When I first have heard about this game it was a instatnt wishlist choice. Something new, an interactive musical. Now, afer playing it I do not regreat money spend on it despite the fact that it might not delivered on all the promises. Story grips your attention from the start. Characters are nicely fleshed out and perfectly casted. In contrast to many other adventure games, while there are anchore points in the story you must hit your choices do impact the final outcome of the game, even the one about your love intrest. Bad notes i have mentioned earlier are actualy lenght of the game - You will need less the mentioned here 6h to finish it once, tho I advise you to finish it few times for different outocomes. Other problem are the musicla part, not the songs itselfs mind you, but the fact that they feel like an unused potential. Each style you chose during singing has a slightly different rythm and you can easly make the song a cacophony not a coherent number and still get some resaults. It simply feels like while nicely thout out still lacks final touch. All in all if you like nice songs (but accepts that this game lacks polish to be called a full on musical) or/and are into interesting story you will enyoj this few hours in game.
If you love Lem's book or feel of 50 and 60 SF retro future you will love this game. It is a compeling story of what might happen before events form the Invincible written in a similar, solwer, pace. Not for every one but it feels like reading a book
Four stars not for the quality of the game (it definitely isn’t a milestone in RPG genre) but for being probably the best example of value to money buy you can make. Setting the game in late renaissance like period already was a breath of fresh air gamers definitely needed and adding a colonial based story was a bullseye mix. Whole background of both the island you are sent as a Legate and your homeland are truly a fascinating pieces of lore that you want to explore and uncover. Gameplay combat mechanics and levelling are implemented correctly but in a standard to generic RPG way, there is nothing irritating but also nothing that would make you want to spend any more time fighting of exploring than it is necessary. Gaining levels is just clicking on skills you need – few lines to choose from few icons to click. What drags the game down is the feel of it being a budget (a AA) game almost on every step. World is interesting and nicely made BUT after a time you start to realize that locations are repeating with only the textures changed. Open world is just about a dozen maps of various sizes, sometimes artificially blocked so you would not venture somewhere where you shouldn’t, and made in a way taking shortest route between mission objectives was impossible. Your companions have only about three personal quests each and this is basically the only time you can learn more about them and witness some of their personality. Side quests are just a branch of the main quest that is optional, but not doing it has obvious negative outcome. And If I ever again hear “ I am De Sade, legate of the Congregation…” I will literally break my keyboard with my head. I would not be a hugely wrong in guessing that our character starts 60 to 70% of conversations with this line… All in all it is decent game with potential of giving you few hours of really nice time only if you are not expecting anything ground breaking especially if you’ll happen to get it on some sale
While this may by first time many of gamers will came into contact with world of darkness games it certainly is an interesting one. While definitely far from the freedom of the table top original it gives you ad least a glimpse (a really small one unfortunately) of what it should look like. But at the same time this is its biggest flaw. It is simple text based game. With linear story and basically one ending (but with many small details that might change depending on your choices). While the mechanics of your statistics are really interesting it ends before they have any real impact on the game. While reaching the end you can almost feel that developers had planned for something longer but the budget did not allowed for more. One of the things that certainly can sway many to play it is the original and slightly disturbing visual side of the game. What we see are not the clear view of the world that our protagonist is visiting (since it is text based game I will refuse to use phrases like “is surrounded”) but rather what she perceives it to be. The more wolf she becomes the more surrealistic the world for “normal” viewers becomes. It definitely is the strongest aspects of the game. One of the scares few unfortunately It’s a nice small game, ideal for one evening, especially if you can buy it on some sale. But do not expect to have a full “world of darkness” experience.
I have a problem with giving this game a mark. On the one hand it is expanding ideas of its predecessors and you can certainly like some of the cases. London is finally an semi open city. On the other however it ads mechanics that are simply never used or wasted. While playing it you can almost fell the fact that it was either cut in development or publisher forced devs to finish the product on time losing some of the original ideas. Best and most visible example of this is strange and meaningless ending. Buy only if you are fan of the series. If you are new to the genre, I strongly recommend previous entries, especially “Crimes and punishments”
This game, while definitely not the ground breaking or best of its time, is the prefect step in evolution of Sherlock Holmes titles. Its more complex and better executed than the Testament… It has more thought out cases, some with real twists and tuff choices to make. While some of the riddles may seem linear it perfectly fits the idea of legendary detective that almost always knows the answer. Only shame is that many of the ideas were one use only. While the graphics have a few years it still does not hurt the eyes. Definitely not the game to for the people that like to exercise their brain with complex and multilevel problems. But if you like a good story that sometimes engages your brain this is the game for you
