Investigate murders, town history, and the secrets of villagers in a small changing town in Bavaria from 1518-1544. Unique, well written, good use of art history, nods to period films and stories, and many details to discover as you see your seemingly small choices ripple through the community over time.
Pentiment is an adventure roleplaying game set over three acts each taking place between 1518-1544 in the small town of Tassing and the nearby Kiersau Abbey in Bavaria. You play as Andreas Maler, a university drop out and soon to be master artist, who is working on a commission for the abbey before returning home to enter into an arranged marriage, as a requirement to be known as a master of his trade is to be married. Shortly before you have complete your masterpiece you become involved in a murder investigation that can put you at odds with the local abbot. Whether you help convict the right suspect or not, your investigation seems to imply that there is something bigger going on and a person working to attempt to influence your suspects to become killers. After the initial act is over, you return to a town that is both the same and changed seven years later as a now disillusioned master artist with a young apprentice. Both of you quickly being caught up in even more dangerous events as the rift between the peasants, tradesmen, and abbot have deepened. The final act takes place 18 years later with you controlling a different character as you put together parts of the town's past and learn how those remaining from that time and the newer generation look to that past both the events Maler was involved in and people who lived in the area during Roman times and before.
Early in the game you will make a series of choices for Maler that tell what he has done and learned through his life so far. You will pick where he has traveled (Basel, Flanders, or Florence) to influence the languages he knows and his knowledge of other cultures and their artwork. A background to describe how you have lived your life (hedonist, bookworm, rapscallion, craftsman, businessman). What your primary area of study was (theology, imperial law, or medicine). Finally you can choose two other areas you studied on the side (Latinist, logician, orator, occultist, or heaven and earth). Knowledge of other languages, books, artwork, and the occult all can become important or shed more light on events when dealing with certain characters or objects while your background and certain fields of study can open up new options when dealing with people or when examining objects or books.
The game deals with the exploration and relationships you build with the townsfolk and brothers and sister of the abbey based on your choices, knowledge, and background. You learn the town and people's histories, secrets, traditions and a large thematic parts of the game deals with people trying to come to terms with pasts and how they are dealing with them now and what grows from the ruins of history and you witness the effects of your seemingly small choices that can have more or just as large of an effect on a character's life as the major decisions you make, and how those choices change the lives of those in the town in the years to come. It's very well written, you get more of a feel of who your character is and what befell them between acts 1 and 2, your background choices can lead to a lot good or amusing moments, and there are a lot of minor details to find out about a lot of the characters or just things that add to the setting like what you see and hear when you spend your meal times with different people or families or about character's hidden relationships. There is some excellent music at more major moments of the story. The history of the setting is handled in simple interesting ways without taking up too much of the game's content or requiring too much explanation, and the art style of the game unique and fits both its more lighthearted and its darker moments.
There are a few negatives to the game. It doesn't feel like a game that really benefits from a time limit and what events pass time are not always clear, not much seems to come from being made to replay the game when a lot of the primary scenes and story beats aren't going to change or not change that much. Act 3 is odd because it suddenly becomes more railroaded and there are two obvious characters that you would play as one being the young daughter of the family you stay with that you can have some influence on or your apprentice who is with you for 99% of act 2, you end up playing as a girl who wasn't born in act 1 and is only around three years old in act 2 who you can buy a book for that later influences her background knowledge of the world before you can choose three other things she is good at during a conversation. A little strange that you are constantly told that you are pretty by people when you seem to be one of the least attractive young women in the game and for some reason look both haggard and closer to 40 than 20 based on how everyone else has started or aged. You end up playing as one of the kids that probably made the least impression on you, though your past influence is still effecting other aspects and characters in the village. Dealing with the village and how things have changed is a good fitting element to the themes of the game but the actual ending that ties into everything that has been happening since the start of the game is one of those all too common parts of games where the exploration and side content tend to be the best parts, the ending works and makes sense but it's just not very interesting for all the build up. Exploration can also become a bit tedious once you start hitting multiple moments where you run into, "ok I need to go here now, to do that I need to run through these ten screens then I can run back nine screens to do the next thing, etc." Could have at least used that common double click on an area divider to move to that next section.
The game keeps your one save file for a playthrough but it is fairly easy to fix a mistake made or change something you now don't want to have done by going back to the main menu and being able to scroll through a list of previous auto saved. So if you want to see other options, go back and try to pass a persuasion check, get achievements that are exclusive to one another you won't necessarily need to replay the full game.
A lot of great unique elements to the game that make it an easy recommendation despite some minor issues and the main plot ending not hitting too hard.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1690584244622606336
Pentiment is an adventure roleplaying game set over three acts each taking place between 1518-1544 in the small town of Tassing and the nearby Kiersau Abbey in Bavaria. You play as Andreas Maler, a university drop out and soon to be master artist, who is working on a commission for the abbey before returning home to enter into an arranged marriage, as a requirement to be known as a master of his trade is to be married. Shortly before you have complete your masterpiece you become involved in a murder investigation that can put you at odds with the local abbot. Whether you help convict the right suspect or not, your investigation seems to imply that there is something bigger going on and a person working to attempt to influence your suspects to become killers. After the initial act is over, you return to a town that is both the same and changed seven years later as a now disillusioned master artist with a young apprentice. Both of you quickly being caught up in even more dangerous events as the rift between the peasants, tradesmen, and abbot have deepened. The final act takes place 18 years later with you controlling a different character as you put together parts of the town's past and learn how those remaining from that time and the newer generation look to that past both the events Maler was involved in and people who lived in the area during Roman times and before.
Early in the game you will make a series of choices for Maler that tell what he has done and learned through his life so far. You will pick where he has traveled (Basel, Flanders, or Florence) to influence the languages he knows and his knowledge of other cultures and their artwork. A background to describe how you have lived your life (hedonist, bookworm, rapscallion, craftsman, businessman). What your primary area of study was (theology, imperial law, or medicine). Finally you can choose two other areas you studied on the side (Latinist, logician, orator, occultist, or heaven and earth). Knowledge of other languages, books, artwork, and the occult all can become important or shed more light on events when dealing with certain characters or objects while your background and certain fields of study can open up new options when dealing with people or when examining objects or books.
The game deals with the exploration and relationships you build with the townsfolk and brothers and sister of the abbey based on your choices, knowledge, and background. You learn the town and people's histories, secrets, traditions and a large thematic parts of the game deals with people trying to come to terms with pasts and how they are dealing with them now and what grows from the ruins of history and you witness the effects of your seemingly small choices that can have more or just as large of an effect on a character's life as the major decisions you make, and how those choices change the lives of those in the town in the years to come. It's very well written, you get more of a feel of who your character is and what befell them between acts 1 and 2, your background choices can lead to a lot good or amusing moments, and there are a lot of minor details to find out about a lot of the characters or just things that add to the setting like what you see and hear when you spend your meal times with different people or families or about character's hidden relationships. There is some excellent music at more major moments of the story. The history of the setting is handled in simple interesting ways without taking up too much of the game's content or requiring too much explanation, and the art style of the game unique and fits both its more lighthearted and its darker moments.
There are a few negatives to the game. It doesn't feel like a game that really benefits from a time limit and what events pass time are not always clear, not much seems to come from being made to replay the game when a lot of the primary scenes and story beats aren't going to change or not change that much. Act 3 is odd because it suddenly becomes more railroaded and there are two obvious characters that you would play as one being the young daughter of the family you stay with that you can have some influence on or your apprentice who is with you for 99% of act 2, you end up playing as a girl who wasn't born in act 1 and is only around three years old in act 2 who you can buy a book for that later influences her background knowledge of the world before you can choose three other things she is good at during a conversation. A little strange that you are constantly told that you are pretty by people when you seem to be one of the least attractive young women in the game and for some reason look both haggard and closer to 40 than 20 based on how everyone else has started or aged. You end up playing as one of the kids that probably made the least impression on you, though your past influence is still effecting other aspects and characters in the village. Dealing with the village and how things have changed is a good fitting element to the themes of the game but the actual ending that ties into everything that has been happening since the start of the game is one of those all too common parts of games where the exploration and side content tend to be the best parts, the ending works and makes sense but it's just not very interesting for all the build up. Exploration can also become a bit tedious once you start hitting multiple moments where you run into, "ok I need to go here now, to do that I need to run through these ten screens then I can run back nine screens to do the next thing, etc." Could have at least used that common double click on an area divider to move to that next section.
The game keeps your one save file for a playthrough but it is fairly easy to fix a mistake made or change something you now don't want to have done by going back to the main menu and being able to scroll through a list of previous auto saved. So if you want to see other options, go back and try to pass a persuasion check, get achievements that are exclusive to one another you won't necessarily need to replay the full game.
A lot of great unique elements to the game that make it an easy recommendation despite some minor issues and the main plot ending not hitting too hard.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1690584244622606336