I picked this game up during the black friday deal based off the recommendations found here and on other sites. I didn't spend very much money on it, so I'm not angry. I also knew exactly what I was getting into; what's more I wanted to get into it. A laid back sentimental, thoughtful tear jerker? That is exactly what I needed after wrapping up The Walking Dead. Like many other people have mentioned, this game is very light on the game elements. It's more about exploration and, of course, the story. On the exploration side, I grew restless pretty often wandering around looking for memory links that are needed to advance the story. Thankfully the developers didn't make these sections very painful, I think I only had a little trouble finding one, but I still wanted to be able to move faster at almost all times. The scenery is pretty enough for the level of graphics on display, but there's only so many set pieces, and wandering back and forth at a snail's pace gets dull fast. That's about my only complaint on the gamey side of things. But because there's so little engaging gameplay elements, this title necessarily lives or dies by its plot, one I can't simply recommend. Maybe it's a pitfall of having the story being the main draw, but when that's all your product has to offer, I'm going to be judging that one thing far more critically than I would something like the Mass Effect series, where gameplay and plot dovetail more elegantly and work to offset their shortcomings. I don't want to spoil the entire game, sooo I wont. I will say that I thought about this game for a few hours after I finished it, which is definitely to its credit, but none of the conclusions I drew were positive. The pacing was uneven, themes that the game spent the entire first act propping up were quietly discarded and then never resolved. What's more, the game doesn't seem to actually have anything to say about its themes. It simply invokes them, works with them a little, and then moves on. That would be bearable if the emotional catharsis didn't essentially ignore all the problems built up in the first act. But perhaps most damningly, I don't think I could actually tell you what this game was *about*. I could describe what happens in it. I could talk about the diverse subject matter it touches on. But there's no getting around that thematically the first and second half of the game have little to do with each other, especially when you take into account the twists and turns, and how the main conflict is resolved. All that said, I finished the game. I was hoping it would impress me in the end, and I *knew* it could have. Some of the emotional beats were genuinely nice...except when you start to analyze them. The dialog was okay with some genuinely smile worthy moments too. So, I guess I've rambled on enough. This isn't meant to rain on anyone's parade, honestly I still think I might be missing something since everyone else seems to have loved it so much. But right now my hunch is that, again, I'm waaay more critical of stories in "story games" than I am of game plots in others. I don't know if that's good or not.
