Sights & Sounds
- The visuals really do harken back to classic adventure games...
- ...right down to the slightly weird-looking character portraits. They're cartoony in a strange way
- The music was serviceable, but a little forgettable
- The voice acting felt amateurish in a good way. On the other hand, there were a lot of vocal pops and breath sounds in the audio recordings that felt amateurish in a bad way
Story & Vibes
- The story is fun, if a little cheesy. Maybe not as cheesy as something like The Darkside Detective (another supernatural detective adventure game), though. This game leans slightly more heartfelt
- There's unfortunately a lot of exposition. Almost too much. I know this installment kicks off the franchise, but there's so many info dumps that you begin to wonder how much world-building a 2-4 hour game needs
- The vibe is like whatever your supernatural teenage drama of choice is. For me, that's Buffy
Playability & Replayability
- This game doesn't really break the mold of point-and-click adventure game mechanics
- Besides the usual genre fare (chatting up people for info, picking up items, combining those items to solve puzzles), you'll also delve into some investigation tropes
- The most familiar of these is the notebook, in which your character will jot down clues. You may have to combine these into other clues, or use them when questioning people of interest to further the conversation tree
- Puzzle design was alright. Not all of it was very intuitive. It took me too damn long to stumble into the right solution for the first puzzle. They got a little better from there, but some solutions later on felt a little half-baked (notably, the second puzzle involving the dog)
Overall Impressions & Performance
- The game feels very "earnest", if that makes any sense. It's like hanging a kid's drawing on the fridge. It's rough around the edges, but you put it up anyways because of the honest effort
- I'm delving into the franchise (and really, Wadjet Eye's whole body of work) in semi-chronological order, so it'll be interesting to see how the writing and puzzles evolve
Final Verdict
- 6/10. I'm optimistic that the franchise improves from here. The audio and exposition issues hampered what would have been a more enjoyable time
- The visuals really do harken back to classic adventure games...
- ...right down to the slightly weird-looking character portraits. They're cartoony in a strange way
- The music was serviceable, but a little forgettable
- The voice acting felt amateurish in a good way. On the other hand, there were a lot of vocal pops and breath sounds in the audio recordings that felt amateurish in a bad way
Story & Vibes
- The story is fun, if a little cheesy. Maybe not as cheesy as something like The Darkside Detective (another supernatural detective adventure game), though. This game leans slightly more heartfelt
- There's unfortunately a lot of exposition. Almost too much. I know this installment kicks off the franchise, but there's so many info dumps that you begin to wonder how much world-building a 2-4 hour game needs
- The vibe is like whatever your supernatural teenage drama of choice is. For me, that's Buffy
Playability & Replayability
- This game doesn't really break the mold of point-and-click adventure game mechanics
- Besides the usual genre fare (chatting up people for info, picking up items, combining those items to solve puzzles), you'll also delve into some investigation tropes
- The most familiar of these is the notebook, in which your character will jot down clues. You may have to combine these into other clues, or use them when questioning people of interest to further the conversation tree
- Puzzle design was alright. Not all of it was very intuitive. It took me too damn long to stumble into the right solution for the first puzzle. They got a little better from there, but some solutions later on felt a little half-baked (notably, the second puzzle involving the dog)
Overall Impressions & Performance
- The game feels very "earnest", if that makes any sense. It's like hanging a kid's drawing on the fridge. It's rough around the edges, but you put it up anyways because of the honest effort
- I'm delving into the franchise (and really, Wadjet Eye's whole body of work) in semi-chronological order, so it'll be interesting to see how the writing and puzzles evolve
Final Verdict
- 6/10. I'm optimistic that the franchise improves from here. The audio and exposition issues hampered what would have been a more enjoyable time