stoot
BACKER
2023
Road 96: Mile 0 is actually a pretty fun expansion on the first game. We got plenty of backstory that wasn't in the original game, and I think it definitely enhances the Road 96 experience with a nice tale. However, there are some pretty glaring flaws, both to do with the story and otherwise.
The runner minigames are very silly, but it's clear they had a vision for them so I'm willing to discount their silliness despite everything, and it is short break from the constant exposition. However, some of the hitboxes in the runner sections are pretty inaccurate so you have to give everything a wide berth and that's not always possible. Sometimes you have to keep going until you figure out where the hitbox really is through trial and error. Frustrating.
And while I mentioned how much I did enjoy the plot, I had to overlook some things. For starters, the moral choice system undermined the story. What's the point on including one if the character you're controlling will contradict your actions during the cutscenes? I would've preferred it if they just railroaded me a bit more, so they could tell the story they wanted to tell instead of giving me the freedom to contradict the plot. My other real gripe is that the climax is very goofy and sucked all of the emotional tension out of the moment.
Otherwise, I enjoyed this. You may miss the road trip vibes of the original if you were a fan, but I think the fun exposition will make up for it. And Colton. I actually ended up liking that little ratbag in the end and I hate myself for it.
The runner minigames are very silly, but it's clear they had a vision for them so I'm willing to discount their silliness despite everything, and it is short break from the constant exposition. However, some of the hitboxes in the runner sections are pretty inaccurate so you have to give everything a wide berth and that's not always possible. Sometimes you have to keep going until you figure out where the hitbox really is through trial and error. Frustrating.
And while I mentioned how much I did enjoy the plot, I had to overlook some things. For starters, the moral choice system undermined the story. What's the point on including one if the character you're controlling will contradict your actions during the cutscenes? I would've preferred it if they just railroaded me a bit more, so they could tell the story they wanted to tell instead of giving me the freedom to contradict the plot. My other real gripe is that the climax is very goofy and sucked all of the emotional tension out of the moment.
Otherwise, I enjoyed this. You may miss the road trip vibes of the original if you were a fan, but I think the fun exposition will make up for it. And Colton. I actually ended up liking that little ratbag in the end and I hate myself for it.
2022
This is largely spoiler free, but I do spoil some aspects of the game you might want to discover for yourself.
Half the time that I see Pentiment discussion on the internet I see a phrase tossed around. "This game was designed specifically for x amount of people and I am one of them." I am not going to say that, because I actively try to avoid most discussion of ye olde history. I get it, everything sucked back then and all the rulers were entitled pricks. Those poor farmers performed manual labor for 17 hours a day until they died of dysentary and a very sore back at the elderly age of 32, survived by their 17 children. "They were very productive back then, as being productive was a matter of life and death", I think while I sit here writing an overly lengthy review of a video game with no real reward or consequence. I've gotten off track here, but my point is that the setting did not remotely interest me. Neither did the pedigree of Obsidian Entertainment, who have made a bunch of critically acclaimed games that I got bored of pretty early on.
It should be obvious by now that I am not the target audience of this game, despite my liking of story-driven games. However, I was intrigued after seeing the art style in trailers and deducing that it was being made by a small team. "What the hell, I'll give it a go," I thought. I'm glad I did, because Pentiment is an extremely well made game.
As I expected, the art style is the first thing that hit me from the somewhat confusing opening scene. It's an absolute treat to look at, and I can only imagine that the only reason I haven't seen this unique art style used for any games previously is because it looks like a paper-cut pain to animate and a stubbed-toe pain to research.
The next thing that hit me was the writing. I found it very interesting that so many characters took issue with particular aspects of society or religion. The first I remember was a character who preached the writings of Martin Luther. Other memorable viewpoints included a character who hated organised religion and a nun who had been forced to become one against her will. Each character in this game has a unique perspective. And interacting with the children is, for the first time in any video game, a lot of fun. The way they wander around misbehaving in the background while the grown-ups are talking was hilarious.
I haven't even talked about what you actually do in Pentiment yet. It's a good thing that I don't do this professionally or I would get fired. Pentiment is a 2D side-scrolling murder mystery where your actions and dialogue choices will impact the story and future interactions with characters. Sometimes within the same act, sometimes in a later act, and occasionally in the epilogue. Accompanying this is a character building section towards the beginning of each act where you decide what your character's background is. These choices will open up certain dialogue choices throughout the game and I always found it quite rewarding when they did pop up and help me discover some more evidence. Pentiment also has a Persona-style time management system where most tasks you undertake do not pass the time but some others do. The time consuming tasks are signposted so, unless you're an idiot like me, you should find it easy enough to discover enough about the murder to find a suspect. However, you won't find everything, and the mechanic-enforced open endedness of each case initially frustrated my want of closure. In hindsight, I think it was the right choice. My reasoning for this goes in spoiler territory, so you'll have to trust me on this one.
Lastly, it's difficult to talk about without spoiling anything but I should give a glimpse into my thoughts on the story. I thought it was satisfying to watch the characters who did have a plot arc in each act. And cleverly enough, with time skips taking place between the acts, it means that all the minor characters have a small arc as well. You watch them grow up or grow old or watch other characters come to terms with their death off-screen. A lot of effort went into world building and the overarching story of Pentiment nestles into it very snugly. Overall, it's a very tightly written experience. The only negative I can really conjure up is that the main character's arc doesn't fit particularly neatly into the story. It's a minor and perhaps arguable quibble, though, and really only something I'd mention if the rest of the game was absolutely excellent.
In conclusion, ignore what people say about this game being designed for them. Pentiment is designed for everyone, and you should play it. No seriously, I'm giving this a rare unconditional recommendation. Not only is it really good, but I really want this game to succeed. Obsidian currently have a great track record for letting small teams make smaller, niche, interesting titles while the A-team work on games with a broader appeal. I'd love to see that continue, and I'd love to see more Triple A developers follow this path of giving their proven creatives the keys to the bus and not stopping them when they go off-road.
Half the time that I see Pentiment discussion on the internet I see a phrase tossed around. "This game was designed specifically for x amount of people and I am one of them." I am not going to say that, because I actively try to avoid most discussion of ye olde history. I get it, everything sucked back then and all the rulers were entitled pricks. Those poor farmers performed manual labor for 17 hours a day until they died of dysentary and a very sore back at the elderly age of 32, survived by their 17 children. "They were very productive back then, as being productive was a matter of life and death", I think while I sit here writing an overly lengthy review of a video game with no real reward or consequence. I've gotten off track here, but my point is that the setting did not remotely interest me. Neither did the pedigree of Obsidian Entertainment, who have made a bunch of critically acclaimed games that I got bored of pretty early on.
It should be obvious by now that I am not the target audience of this game, despite my liking of story-driven games. However, I was intrigued after seeing the art style in trailers and deducing that it was being made by a small team. "What the hell, I'll give it a go," I thought. I'm glad I did, because Pentiment is an extremely well made game.
As I expected, the art style is the first thing that hit me from the somewhat confusing opening scene. It's an absolute treat to look at, and I can only imagine that the only reason I haven't seen this unique art style used for any games previously is because it looks like a paper-cut pain to animate and a stubbed-toe pain to research.
The next thing that hit me was the writing. I found it very interesting that so many characters took issue with particular aspects of society or religion. The first I remember was a character who preached the writings of Martin Luther. Other memorable viewpoints included a character who hated organised religion and a nun who had been forced to become one against her will. Each character in this game has a unique perspective. And interacting with the children is, for the first time in any video game, a lot of fun. The way they wander around misbehaving in the background while the grown-ups are talking was hilarious.
I haven't even talked about what you actually do in Pentiment yet. It's a good thing that I don't do this professionally or I would get fired. Pentiment is a 2D side-scrolling murder mystery where your actions and dialogue choices will impact the story and future interactions with characters. Sometimes within the same act, sometimes in a later act, and occasionally in the epilogue. Accompanying this is a character building section towards the beginning of each act where you decide what your character's background is. These choices will open up certain dialogue choices throughout the game and I always found it quite rewarding when they did pop up and help me discover some more evidence. Pentiment also has a Persona-style time management system where most tasks you undertake do not pass the time but some others do. The time consuming tasks are signposted so, unless you're an idiot like me, you should find it easy enough to discover enough about the murder to find a suspect. However, you won't find everything, and the mechanic-enforced open endedness of each case initially frustrated my want of closure. In hindsight, I think it was the right choice. My reasoning for this goes in spoiler territory, so you'll have to trust me on this one.
Lastly, it's difficult to talk about without spoiling anything but I should give a glimpse into my thoughts on the story. I thought it was satisfying to watch the characters who did have a plot arc in each act. And cleverly enough, with time skips taking place between the acts, it means that all the minor characters have a small arc as well. You watch them grow up or grow old or watch other characters come to terms with their death off-screen. A lot of effort went into world building and the overarching story of Pentiment nestles into it very snugly. Overall, it's a very tightly written experience. The only negative I can really conjure up is that the main character's arc doesn't fit particularly neatly into the story. It's a minor and perhaps arguable quibble, though, and really only something I'd mention if the rest of the game was absolutely excellent.
In conclusion, ignore what people say about this game being designed for them. Pentiment is designed for everyone, and you should play it. No seriously, I'm giving this a rare unconditional recommendation. Not only is it really good, but I really want this game to succeed. Obsidian currently have a great track record for letting small teams make smaller, niche, interesting titles while the A-team work on games with a broader appeal. I'd love to see that continue, and I'd love to see more Triple A developers follow this path of giving their proven creatives the keys to the bus and not stopping them when they go off-road.
2022
A monumental effort for a small team. The environment design is spectacular and one of the clear highlights, and I cannot begin to imagine what a deceptively difficult challenge it must have been to get movement to feel good, with how the cat is animated and how few times I found myself moving to the wrong platform with its simple controls. The music also deserves praise, and I'm starting to get sick of how good the music is in every professionally made game that I play. I can only type "compliments the action perfectly" so many times.
Of course, there is a drawback to having a small team. The game is short, I clocked in at just over 4 hours (keeping in mind that I tend to go through games much faster than the average player). Steam achievements show that 3 days after release, 17% of players who have started the game have already finished it. That's fine, but those who prioritise quantity may feel a little let down if they expected more from a Sony-backed game. In addition to this, the puzzles are fairly simple and none of the action scenes took me more than 2 attempts to complete, so those looking for a challenge may also not particularly enjoy this one.
But come on, you're playing as a cat doing cute cat things in a lavishly decorated crumbling city. I really enjoyed exploring the city, and some of the action scenes were very striking. I enjoyed my time with this one, and I cannot understate how impressive of an achievement it is.
Of course, there is a drawback to having a small team. The game is short, I clocked in at just over 4 hours (keeping in mind that I tend to go through games much faster than the average player). Steam achievements show that 3 days after release, 17% of players who have started the game have already finished it. That's fine, but those who prioritise quantity may feel a little let down if they expected more from a Sony-backed game. In addition to this, the puzzles are fairly simple and none of the action scenes took me more than 2 attempts to complete, so those looking for a challenge may also not particularly enjoy this one.
But come on, you're playing as a cat doing cute cat things in a lavishly decorated crumbling city. I really enjoyed exploring the city, and some of the action scenes were very striking. I enjoyed my time with this one, and I cannot understate how impressive of an achievement it is.
2021
This review contains spoilers
I hate having to put so many asterisks on games I love. It sucks, but here goes.
Moonglow Bay is waking up on a Sunday morning, knowing that you have no real plans for the day and just relaxing. There's not a lot of challenge, no hard commitments - Moonglow Bay is a game about vibing. There's a lot of repetition involved, but that's fine. It's not like you've been adding new songs to your playlists recently, right? Wait, are you listening to Metallica's Master of Puppets again? What's that, the third time in two weeks?
The story is very pleasant, grief is a common thread throughout, as is the building sense of community within the town. I am a sucker for found family plots, it's why Cars is one of my favourite Pixar movies. There's also some fairly ambitious set-pieces at the end of each chapter, which, for the most part, stick the landing despite their issues. This is all accompanied by a phenomenal soundtrack by Lena Raine, where day-to-day background music is constant without ever being grating, and the set-piece music is emotional, swelling and always fits the mood.
However, to say this game has issues would be like saying this game has fish (to clarify, there are 151 types of fish). One of the aforementioned ambitious set-pieces is terribly tedious and difficult, and I've read multiple stories of people quitting despite otherwise enjoying the game. Then there's the sometimes game-breaking bugs, unintentional sequence breaks, confusing quest steps and misplaced quest markers. Once, I sequence broke in a way I couldn't recover from, and I had to glitch my game to get back on track. Other players edited their save file or are waiting for a patch, with developers confirming that they know about the bug but are yet to fix it. The game came out 8 months ago.
Other than that, I only really have one critique. I think there's a certain disharmony between the game's plotlines. Your character works hard, spending time and a phenomenal amount of money to fix up the town. I found this pretty rewarding, particularly at a plot point where the rest of the town catch onto your character's attitude and begin to help out. But once this cutscene is over, it's back to business as usual and the rest of the game is unaffected. These people keep wanting to buy your seafood, but none of them lift a finger when the opportunity to spend money fixing the town comes around. I found the rest of the plot and writing to be emotionally resonant, so it's a massive shame that this muted my reaction to how the plot turned out in that regard.
Oh yeah, did I say I loved this game? If you love it enough to Google the answers and workarounds every time you get stuck, you'll hopefully enjoy it as much as I did. If that sounds like a bridge you'd rather not cross, then it's not for you.
Moonglow Bay is waking up on a Sunday morning, knowing that you have no real plans for the day and just relaxing. There's not a lot of challenge, no hard commitments - Moonglow Bay is a game about vibing. There's a lot of repetition involved, but that's fine. It's not like you've been adding new songs to your playlists recently, right? Wait, are you listening to Metallica's Master of Puppets again? What's that, the third time in two weeks?
The story is very pleasant, grief is a common thread throughout, as is the building sense of community within the town. I am a sucker for found family plots, it's why Cars is one of my favourite Pixar movies. There's also some fairly ambitious set-pieces at the end of each chapter, which, for the most part, stick the landing despite their issues. This is all accompanied by a phenomenal soundtrack by Lena Raine, where day-to-day background music is constant without ever being grating, and the set-piece music is emotional, swelling and always fits the mood.
However, to say this game has issues would be like saying this game has fish (to clarify, there are 151 types of fish). One of the aforementioned ambitious set-pieces is terribly tedious and difficult, and I've read multiple stories of people quitting despite otherwise enjoying the game. Then there's the sometimes game-breaking bugs, unintentional sequence breaks, confusing quest steps and misplaced quest markers. Once, I sequence broke in a way I couldn't recover from, and I had to glitch my game to get back on track. Other players edited their save file or are waiting for a patch, with developers confirming that they know about the bug but are yet to fix it. The game came out 8 months ago.
Other than that, I only really have one critique. I think there's a certain disharmony between the game's plotlines. Your character works hard, spending time and a phenomenal amount of money to fix up the town. I found this pretty rewarding, particularly at a plot point where the rest of the town catch onto your character's attitude and begin to help out. But once this cutscene is over, it's back to business as usual and the rest of the game is unaffected. These people keep wanting to buy your seafood, but none of them lift a finger when the opportunity to spend money fixing the town comes around. I found the rest of the plot and writing to be emotionally resonant, so it's a massive shame that this muted my reaction to how the plot turned out in that regard.
Oh yeah, did I say I loved this game? If you love it enough to Google the answers and workarounds every time you get stuck, you'll hopefully enjoy it as much as I did. If that sounds like a bridge you'd rather not cross, then it's not for you.