Well, this is the first game in the series that takes a bit of a step back.
The art just isn't quite as good as Convergence. The portraits lost their animation while talking, which, given how much talking there is in the game, makes everything feel more static. The character sprites also seem to have gone in an odd direction, maybe more cartoony? Whatever the case, I'm not the biggest fan of Rosa's new sprite in particular, which is unfortunate since you're looking at it for 90% of the game.
The individual cases and their side stories overall didn't feel quite as compelling as previous entries to me. The writing was still good, I think it was mainly that "college student" and "office temp" aren't quite as inherently interesting as "formerly homeless artist" or "jazz musician" for me. I think it was more of an atmosphere thing than a writing thing.
Some of the puzzles were a bit more intricate than necessary (e.g., getting the key from the nursing home), and from time to time the solution was a bit obscure. That said, I only resorted to looking things up in one instance, and I'd actually already solved the puzzle, I just didn't know how to reset it to do the correct solution.
Of course, those are relatively minor issues. Deception had double the runtime of previous entries (~6 hours), which gave it more room to breathe and feel like a complete experience in its own right. The main characters and overall plot was great. Joey, in particular, really had some good, emotional beats this time around. The introduction of the big bad may be a little cheesy by some standards, but I loved it.
All in all, it was still a great experience, and I may not have even had those minor quibbles if I didn't like the previous games in the series so much.
The art just isn't quite as good as Convergence. The portraits lost their animation while talking, which, given how much talking there is in the game, makes everything feel more static. The character sprites also seem to have gone in an odd direction, maybe more cartoony? Whatever the case, I'm not the biggest fan of Rosa's new sprite in particular, which is unfortunate since you're looking at it for 90% of the game.
The individual cases and their side stories overall didn't feel quite as compelling as previous entries to me. The writing was still good, I think it was mainly that "college student" and "office temp" aren't quite as inherently interesting as "formerly homeless artist" or "jazz musician" for me. I think it was more of an atmosphere thing than a writing thing.
Some of the puzzles were a bit more intricate than necessary (e.g., getting the key from the nursing home), and from time to time the solution was a bit obscure. That said, I only resorted to looking things up in one instance, and I'd actually already solved the puzzle, I just didn't know how to reset it to do the correct solution.
Of course, those are relatively minor issues. Deception had double the runtime of previous entries (~6 hours), which gave it more room to breathe and feel like a complete experience in its own right. The main characters and overall plot was great. Joey, in particular, really had some good, emotional beats this time around. The introduction of the big bad may be a little cheesy by some standards, but I loved it.
All in all, it was still a great experience, and I may not have even had those minor quibbles if I didn't like the previous games in the series so much.