Blackwell Epiphany

What a finale! I cried at the end because it was so touching and really got me, the twist(s) were also all rather unexpected and I did NOT see it coming. I will miss these two characters so much.... In terms of visuals it's, I think, the most refined of the series and rather gorgeous, the winter atmosphere and all is just beautiful. There is just one grief I have with the series: the dropped plot points; I think they would have been really cool.

Consistently good--as with the previous games in the series. This review is more about the whole series. Superb voice acting and though the story needs you to accept a lot of supernatural features of the universe, it basically holds together because the characters are so well done. I prefer point & click adventures with more puzzles (this has you focused like a detective on interrogation of people you interact with). But, the stories about the people you meet are worth following and emotionally engaging. I found myself caring about the sad/tragic lives of these characters more than I would--classic FILM NOIR. Very well done.

This is the final instalment in the Blackwell series. And, like the others, it's a great work of fiction, with a well-paced story, remarkable characters and a sense of melancholy throughout the adventure. It's true that the puzzles are the less important thing in this game. The story is. And it's more than enough. I enjoyed the dialogue, the pixel art and the music. The atmosphere is fantastic. And it's impossible not to fall in love with the protagonist couple.

I've enjoyed the entire series, but for me this one was the most compelling of the lot. If I hadn't needed to get some sleep then I almost certainly would have finished this game in one sitting. I enjoyed the story, the characters, the sleuthing and everything else along the way. In terms of the puzzles, there was very little frustration but also no feeling that I was breezing through the game. I resorted to consulting Ultimate Hint a couple times....and in each case, it simply pointed me to objects in the game that I hadn't noticed. ([Mild spoiler] eg. The one sitting on a shelf that got Rosa into the gym, while I kept wondering what on earth I was doing, repeatedly rescheduling appointments for personal training.) Those tiny clues were all it took to get me back on track. It's disappointing to know that the series has ended, as it just kept getting better as I went on. This was easiliy one of my favorite adventures that I played this year, along with Whispers of a Machine (and replaying Thimbleweed Park after some time away from it).

I started the Blackwell series with the bundle and I'd recommend that for others too. The concept hooked me right from the getgo, even if the earlier games suffered a bit from being short from what I suspect was budgetary and team size restraints. Slowly Dave Gilbert added more ghosts in, and Deception was a truly exquisite title with compelling character storytelling and a rivetting plot. I thought that would be the pinnacle, and in all fairness, I rate Deception slightly better than Epiphany only because it seemed clear that Mr Gilbert wanted to end the franchise with the biggest bang he could garner. Epiphany is everything I wanted, a chain series of ghosts, interweaving stories, and it really pushes the boundaries of this cool psychi/ghost relationship and mechanics built by its predecessors. I see a lot of praise for the ending, and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about. On one hand, as a writer myself, I respct that it ties everything up in a nice bow and completes a full circle from the beginning of Legacy. On another the final act pushed the epic that smidge too far to the point where my believabilty broke, and a number of the final events didn't make sense to the point that the bittersweet effort didn't come off as an inevitability I knew I had to accept, but rather disappointment that my spirit saving efforts had come to an end and had ultimately been for nought as the world returns to droll normality. But that isn't enough for me to take a star away, even though I'm notoriously stingy with 5 star points. This is an excellent series if you're into ghost stories and the high quality music and storytelling makes it well worth the money.