Posted on: August 19, 2018

blacktree1976

Games: 98 Reviews: 3

Old and new

I enjoyed Unavowed a great deal. I hadn't played a point-and-click adventure for many years, not since 'The Longest Journey', and before that it was Lucasarts adventures back in the Amiga days (wow, I'm old). Unavowed reminded me - in a good way - of the adventures I used to play and love, and the great art and writing that I enjoyed, while also bringing more modern mechanics to it such as branching dialogue, moral choices (with consequences) and being able to assemble a party like in an RPG, giving you different puzzle solutions and dialogue based on who you take with you on missions. It's got some Bioware-lite systems, in other words, which I hadn't experienced in point-and-clickers before. Voice acting is strong throughout. I don't share the opinion of many reviewers in that I don't mind that the main character is not voiced. It seems weird to click on a sentence and have it read back to you before you get a response. I much prefer Unavowed's way of hearing the response to your dialogue choice immediately, much more realistic and like you are having the conversation yourself. It's more immediate and natural. As the developer says, not having to voice a male and female lead, along with all their comments on items and scenery, meant they could focus on fleshing out other characters and having multiple origin stories. I think the effort was placed correctly. The puzzles aren't difficult. I got stuck briefly twice, but there's nothing here to have you scratching your head for days, and the story definitely takes priority in Unavowed. In summary, I loved it, I cared about the characters and their stories, and I have been thinking about the game a lot since finishing it, which is always a good marker of a quality game. Recommended.

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Posted on: August 10, 2018

rob.liefeld

Verified owner

Games: 1345 Reviews: 78

"Back atcha!"

Rejoice! The high lord or urban-fantasy has graced us one again with an excepional piece of art! Hurray! But seriously, for the one's who like Dave Gilbert's work, I think this is one of his best. Not AS good as Blackwell (than again, not many games are), but comes pretty close. His strength lies in creating memorable characters and scenarios in an evironment he clearly loves, with a touch of magic. All in all, a brilliant story in a very streamlined game, which actually connects to the Blackwell series. The artwork is beautiful, the music is great, and the "choice-based" gameplay actually has some outcomes within, and doesn't feel nearly as manipulaitve as any Telltale game I played recently. Now, let's talk about some of the few problems: The most frequent criticism: the "silent protaginist". It not only makes sense in a practical level, but from the very first scene, it shows that it might make sense in a conceptual and narrative level - and it does. The protagonist, being a blank slate is part of the story. It works this way. The other characters, while mostly lovely, imaginative and well defined, tend to fall back to their "defining trait" and talk in circles about it. A bestower who happens to be an ex alcoholic? Half of his lines refer to his old drinking habits. We get it. We can move on. A fire-mage? He'll talk about fire a lot more than needed. The worst culprit is Vicki the cop, who cops like no other, and cops day and night and always and only cops like there's no tomorrow. Did I mention she's a cop? The puzzles and interface are so streamlined, I never really had to think once about solving problems. The game had a great flow, but harder tasks would've lead to greater feeling of accomplishment and a stonger connection with your character. The animation in the game is a little uneven - making the more dramatic moments a little silly looking here and there. Despite all these issues, The Unavowed is still one of the best adventures of recent times.

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Posted on: August 9, 2018

Sha

Verified owner

Games: 848 Reviews: 6

Disappointment

I love adventure games and Wadjet Eye has been one of my favourite developers and publishers in the genre for nearly 7 years, but Unavowed just feels off. The setting and premise are interesting enough, the pixel art is nice - though with some rough animations, voice acting and music are also perfectly fine. What really hurts my enjoyment though is the silent protagonist, the writing and the puzzles. The protagonist is a complete blank, similar to your typical CRPG. You choose a name and one of three backstories and that's that. The protagonist feels completely detached from the game and that feeling is only reinforced through the dialogue system. Dialogue sections are also similar to CRPGs but most of the time, aside from exposition, there's only a binary choice between good and evil. This leads to my character being super nice and holier-than-thou in some situations and a bloodthirsty sociopath in others. The tone is so inconsistent that it's hard to care about what's happening. The companions also feel very superficial and some are flatout unlikable. Another reviewer mentioned that a former Bioware writer worked on this game and I can certainly believe that... The puzzles and exploration are very streamlined compared to previous games but not as bad as in Daedalic's 'Silence' for example. Kinda like a middleground between classic point & click and Telltale without the benefits that either system provide (the joy of overcoming a tricky puzzle vs quick pacing to keep the story going). You can also die in this game, but you'll just get reset to the point before you last clicked, so why even include something like that if it's without consequences? I thought we were over this when Sierra games stopped doing that? Overall, Unavowed has the production values I've come to expect from Wadjet Eye. A clearer focus on either classic 'point & click' or 'narrative driven choice & consequence' type of gameplay coupled with better writing could have improved the game a lot.

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Posted on: July 9, 2019

Iothil

Verified owner

Games: 98 Reviews: 32

Wanted to love it, bit disappointed

The game is OK for a Wadjet Eye adventure. Sadly, just OK. Why? Many of the riddles were just extremely nonsensical and there were some moments that were pretty DEUS EX entirely. Altogether it felt pretty stupid at times in terms of riddles. The story was extremely good, as you can expect from Wadjet Eye Games, but in total the game suffered from bad design in many aspects. I would still recommend it for the story if it is on sale, I just haven't felt it really being worth the full price. There are other Wadjet games that are a lot better and clearly 5/5s, Primordia and Shardlight, just to name two.

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Posted on: August 9, 2018

demicanadian

Verified owner

Games: 324 Reviews: 5

Review title

Good point and click adventure, and maybe not as memorable as Blackwell, but still great. I doubt there's much replayability in it, but "character generation" is a fun idea, that in this particular game worked out well.

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