This review contains spoilers
I had very low expectations going in, but it actually turned out better than I expected. Still, it definitely has it's problems.
The first thing you notice is how bad the voice-acting is. For the main cast, it wasn't too bad and the dialogue is so fast that you barely get enough time to even notice the acting. But with the characters in the opening, it was seriously laughably bad; enough to really ruin the tension for that section.
What I find worse than the acting, though, is the dialogue. It's quite clunky and at times, incredibly unrealistic. The characters don't really react to their situation how real people would. It's not helped by how fast the dialogue is, which dampens the emotion behind the lines and is hard to keep up with at times.
I will say, I did like the atmosphere. Wandering around the ship genuinely felt tense and unsettling, especially later in the game where they really lean into the ghost story jumpscares. And as a big fan of the BioShock games, I loved the setting of a dilaptated, abandoned ship from the late 40's. The scene where there's music playing in the distance and you get chased by the pin-up girl is great – I wish they did more scenes taking advantage of the era like that.
I played on Challenging, and it did genuinely feel challenging. The QTEs and timed choices went by very fast, and although the heartbeat sensor itself wasn't too hard, the fear of messing it up made each scene using it appropriately tense.
The story itself is interesting, but definitely could have been fleshed out a lot more. I like that (spoilers for Until Dawn) it was the reverse of the twist in UD – a supernatural threat that turns out to just be a scientific threat instead of a killer that turns out to be a supernatural threat. I thought it was a fun little nod to their previous game, and I like that they didn't just repeat what they did with UD.
A lot of the clues (or as it's referred to in-game, 'secrets') felt pretty useless. It was just a bunch of stuff you can already inferr just by playing, and didn't really offer up much new information. When the characters use them to piece things together, instead of feeling like a big, satisfying reveal, it just felt like a bland retelling of what I already realized an hour ago. And maybe I just missed some clues, but it felt like the story was incomplete? Like, what was up with the demon-summoning book and church? The 'monster' skeleton in the coffin? Were those just red herrings or hallucinations? Because I feel like they should've had more weight. Not to mention, there was never a conclusion to Alex wanting to propose to Julia, or Fliss seemingly being a criminal.
Easily the most disappointing was the ending. After the encounter with the two-headed monster, I assumed there was more to do. It was a good chase scene, but nothing that felt like a finale. Argubably, the chase scenes before it were a lot more stressful and longer. But then the ending abruptly triggered. Followed by a very awkward, anti-climatic 'interview' section. Maybe they thought it'd be too much like UD, but I think they should've had an actual interview take place. Or, at the very least, a proper epilogue – maybe the character's lives months/years after? I will say, though, that I liked the post-credit scene. It was a bit confusing for me – as lots of things in this game were – but it was still a good watch.
This isn't even mentioning all the weird, little things such as loading screens in awkward places; the QTE animations skipping and making it look like Conrad was teleporting during his chase section with the pin-up girl; and, the dialogue being delayed/skipping.
Overall, it was kind of buggy, had okay characters (Brad and Fliss were my favs!) and an incomplete story with a anticlimatic ending, but a genuinely scary and unsettling atmosphere.
The first thing you notice is how bad the voice-acting is. For the main cast, it wasn't too bad and the dialogue is so fast that you barely get enough time to even notice the acting. But with the characters in the opening, it was seriously laughably bad; enough to really ruin the tension for that section.
What I find worse than the acting, though, is the dialogue. It's quite clunky and at times, incredibly unrealistic. The characters don't really react to their situation how real people would. It's not helped by how fast the dialogue is, which dampens the emotion behind the lines and is hard to keep up with at times.
I will say, I did like the atmosphere. Wandering around the ship genuinely felt tense and unsettling, especially later in the game where they really lean into the ghost story jumpscares. And as a big fan of the BioShock games, I loved the setting of a dilaptated, abandoned ship from the late 40's. The scene where there's music playing in the distance and you get chased by the pin-up girl is great – I wish they did more scenes taking advantage of the era like that.
I played on Challenging, and it did genuinely feel challenging. The QTEs and timed choices went by very fast, and although the heartbeat sensor itself wasn't too hard, the fear of messing it up made each scene using it appropriately tense.
The story itself is interesting, but definitely could have been fleshed out a lot more. I like that (spoilers for Until Dawn) it was the reverse of the twist in UD – a supernatural threat that turns out to just be a scientific threat instead of a killer that turns out to be a supernatural threat. I thought it was a fun little nod to their previous game, and I like that they didn't just repeat what they did with UD.
A lot of the clues (or as it's referred to in-game, 'secrets') felt pretty useless. It was just a bunch of stuff you can already inferr just by playing, and didn't really offer up much new information. When the characters use them to piece things together, instead of feeling like a big, satisfying reveal, it just felt like a bland retelling of what I already realized an hour ago. And maybe I just missed some clues, but it felt like the story was incomplete? Like, what was up with the demon-summoning book and church? The 'monster' skeleton in the coffin? Were those just red herrings or hallucinations? Because I feel like they should've had more weight. Not to mention, there was never a conclusion to Alex wanting to propose to Julia, or Fliss seemingly being a criminal.
Easily the most disappointing was the ending. After the encounter with the two-headed monster, I assumed there was more to do. It was a good chase scene, but nothing that felt like a finale. Argubably, the chase scenes before it were a lot more stressful and longer. But then the ending abruptly triggered. Followed by a very awkward, anti-climatic 'interview' section. Maybe they thought it'd be too much like UD, but I think they should've had an actual interview take place. Or, at the very least, a proper epilogue – maybe the character's lives months/years after? I will say, though, that I liked the post-credit scene. It was a bit confusing for me – as lots of things in this game were – but it was still a good watch.
This isn't even mentioning all the weird, little things such as loading screens in awkward places; the QTE animations skipping and making it look like Conrad was teleporting during his chase section with the pin-up girl; and, the dialogue being delayed/skipping.
Overall, it was kind of buggy, had okay characters (Brad and Fliss were my favs!) and an incomplete story with a anticlimatic ending, but a genuinely scary and unsettling atmosphere.