It is the parts, not the whole, that makes this worthwhile. After ten hours playing, I cannot say what didn't click with me. Something about the "episodes" being too disjointed. The combat feeling particularly punnitive, and not in a "oh, that was my mistake" way, but more "oh, fuck, dice roll of doom!". I wanted to get lost in a supernatural Western world, but kept slipping on having to replay WHOLE sections due to one mistake. Also, the first two hours of this game are misleading. I thought it would involve some settlement management and then, nope, the plot happened, and then it didn't. Man, I really cannot review this game. Play it if you love westerns, supernatural and turn-based combat like this. The atmosphere is brilliant. The story was going someplace, but it is hidden unders such a layer of gameplay that seems to not have been thought out the whole way that sometimes I feel like I got buried alive for just wawnting to play the game, and I am trying to crawl my way out of the coffin with my car keys.
I don't think I've ever played a game that I hated playing, but wanted to keep playing so much. Not the "I have to finish this just to finish" feeling of, say, the Tomb Raider reboots, but a genuine masochistic fascination with this world. In one word, it is immersive. Fascinating in its alienness. A space that, if you were coming at it blindly, you would leave immediately. Knowing what you're getting into before playing the game helps. This an experience that is if not better, more palatable with spoilers. Because, man, not knowing what you're doing makes this very hard to play. Hard in the game-sense of "doing things as you need them to be done", and hard in that otherwise it becomes so defeating. You can spend two days in-game, only to realise you messed something up. Back-track, start again. It is hard if you don't know what to do. But once you do, it becomes suprisingly easy. All the well-thought-out, inter-related survival mechanics (which predate other less shining examples in the genre) are one of the best ludonarrative I've ever encountered. And the narrative! This is not a story perse, but a metaphor about stories, about theatre, about themes that are important to understanding the world at the turn of the 20th century. Which, come to think of, is very relevant today: conflicting sense of past, present and future. Technology disrupting ways of life. Violence born from misunderstanding. Plague... Walking the streets of the Town-on-the-Gorkhon is one of the best game experiences I've ever played. And one I wanted to finish as fast as possible, if only so I could experience the sequel all the better. Yet. Yet, my promise of "I'll only play until day 6" soon turned into "I have to finish at least one of three stories".
While some would say the trailer is misleading, I think it adds to the experience. I came here for a narrative-focused tale of an AI going mad, and staid for a story of redemption, humanity, and perspective with a cliffhanger ending. The story is brilliant, with some hiccups that are expected as the scope of the story and the implications of both games start coming together. And, honestly, the only thing that kept me playing. However, the gameplay is just about impossible. Graphic adventure game DNA tried and true: thankfully, moon logic was abandoned after the first game. But we graduated into "try everything with everything" type of puzzles. I am not entirely fond of puzzles that depend on me paying 100% attention all the time, but some of these could land really well. Yet, they feel like I am being shown the way rather than me discovering it. I used a guide less than the first game, but still needed it. Specially since the controls are aweful. Give me a pointer. Look at the game DEX for similar sidescroller feels. Damn... I hope that Over the Moon figures out how to do controls because that's what's holding them back. All in all: play it, but understand you'll be frustrated with controls.
