Devotion is quite a ways off from what I expected it to be. Since I like to go in blind to most games beyond their short description, especially if it’s a horror or narrative heavy game, this often means that I have little expectations beyond what it says on the tin. For Devotion that means all I knew was that it would be a 1980s Taiwan horror game, presumedly about… Devotion. And call it stereotyping but I was very much anticipating a by-the-books but by no mean unwelcome ghost game. It goes a bit deeper than that though.
Similar to Transference, this is more a game about family than the underlying creep and dread of a boogeyman stalking you. Information you learn about yourself, your daughter, and your wife is told primarily through artistic vignettes, souvenirs, and notes, told over the snapshot duration of many years. Luckily unlike Transference, I think this game did a great job in not only defying my expectations, but in making me happy that it did. It did the unthinkable, it made me care to learn more about it’s titular family. As the name suggests, the game is a tale about how desperate devotion on the part of the player character, the father, can lead a man down a dark path to save his family. It’s a sad ballad that I could dissect set piece by set piece, but for the sake of brevity and the small possibility that I can get someone else to play this game, I won’t elaborate on any more spoilers here. I’ll just add as a last note on the story front that the passage of time is portrayed fantastically in the design and wear of the apartment complex your family lives in as you explore your past, creating a wonderful narrative and aesthetic harmony.
While I said this wasn’t a traditional haunted house, don’t think that means there won’t be any scares or legitimately horrific events. In a surprise twist this game has some of the best toe-curling body horror I’ve seen, realism be damned. And before you think this is just another PT walking simulator clone with a little fluff added on, I’m glad to say there’s some super creative gameplay segments beyond walking nondescript room to nondescript room that kept me properly engaged. Some are cute, some are ethereal, and some are quite unnerving, either by nature of the story or with the help of some masterly crafted ambience. It even has a half-decent chase sequence, with the caveat that it would have been vastly improved if our player character moved faster than a light jog. Regardless, it was short and gave the player some visceral, horror-fueled urgency that the rest of the game doesn’t quite touch on.
It’s weird how in many ways I find Devotion to be similar to Layers of Fear - another walking simulator where you uncover the dark pieces of your past - and yet I enjoyed it so much more. I think the depth of story, a clear creative throughline, and genuinely well-crafted sections beyond JUST notes made it so much more intriguing throughout, even if it wasn’t what I was initially hoping for. Devotion also has this remarkable, almost claylike look to everything that weirdly takes me back to games of the PS3 era. I’m not sure why, but I love it. Inscryption is kind of similar, it has an indescribably fuzzy art style to it that makes it oddly endearing. Whatever it is, keep ‘em coming I say.
Similar to Transference, this is more a game about family than the underlying creep and dread of a boogeyman stalking you. Information you learn about yourself, your daughter, and your wife is told primarily through artistic vignettes, souvenirs, and notes, told over the snapshot duration of many years. Luckily unlike Transference, I think this game did a great job in not only defying my expectations, but in making me happy that it did. It did the unthinkable, it made me care to learn more about it’s titular family. As the name suggests, the game is a tale about how desperate devotion on the part of the player character, the father, can lead a man down a dark path to save his family. It’s a sad ballad that I could dissect set piece by set piece, but for the sake of brevity and the small possibility that I can get someone else to play this game, I won’t elaborate on any more spoilers here. I’ll just add as a last note on the story front that the passage of time is portrayed fantastically in the design and wear of the apartment complex your family lives in as you explore your past, creating a wonderful narrative and aesthetic harmony.
While I said this wasn’t a traditional haunted house, don’t think that means there won’t be any scares or legitimately horrific events. In a surprise twist this game has some of the best toe-curling body horror I’ve seen, realism be damned. And before you think this is just another PT walking simulator clone with a little fluff added on, I’m glad to say there’s some super creative gameplay segments beyond walking nondescript room to nondescript room that kept me properly engaged. Some are cute, some are ethereal, and some are quite unnerving, either by nature of the story or with the help of some masterly crafted ambience. It even has a half-decent chase sequence, with the caveat that it would have been vastly improved if our player character moved faster than a light jog. Regardless, it was short and gave the player some visceral, horror-fueled urgency that the rest of the game doesn’t quite touch on.
It’s weird how in many ways I find Devotion to be similar to Layers of Fear - another walking simulator where you uncover the dark pieces of your past - and yet I enjoyed it so much more. I think the depth of story, a clear creative throughline, and genuinely well-crafted sections beyond JUST notes made it so much more intriguing throughout, even if it wasn’t what I was initially hoping for. Devotion also has this remarkable, almost claylike look to everything that weirdly takes me back to games of the PS3 era. I’m not sure why, but I love it. Inscryption is kind of similar, it has an indescribably fuzzy art style to it that makes it oddly endearing. Whatever it is, keep ‘em coming I say.