Old Skies

I'm not even sure what to say about it. From the first two chapters I was wary that it wasn't going anywhere interesting. Unfortunately, after beating it, that proved to be true. The plot will fall apart if you ask too many questions, individual stories are not super engaging, and main characters have very strange reasons for behaving the way they do. The music is good and the background art is nice enough (but the rotoscoped animation looks VERY wonky). Voice acting itself is mostly good, but the quality of the sound varies by quite a bit, some voice actors sound way better than others (and the main actress could really use some de-esser on her lines). It's still a cozy adventure you can beat in 3-4 evenings... if you've beaten every other adventure and have nothing else in your backlog. I honestly don't understand other reviews saying that THIS is their favorite WGE game, but to each their own, I suppose. Maybe get it on sale.

I've played all of Dave Gilbert's previous adventure games (the Blackwell series and Unavowed being particular favorites of mine), and if you've also played his previous then you pretty much know what you're getting here. The story is excellent as always dealing more with the personal and emotional issues of the protagonist than with some grand overarching threat and doesn't bombard you with exposition despite its sci-fi time travel plot. The voice acting is good, the main character Fia's line delivery took some getting used to but it fits the character so it's fine. The puzzles are not too difficult, due to the time travel story the game actually does the save/reload thing FOR you at certain points so screwing up is actually woven into gameplay. Take notes though, the game does expect you to remember names, dates and numbers for certain puzzles. My experience wasn't entirely without complaint though, the story relies a little too much on irrational behavior to set up puzzles sometimes which can be annoying, also the aformentioned in-game save/reload system can get a bit tedious when you have to watch the exact scene over and over as you figure the puzzle out. There's also a slight nihilistic streak to some of the writing which I can understand given the time it was written and the times we're in now, but a little optimism can help brighten otherwise dark times and is sorely needed right now. The story is also completely linear and the lack of a branching narrative in a time travel game seems like a waste of potential. In all I'd recommend this game to existing fans and newcomers alike.

Fantastic game, with the exact right amount of unanswered questions.

I really enjoyed most of the game. The individual stories in each chapter are great. My biggest complaint is that I wish the game was more of an anthology. I did not care for the main plot at all. The final chapter would have been a fine ending to the game without the extra stuff at the end. Most of the puzzles were logical. I felt like one had too many red herrings, which made it difficult to tell what the actual objective was. I was worried the puzzles were going to be too simple at the start, but it does increase the difficulty.