We. The Revolution

We. The Revolution is a unique experience that aims to massage some moral considerations out of its player. In this, it largely succeeds although it gets distracted with meta-commentary, unnecessary drama and unwieldy battles. If you're looking for a tight, cohesive experience a la Papers, Please then this game isn't for you. It has some interesting ideas and at around 13 hours of playtime it's worth your money if you can tolerate the game going sideways in the last act. Being a judge during French Revolution, juggling politics with morality, the needs of your family and your own desire for power is a great theme. It has a lot of potential for meaty, meaningful decisions as well as expression through gameplay and these are mostly delivered during the first two acts. You quickly find yourself asking specific questions so that the jury is on your side and you can appease a political group all the while feeling a bit icky about what you're doing. It's a shame Act III discards much of what makes the game awesome. I'm not going to spoil what happens but needless to say the systems you've been familiar with for the last ten hours are slowly replaced with a strategy battle system... which has no place in a game about making interesting moral decisions. The story goes off the rails too, and not in a good way. Some other thoughts: art is amazing and the style goes great with the visual novel presentation of the scenes. The sound design is pants though. Practically no music during court cases, the sounds are muted in general. Where's audio feedback for getting all your answers correct? Hitting a hammer when you pass judgement? It boggles the mind these things are missing - compare this to something like Return of the Obra Dinn and it's miles behind. It's a shame because it makes a lot of the scenes feel sterile.

After one hour, but... I will say this. It caught me after 30 seconds. Very nice from the artistic side. Orchestral music (it could be a little bit more), excellently honored and great vioce acting. Authentic atmosphere. Which has many layers. Nothing is binary. Everything has advantages, disadvantages, and consequences. Difficult moral choices affecting the environment. I have the impression that the creators tell the player "make a decision, but you will not win everything". Like the participants of the French Revolution. Many dreams and hopes, however, the realities often do not go hand in hand. I have just started and a lot ahead of me. However, this is one of those items that make the game an art. We, the revolution has what I like. Narration, history, choice, consequence, action, reaction, guillotine.

I'd been looking forward to playing this for a very long time, being a big fan of the period and intensely interested in the politics involved. Starting the game up and the first act (out of three) or so of the game was interesting, it built up an anticipation of what was to come, but it all rapidly turned very unsatisfying towards the end. The plot took an incredible turn to intensely bizarre and off-putting territory. I had been wary of such a turn coming, but even with this anticipation in mind it was surprisingly awful. Instead of a game to explore actions in the period, the choices to be made, trying to survive the factional struggles, trying to find justice, you had something _completely different_, something completely disjointed and fantastic or imaginary. It is on par with the weirdness of the first Assassin's Creed game but even weirder and more alienating, and yet somehow flat and unimaginative. The plot, to put it bluntly, is awful. Do not get this game for the plot. It will disappoint you. You will hate it if you were looking to immerse yourself in the history of the revolution. The gameplay itself is mediocre. It's not very engaging at all. The visual art is very good, even beautiful. The art is wasted on this game.

Pros: Fun legal gameplay system with interesting cases Beautiful art Great music Great historical setting Cons: The setting is totally let down by the writing. Holy smokes does it goes off the rails quickly. It goes from a decent historical political story to meta-fiction and hackneyed family drama in the middle of the second act, and the third act felt like it was made to annoy the player and spit on his or her choices. Battle system is filler trash. It has all the depth of a mobile game and actively pulls you out of the core legal gameplay loop. Overall, I'm happy I bought the game because I like to support ambitious developers, but next time I'll wait for reviews to see if the writing is improved before purchasing.