Kathy Rain

This game has gorgeous visuals and good voice acting. I thought the puzzles were just the right difficulty and the mystery definitely had me intrigued. Unfortunately, the story was where I was let down by the game. The game doesn't really give you many real answers at the end. I finished it and left unsatisfied. Maybe they're trying to set it up for some sequels later, but at this point, I didn't feel like the game was worth my time after I'd finished it. None of the characters besides Kathy achieved any real depth. The "bad" guy was predictable and pretty cliche and hamfisted. I called him from the first few minutes of the game and was right. The weird elements were certainly more interesting, but none of them were really explained. Maybe they were going for a "you decide what it is" sort of approach, but...it felt lazy. I love adventure games. I love the Blackwell series to pieces and was hoping for something like that, but I don't know if this really delivered as well as replaying a Blackwell would have.

About exactly what I expected: an indie point'n'click adventure with a mystical setting and retro graphics. While I would have preferred a little higher resolution, the game actually looks pretty good. You shouldn't expect major animations or cutscenes though: the amount of animation is about what early LucasArts adventures (Zak McKracken or Last Crusade) had. However, the game never looks amateurish like some of retro style LucasArts fan adventures. There's also full-fledged voice acting for all dialogs which is actually pretty good and there's nothing to complain about from a technical perspective. No bugs, no crashes and a perfectly well working old school savegame handling. The story has supernatural aspects in the way that you could also interpret them drug hallucinations in a way. Which is OK for me but it's not like everything totally makes sense at the end if you decide to assume that everything supernatural actually happened. The game is quite a bit too short (~5 hours) for the asking price. There aren't lots of locations and they're rather small. Most of them don't even scroll and if so only a bit (game doesn't fill a widescreen display btw.). Most puzzles are pretty much straight forward and you are not tortured with hidden object crap. The main mechanism is talking to people to get new dialog options. The typical "distraction" type puzzle is also there of course and reused to a degree where you could call it a running gag. Tthe only somewhat complex puzzle (safe code based on poem) wasn't really well designed IMHO. Like the typical case of a constructed puzzle that looks logical to its designer but not so much to the gamer who can't really know which parts of a poem contain hints and what's just there to make it rhyme. And, well, there's one case of "adventure logic" where you need to put a tape on a scanner to load in into a computer. Err. Anyway, I'd be definitely interested in playing another Kathy Rain adventure. I sure liked her cheeky comments.

It is short, but it's a great game. I can't talk to much about the story, it's is biggest appeal and i invite anyone to go through it!

I've played this one just after finishing other dev's game, "whispers of a machine". The latter is obviously more polished and has better interface and graphics, but honestly I like this one's story better. It all spins around some weird events happening in a small town where you will be investigating your family secrets. The main complaint is that the puzzles are sometimes too hard to figure out without a guide, but overall it's beatable. If you are into adventures I would recommend to beat "whispers of a machine" first, and if you like it you should definitely check this one out.

3.5 stars Albeit short, Kathy Rain has all the makings of a fun Point & Click adventure game due to its highly enjoyable art direction, good music and some clever puzzles. However, the difficulty of the puzzles goes up and down dramatically, and the requirements needed to advance are sometimes convoluted. Knowing where to go next is usually pure guesswork instead of logical progression, which is a shame because the backtracking can be very tedious. Kathy is for the most part not that interesting a character. Her alternative, going-against-the-grain, angsty girl schtick can get old quite fast, but that may just be matter of taste. I quite like the whole vibe the game is going for. Small town, strange mystery. It's obviously very 'Twin Peaks' inspired. While I do think some of the plot falls flat, especially concerning some characters, I enjoyed my time with it. Kathy Rain is recommended if you love strange mysteries and adventure games that offer a challenge, but don't resort to 'moon logic' with regards to it's puzzles. Nothing breathtaking here, but I'd definitely be interested in playing a proper sequel.