Resonance

Ok so the scenario was pretty good. Also the game was fun all around especially with the voiced characters music and chill moments. But...after around half of it i really thought i was going to work instead of playing a relaxed adventure game. The mechanics kinda sucked in that way where you have to look for answers on the internet just to not delete the game and not get to the end of the story.

The story itself, and that is what is most important in a point 'n click adventure, is good to very good. The graphic style is difficult to see, at least for me, especially the font used is horrible. The voice acting is not convincing and could be far better. Most of the time it sounds like read in a way, a parent tells a tale to his child. I mean with a little drama, but still not convincing as an audio drama. But that too is really not so much of a problem, since the writing is ok and the story good, like I said before. BUT the whole game design is pure crap. Even a first timer in designing a P 'n C adventure game, would do it 100% better. The use of inventory and characters and all those clickable stuff is so tedious and ugly made. You have to ask every party member to follow you, otherwise they will stand where they are. BUT you need to do this every time you clicked on an interactive object, like a code panel ect. The logic of order of most puzzles is a joke. There could have been a more attendive gamelogic to recognize other, and most of the time even far more logical, solutions to a problem. Even in the early 90s, a lot of games had a far better game design and logic. (Not all though)! Its a shame to give this game 2 stars, since the story really hooked me. Games that did a fantastic job in design and story and voiceacting, fonts and visibilety are: Kathy Rains, Whisper of a machine, and Norco (though Norco had no voiceacting). Next I will play Gemii Rue, since I read other Wadjet Eye Games are great, said by people who didn't like Resonance because those very problems mentioned. Because of my experience I eally am sorry that I, for the first time in my (REVIEW-CARRIER) have to say: DON'T BUY

I liked this quite a bit. The best thing about this is its story, which is captivating and just well written and told. The puzzles can be a bit obtuse sometimes and I admit I looked up a walkthrough sometimes, but overall they are at least solid, and some are actually quite good. But in my opinion, this is played for the story, not so much for the puzzles.

After 30+ years of deep love for point'n'click adventure games, I'm starting to see what their problem is: They are not real games. As Ron Gilbert explained, all mechanics (except the odd puzzle) are based on creating friction for the user, preventing them from running through an otherwise straightforward story. This particular game, is the epitomy of that "friction". Despite the cute pixel-art graphics, AGS engine is really bad. Take away the 2-3 puzzles of the game, and you are left with a decent story wrapped in horrible and frustrating pixelhunting, irrational dialog-selecting, walking around, delays added by the inability to skip cutscenes and UI elements interfering with the game making you want to smash your mouse. It's as if the actual game is a "interacting with disfunctional computer simulator". Take out all this friction and there is 10-20minutes of story tops, with minimal branching. You can't blame the developers though, as they crafted a compelling world with interesting characters, nice atmosphere and a fairly touching ending. The beginning was also interesting enough to counteract the gameplay issues, allowing me to continue despite the frustration. But AGS engine is too outdated and probably it's time for the traditional adventure genre, to finally R.I.P. Having said that, I give it 4/5 stars putting my frustration aside knowing that some people haven't had yet enough of adventure games.

Resonance is a nice little adventure game whose main strength is its characters - I especially liked the journalist and the police. Voice acting is above par and puts most games to shame. I am a big fan of wadget eye games, this one is really good and comparable in quality to the blackwell series.