I think this is the first time where I've wanted to give a game a 4.5 star rating, but feel that a 3.5 is probably warranted. For eleven and a half hours of my playthrough, I was having an absolute blast with The Painscreek Killings. Exploring the ghost town, taking VERY detailed notes, and working through the backstory of each character/event was some of the most fun I've had with a game all year. The mystery was consistently engaging, and the game was open enough to allow you to discover things at your own pace, while also giving a bit of guidance so as to not feel aimless.
However, the last half hour of the game has some incredibly stupid design choices that unfortunately hamper the experience as a whole. It adds a needless plot hole/complication to the narrative, and botches multiple gameplay ideas. And it's just so frustrating, because I think the end would be extremely easy to fix with the slightest bit of reworking. I honestly think if you simply remove THAT part of the ending (anyone who's beaten it knows what im talking about) then the game goes up to 4 stars just from that change alone. And with some other simple tweaks that would only take a few days of dev time to implement, it could go up to the 4.5 star I want to give it.
That all being said, I absolutely loved the vast majority of my time spent with this game, and I refuse to let the conclusion sour how much fun I had leading up to it. We don't see many games that aim to tackle a cold-case with such little hand-holding, so for that I can easily recommend it to those interested. It's a shame the devs made as many bad decisions as they did in that final stretch, because this was genuinely seeming like it would be one of my favorite games. But hey, they got a lot right leading up to the end, so im definitely looking forward to what they do next.
However, the last half hour of the game has some incredibly stupid design choices that unfortunately hamper the experience as a whole. It adds a needless plot hole/complication to the narrative, and botches multiple gameplay ideas. And it's just so frustrating, because I think the end would be extremely easy to fix with the slightest bit of reworking. I honestly think if you simply remove THAT part of the ending (anyone who's beaten it knows what im talking about) then the game goes up to 4 stars just from that change alone. And with some other simple tweaks that would only take a few days of dev time to implement, it could go up to the 4.5 star I want to give it.
That all being said, I absolutely loved the vast majority of my time spent with this game, and I refuse to let the conclusion sour how much fun I had leading up to it. We don't see many games that aim to tackle a cold-case with such little hand-holding, so for that I can easily recommend it to those interested. It's a shame the devs made as many bad decisions as they did in that final stretch, because this was genuinely seeming like it would be one of my favorite games. But hey, they got a lot right leading up to the end, so im definitely looking forward to what they do next.