- Jun 30, 2011
- 1,871
- 33
- 91
I'm a pretty big fan of "walking simulators" like Dear Esther, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, etc, so when I saw the abnormally high scores on Steam for this game, I thought I would give it a try.
Loaded it up and played for about 30 minutes one day. Couldn't take the adolescent teen girl dialog and so I put it on the shelf. Well, I'm glad I got bored and came back to it.
To summarize, you play as the world's smallest 18-year-old girl (really...she looks about 12) who has returned from Seattle to her small home town in Oregon to attend a private school where one of the students has gone missing. You start to experience strange visions and discover that you have the ability to reverse time (the game's primary mechanic).
The game is based around dialog trees, with choices having definite consequences (some quite major). Without spoiling anything, paying attention to what people say, do, and observing their relationship with other people can make a significant difference in the outcome.
There are 5 planned episodes, and 3 are currently released. The episodes load from the same game and pull information about your previous choices. The story is ongoing, so the plot is not yet resolved, but major subplots resolve with each episode.
Positives:
Paying attention and decision making actually matter
Superb artistic direction / environment art
Excellent voice acting (Ashley Burch of "Tiny Tina" fame plays Chloe, by far the most interesting character in the game)
Negatives:
Adolescent dialog (but hey, these are adolescents)
No shortage of cliche
Graphic quality and animation aren't great in this game (artistic direction IS, which more than makes up for it), but the character attitudes and emotions still seem to really come across in the facial expressions and body movements. They did an excellent job with low-tech conveying those attributes - - better than a lot of AAA games I've played with mocap and big budgets. Textures are hand-painted and perfectly fit the overall vibe of the game - very good decision to go with that look.
TLDR
If you enjoy this gameplay type, it's definitely worth a run. It's pretty cheap, and episodes are released quickly (it will probably be done by the end of the year). Great voice acting, beautiful "painted" environments, and an interesting gameplay mechanic. Play it for more than an hour...the series starts slowly and builds momentum, and each episode just gets better.
A few screens:
Note: Mirrors actually work. Thank you Square Enix.
Loaded it up and played for about 30 minutes one day. Couldn't take the adolescent teen girl dialog and so I put it on the shelf. Well, I'm glad I got bored and came back to it.
To summarize, you play as the world's smallest 18-year-old girl (really...she looks about 12) who has returned from Seattle to her small home town in Oregon to attend a private school where one of the students has gone missing. You start to experience strange visions and discover that you have the ability to reverse time (the game's primary mechanic).
The game is based around dialog trees, with choices having definite consequences (some quite major). Without spoiling anything, paying attention to what people say, do, and observing their relationship with other people can make a significant difference in the outcome.
There are 5 planned episodes, and 3 are currently released. The episodes load from the same game and pull information about your previous choices. The story is ongoing, so the plot is not yet resolved, but major subplots resolve with each episode.
Positives:
Paying attention and decision making actually matter
Superb artistic direction / environment art
Excellent voice acting (Ashley Burch of "Tiny Tina" fame plays Chloe, by far the most interesting character in the game)
Negatives:
Adolescent dialog (but hey, these are adolescents)
No shortage of cliche
Graphic quality and animation aren't great in this game (artistic direction IS, which more than makes up for it), but the character attitudes and emotions still seem to really come across in the facial expressions and body movements. They did an excellent job with low-tech conveying those attributes - - better than a lot of AAA games I've played with mocap and big budgets. Textures are hand-painted and perfectly fit the overall vibe of the game - very good decision to go with that look.
TLDR
If you enjoy this gameplay type, it's definitely worth a run. It's pretty cheap, and episodes are released quickly (it will probably be done by the end of the year). Great voice acting, beautiful "painted" environments, and an interesting gameplay mechanic. Play it for more than an hour...the series starts slowly and builds momentum, and each episode just gets better.
A few screens:
Note: Mirrors actually work. Thank you Square Enix.
Last edited:
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