This review contains spoilers
a wonderful, a beautiful surprise. i definitely had some reservations going in, i have very little interest in the setting or the period of history it takes place in, and i never particularly enjoyed PoE1 or 2's writing--the former being too dry, the latter often feeling like it overcorrected too much due to the dryness criticism. boy did those reservations get mashed, stabbed, crushed and burned and sent to kingdom come, though. amen. AMEN! (with shaky text)
the quality of the writing was definitely the biggest surprise here. the writing, the characters, the dialogue feel real, there's a sincerity to it and its depictions of the life of the various characters and groups in the 1500s that really makes it feel like it's coming from the heart, born out of sheer passion for the medium and the setting and out of love for the stories it's telling. it's frankly a bit amazing to me how attached i got to some of these characters, considering the cynicism i had with me going in. many of andreas' inner sequences got me genuinely emotional, and particularly the ones with august just, fucking, destroyed me. i've certainly gotten more emotional and sensitive in many ways as i've gotten older and while pentiment isn't the only game that has made me misty-eyed, it has the honor of being the first one to make me squeeze out a little sob multiple times.
in addition to the emotions felt, i also enjoyed the musings on art and delicate conversations on death a lot. i actually got quite a bit out of the religious talk too, which was nice, since i've never really given religion or my own faith (or the lack thereof) any particular thought. not to mention the mystery itself, of course! the dialogue styling reveal was a wonderfully clever little thing at the end there, and i found the conclusion to the whole thing to be very satisfying.
all that said, i'm not gonna replay this. i don't know how much choice & consequence is actually built into the overarching narrative, but my playthrough felt completely organic, the events made sense and it never felt like the story got pushed one way or the other artificially. it felt coherent and whole, which i think is an incredible achievement for a game that's at least supposed to be highly reactive in its narrative--i wouldn't know, i went in blind and don't know anything about other people's playthroughs, nor, like i said, am i planning on doing multiple playthroughs since the first one was so good and felt so intimately mine.
some other miscellaneous things i wanted to praise:
- the storybook presentation is absolutely top notch. like what else is there to say? nothing. it's exceptional.
- i adored all the silly little minigames, from eating to twig snapping to cypher solving to cookie cutting. they were a really fun way to involve the player more deeply in the world.
- loved the sound design, between the myriad cartoonishly exaggerated and high-quality ambient noises and the writing sounds, a lot of the sound design really scratched my brain in a pleasant way. it was almost like an asmr experience at times. like the minigames, they also really helped bringing the world truly alive.
tl;dr: it made me cry multiple times and i fucking hope obsidian manages to bring this sort of sincerity and emotion and depth of character and love to its future rpgs because i think they could make something pretty incredible then.
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good night, august.
the quality of the writing was definitely the biggest surprise here. the writing, the characters, the dialogue feel real, there's a sincerity to it and its depictions of the life of the various characters and groups in the 1500s that really makes it feel like it's coming from the heart, born out of sheer passion for the medium and the setting and out of love for the stories it's telling. it's frankly a bit amazing to me how attached i got to some of these characters, considering the cynicism i had with me going in. many of andreas' inner sequences got me genuinely emotional, and particularly the ones with august just, fucking, destroyed me. i've certainly gotten more emotional and sensitive in many ways as i've gotten older and while pentiment isn't the only game that has made me misty-eyed, it has the honor of being the first one to make me squeeze out a little sob multiple times.
in addition to the emotions felt, i also enjoyed the musings on art and delicate conversations on death a lot. i actually got quite a bit out of the religious talk too, which was nice, since i've never really given religion or my own faith (or the lack thereof) any particular thought. not to mention the mystery itself, of course! the dialogue styling reveal was a wonderfully clever little thing at the end there, and i found the conclusion to the whole thing to be very satisfying.
all that said, i'm not gonna replay this. i don't know how much choice & consequence is actually built into the overarching narrative, but my playthrough felt completely organic, the events made sense and it never felt like the story got pushed one way or the other artificially. it felt coherent and whole, which i think is an incredible achievement for a game that's at least supposed to be highly reactive in its narrative--i wouldn't know, i went in blind and don't know anything about other people's playthroughs, nor, like i said, am i planning on doing multiple playthroughs since the first one was so good and felt so intimately mine.
some other miscellaneous things i wanted to praise:
- the storybook presentation is absolutely top notch. like what else is there to say? nothing. it's exceptional.
- i adored all the silly little minigames, from eating to twig snapping to cypher solving to cookie cutting. they were a really fun way to involve the player more deeply in the world.
- loved the sound design, between the myriad cartoonishly exaggerated and high-quality ambient noises and the writing sounds, a lot of the sound design really scratched my brain in a pleasant way. it was almost like an asmr experience at times. like the minigames, they also really helped bringing the world truly alive.
tl;dr: it made me cry multiple times and i fucking hope obsidian manages to bring this sort of sincerity and emotion and depth of character and love to its future rpgs because i think they could make something pretty incredible then.
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good night, august.