will tend to be very clear if you’re looking for a physical key.
The key’s that are not within these spaces though are knowledge, and all of that knowledge you can learn within the game itself. Like many other puzzle games before it, LATLE uses roman numerals, astrology, codes, weird symbols but any of these you may not know about, the game lets you discover and does a fantastic job of logging it for you.
Not just in “memories” which are documents you can check at any point without having to travel (an issue I had with the recent Botany Manor) but the game keeps a log of objectives and the order you have been doing things, something that greatly helps if you’ve spent an extended time away from it.
One small thing the puzzle design doesn’t completely lack, but I would have preferred more of is feedback. There is a success and failure sound effect but sometimes for example a code may be something you type but the game will not give you a character limit.
Perhaps that is realistic and fair, I agree but a key puzzle to the game is a multi-levelled one of these and while that size of code input is fairly rare the feedback of failure is just too simple.
You know you have done wrong, but you don’t know where or how and although personally I never found myself bashing my head against things like this for too long, the lack of specificity could be frustrating, I love the lack of hand-holding, I appreciate the courage to make things not too easily guessable, but even just a more specifically timed sound cue would have gone a long way.

Overall though as I said earlier, if you find yourself in front of an insurmountable wall you can turn around and return later. I have played many puzzle games but rarely do any give the perfect balance of making you feel stupid and then later, the world’s smartest person as much as Lorelei and the Laser Eyes does.

Filled to the brim with escape room style puzzles, and themed, with a computer, somewhere between Twin Peaks and PS1’s Resident Evil. Puzzle’s hints and answers are intertwined with the story and the aesthetic. All of this game is a single work.

Due to the simplified controls (one input button; one movement control stick), you can play this game one handed (with either half of a controller), which makes it perfect for holding a phone/pen and taking notes. Which you will definitely need to do. No back button required. Embrace the simplicity.

Nothing else to say, as it should just be discovered. If you’ve ever enjoyed solving a puzzle, I dare say you’d enjoy playing this game.

ludic poetry tbh...every room a precisely chosen word in a line, every dungeon a verse, full of rhymes and rhythm and melodious surprises. the line between downtime and climax feels far less pronounced then in the first two installments, instead channeling a near-endless flow state thats not so much barrelling as it is Sickly and Congesting. very unpleasant and deeply compulsive to play, and absolutely the most i have ever felt Involved with one of these games moment to moment (and easily the scariest time, if that wasnt clear!). i struggle with whether to give this the edge over 2, but theyre clearly in the same ballpark...for all ive said 2 is i think still on the whole the more Unpleasent experience simply because perhaps no other games story has so effortlessly channeled Here's A Bunch Of Things That Would Suck If They Happened To You, with both a gentle human hand and fist of divine pseudo-justice. if anything, 3 makes me feel more at home, its terror lovingly vindicating. the campaign is half Having A Bad Time Walking Home and half You Can Never Go Home Again...every moment of destabilization feels like a cathartic acknowledgement of the sinister underbelly to things that people by and large Pretend Are Okay, with notes specific to my life in ways that r obvious if u know me. cheryl is on edge and looking over her shoulder and has been for years before being plunged into the events of a silent hill game...running on messy strength pulled from the experience of living in a world hostile to her Body and Self (at least insofar as she is in control of both). just rly wonderful stuff...almost good enough to take my mind off recent silent hill news!!!

Hellsinker isn’t only one of the most original games I can name, but it is also surprising in that its novelty comes from reinterpreting shoot’em up standards, from its own creation and from being able to tie everything in a very abstract yet absolutely defined concept.

The way of making its own some well known elements such as firepower, bombs or rank is not only renaming them into concepts of its own world, these three old acquaintances are now called Luna, Sol and Stella, but in challenging what they can or cannot be from their conception. In this sense, it is a game very aware of its meta-context, it knows its language well and therefore knows how to give it new twists. Thus, firepower goes down while shooting and up while not, bombs quickly regenerate over time, and rank can be lowered by picking dedicated objects, or even raised, why not. The interesting result is that both for those unfamiliar with the genre and those who know where all of this comes from will reach a common feeling: strangeness, discovering something new.

This half recontextualized half own novelty can be seen everywhere. Playable characters that are totally separate worlds (wouldn’t make any sense to differentiate them by shot type since shooting is just another arsenal resource). Levels that are not afraid to experiment with their rules: a normal autoscroller, a fixed arena, a maze full of walls and teleporters, a boss to “satisfy” instead of killing or surviving… The action itself asks to be played with your wit instead of your gut, relying more on strategy and less on reflex, including the not the exactly scarce light speed bullets sections.

Even the game structure is affected by its nerve. Apart from multiple secrets and ramifications, here they seem like minor details, there is no fear to experiment with the arcade structure. Like narrating through pure text sections from half the game onwards, sections that instead of clarifying anything make the whole ordeal even more abstract. Or its “bonus” level which appearance and challenge add yet another new layer of intricate unusual systems.

As said, Hellsinker is an abstract game and conscious about it, but this abstraction should not be confused with the common genre abstraction where the setting is usually an excuse to give way to the game action. There is sensorial intention, a significance (regardless if anything clear can be extracted from it), a meta-commentary, spirituality, religious rituals and who knows what else being known and unsaid without knowing how far any of it goes or not. Everything ends, and perhaps even starts, with a cat, somehow.

What makes Hellsinker exceptional is being able to build an abstract universe, a universe in which their elements matter both in their context and in their effect on the game. Similar to Adventure, which understood abstraction as a totally valid way to convey the sense of adventure, Hellsinker reaches a similar destination going through an opposite way, extracting the abstraction built over decades of niche development to construct its world.

Cosmic Star Heroine is a science fiction RPG developed by Zeboyd Games. Initially released in April 2017 for the PS4 and Windows platforms, the game was eventually ported over to the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch in 2018. As a fan of RPGs, I had high hopes for Cosmic Star Heroine, but was ultimately let down by its underwhelming battle system and lackluster story.

The game centers around Alyssa L'Salle, a sharp-tongued former agent of the Agency of Peace and Intelligence (API), who discovers the dark origins and purpose behind Project Lumina. The player spends their time investigating Project Lumina, recruiting allies to their cause, and ultimately foiling an evil plot to take over the world. This all sounds good on paper, but the pacing, uninteresting villain, stereotypical doomsday scenario, and the lackluster party members leaves a lot to be desired when compared to much better RPGs. Ultimately, the premise of the game holds promise, but the execution is uneven.

While the game has an undeniably great pixelated retro presentation, with vibrant pixel art and chip-tune music that evokes nostalgic feelings of classic turn-based RPGs found on the SNES, the game simply can't compete with those older titles.

Capcom's long-awaited sequel provides a canvas for countless adventures, expanding its vocation system and leaving players to explore a hostile world how they see fit. A myriad of technical issues, confounding design qualities, and systems that barely mesh together significantly dampen the fun, however, and the unfulfilling late-game experience ultimately left me wondering why this sequel exists in the first place.

Full Review: https://neoncloudff.wordpress.com/2024/05/31/now-playing-may-2024-edition/