It's been several years since Harley Leger left New Bretagne and headed west, hoping to leave the past behind and make her way as a freelance writer. After arriving in the sleepy border town of Rosewater, a seemingly trivial assignment for the local paper leads to the hunt for a missing man's fort...
It's been several years since Harley Leger left New Bretagne and headed west, hoping to leave the past behind and make her way as a freelance writer. After arriving in the sleepy border town of Rosewater, a seemingly trivial assignment for the local paper leads to the hunt for a missing man's fortune—and the story of the century.
Harley and her ragtag posse embark on a harrowing journey across Western Vespuccia, encountering bandits, rebels, visionaries, eccentrics, and many more friends and foes on their quest for fame and riches.
A thrilling treasure hunt with 5 travel companions. How you treat and interact with them affects the story.
Inventory is back, but logical, streamlined, and easy to use—no banging things together to see what sticks. Many situations have multiple solutions based on play style.
Randomized encounter storylets on your journey, with different situations and outcomes that depend on your previous choices and available resources.
Fully rotoscoped animations, including cinematic closeups.
High resolution 1280x720 graphics (yes, that's 720p!)
Full music score by Lamplight City composer Mark Benis, featuring live instruments.
Meet over 60 characters, voiced by a star-studded cast of professional voice actors including Cissy Jones (Firewatch, Call of the Sea) Dave Fennoy (The Walking Dead) Roger Clark (Red Dead Redemption 2) and many more!
The relationships and character developments keep the story moving and entertaining. Something worth keeping in mind is that the bond or the strength of your relationship with the characters can affect gameplay. Such as requiring you to make different choices to solve a particular puzzle or even offer up different story lines with good or bad consequences. A feature that my wife really enjoyed was the hotkey to highlight all interactive objects. It takes out a lot of the guesswork, but wasn't necessarily handing you the answers either. The game developer did a very good job of walking that line and still managed to keep the game challenging. This is a good game to start with if you've never played an adventure game before, but also an enjoyable one if you're already familiar with the genre.
I hate to rate this a 4 because of how much I loved about it. Don't get me wrong - this is a genuinely phenomenal piece of work in terms of art and presentation but I think most seasoned adventure game vets will find this a bit disappointing because of how easy it is. And I hate to dock this marks for that because of the sheer scope of presentation on display but I want my 4/5 to speak towards the abject quality of Rosewater. The art is phenomenal and the work that has gone in to this is unquestionable but in terms of gameplay, I have to admit that it feels like I'm largely sleepwalking through the puzzles. And if you play adventure games for the puzzles, I don't know if you're going to love this. I'm relatively early into the game (about an hour or so) but so far, I haven't experienced a lot of the classic point & click adventure game experience.
That being said, there's a ton about Rosewater that absolutely is worth picking up for. I've previously mentioned the art and the work that's on display here is palpable. This is an absolute testament to how far you can push AGS if you try. Overall, the voice acting is extremely competent. And this is a minor complaint but I kind of wish our heroine may have had an accent that was more in line with the western theme but overall, very solid all around.
Again, I hate to rate this lower than a 5 because of the sheer work that is on display here. but as a game, so far I'm not really feeling my experince. Don't get me wrong - the story that's here is enjoyable and if that's more of what you're interested in, don't hesitate to pick up a copy. If you love westerns, grab a copy. But if you grew up with adventure games and expect to bang your head against the wall for months at a time trying to guess the next step in an obtuse 16 step puzzle, you may come out of this a bit disappointed. But even if you did, I think there's plenty otherwise to enjoy here and I would wholeheartedly recommend that you experience this for yourself.
Nice atmosphere and storytelling, interesting characters, beautifull scenery, things to discover...
Often the next step is quite clear, other times it can be a little mind-boggling.
Loved the diversity of the different parts and some interconnected things. Some parts I was hungry for more.
A really compelling game. The journey is where this game shines when showing the relations of the characters and their backstories. A lot of the stops along the way are random so the journey can be a bit different for everyone. And your actions lead to different outcome. I am no one for replaying games to see everything, so I don't know what action triggers what - it is not easy to spot, no "X will remember this".^^ That means this mechanic is a bit wasted on me, but you can play other location after completing the game. There are several bigger (not random) hubs along the way that are a bit more puzzly (which I like) but the main focus is not the puzzles, but the characters. The excellent voiceacting is helping to bring them to life and the writing is excellent. All thumbs up!
