A beautifully crafted language, but lacking the vocal part. A deeply flawed game with a great story, almost good execution of the core concept (more on that below), but strongly enjoyable. Try it! The bad: - (space) navigation locks you down in ways that probably seemed logical to the developers and becomes boring fast - dialog tonal shift seems inconsistent and some NPC reactions are mistifying - single forced save prevent exploration of alternatives without replaying the whole - huge parts of the game can be skipped... while the player gets hints, most will come a posteriori through dialog that should have been flagged out because you did not experience those events! - inconsistent dialog flags: secrets you hold (crown, empress...) are apparently undetermined quantum states - you will see... it breaks the immersion and decisions you made - the end game feels rushed, leaves proper closure to your imagination - little emphasis is made on the decision you took and their impact (that can be genocidal!) - the language engine has some flaws: some words are guessed seemingly arbitrarily, the system will force you to built structure you may know well are incorrect until it offers you the possibility to do it right, no dictionnary - also, you will realise the language is modifier driven, but the game does not allow you to work on that, proposing guesses going against the modifiers, not allowing you to record the modifiers roles... - obscure conditions to reach some obscure outcomes, one wrong dialog choice and the opportunity is missed for this playthrough - irritating repeating dialog and load time - loose ends the good: - non linear game structure allow you to make up your own mind (e.g. not wanting to be used by your teacher) and postponing major events until they don't matter - excellent story - excellent world-building both present and past that would have benefitted from more NPC with agenda - new game + with +complex fragments and more info - complex characters
A fun short point & click adventure, formulaically good with little player abuse... But fun only if you can stomach the anti-communism (or rather anti-soviet) heavy-handed satire, not balanced by any in-depth examination nor by much counter-criticism of other systems (e.g. capitalism). Without a good amount of knowledge on the player part, the game's representations may well be reinforcing unfortunate bias and untruthful clichés. Not a commentary on what the USSR may have been. If you ignore the historical context, the actual suffering that is depicted, then the game can be enjoyed. The puzzle are funs, the jokes are quite good. You won't get bored. A lot of attention has been given to each scene (+easter eggs) and voice acting is good. Except the US rendition of a couple of German lines. Some easy mini-games. Too bad there doesn't seems to be a way to break them in-game. The integrated hint system is fun to use just to ear the exchanges. Some areas are under-used. No replayability. You will miss what you did not try. But that's it. What would seem important choices are not - often delivering the very same lines even. Forced single-save auto-saving - harms the fun. Some unobvious inventory item manipulation. Some (litlle) counter-intuitive trigger flags (e.g. no passing of concrete for flour; no breaking down the concrete before getting the container?...) Some instances of disbelief suspension breaking behaviors, e.g. the comic bench reading that has to be used too many times to be credible/acceptable. Playing it, I was in the 4 star range. Looking back, I can't give it more than 2. It's like rating a comedy about the third Reich making light or glossing other the atrocities commited, using them only for the fun factor, being unapologetic about it. In the 90s it may have been better received. Culturally, this is not possible anymore. There are no good guys in this game, and that's a good thing. Better play DOTT or an Indiana Jones (with or without Nazis).
Tormentum is beautiful, sports excellent atmosphere as you can imagine from the screenshots and videos. Alas, gameplay is basic point and click (and very linear), simple puzzles and very light plot. The lack of meat on the adventuring leaves a hollow game. There are almost no useless interaction, no memorable puzzle, no building of the world except what you directly experience to move to the next scene. And even there there is no sense of progression in madness or absurdity or any other abysmal axis that might give some sense of fulfillment. It becomes boring very fast. I kept hoping for more... until it ended. Beautiful, scenic, Giger-ish aplenty. If that's enough for you, play it.
