The Blind Prophet is one of the most atmospheric games I've played. The music, the art style and the story combines into an amazing experience of an apostle who has come to kick some serious ass.
Some minor flaws:
The ending didn't quite catch me, hence only 4 stars, but I reckon that's quite subjective. (but then again everything about games is, I suppose...)
The English translation has a few problems here and there, but I've seen worse.
I've also encountered a couple of bugs, but nothing game breaking
All in all I'd say all those faults pale in comparison to the amazing art style, music and overall atmosphere of this game, made quite clearly by people who give a ... (in a raspy voice) "Damn..."
I wasnt sure this game was worth my money. with adventure game is fifty fifty, sometimes authors just mumble instead of telling plot
For anyone who hesitate, dont! if you like the graphic style go for it!
Its really awesom and gets my mark of approval
Right off the bat: the artwork in this game is incredible. The backgrounds are very well drawn, the comic book-style cutscenes are, well, pretty much like reading a cool comic book. There's very little animation, but it doesn't detract much from the experience.
The music and SFX are also done pretty well. Thumbs up for the Pink Floyd reference!
These aspects are where the game really shines, but, sadly, in others it fails really badly.
First of all: writing. I played in English, and the lines were riddled with obnoxious mistakes. For me personally, if I see things like "your" instead of "you're", especially in a commercial product, I become unable to take what is written seriously.
Moving past the grammatical mistakes, the writing itself is very weak. It gave me an impression of a fantasy book for youngsters. The characters are one-dimensional, there's no nuance, the dialogues gave me an impression, that a school-grade kid wrote them after reading a few fantasy books.
Next is game design. It's all over the place. There are your traditional inventory-based puzzles. They are alright, and mostly obvious. Annoying part with them is that they frequently involve going back and forth between locations multiple times, and each transition has a loading screen for some reason.
Multiple puzzles are like minigames. Most of them I did not enjoy at all. Example: in the latter part of the game there's a puzzle, where you have 3 buttons, that you have to press in the correct order. And there are no hints and no indication, what the order should be. So it's just guesswork. No fun at all.
There are also some bugs. I have had UI elements not disappear properly at times, and once I managed to softlock the game.
Overall, if you want to enjoy incredible art with gameplay and story being in background, I highly recommend this game, 5 stars. If you're a regular adventure game enjoyer, it's worth a playthrough, but I won't be replaying it in the future for sure.
Visually this is a very interesting game, or rather an interactive comic. It looks spectacular and has it's own style. Locations are flawlessly drawn, they fit the story well. Sound design is also top notch, with droning music and single words that are spoken - that all works great with the visiual side of things adding dynamic to otherwise rather static scenes.
When it comes to gamplay - let's face it there is not much gamplay. Puzzles are easy and often unoriginal, combining items is always obvious, nothing is really timed, it's hard to get stuck.
Story - well - the story... Let's put it that way: it's enjoyable while you play, when it tries to be funny it usually is, when it tries to be deep (especially in the very end) it is obvious and unconvincing. I don't mind games that aren't deep - I would appreeciate this one more if it wouldnt try so god damned (pun intended) hard.
Overall - pleasant, visually impressive and fun if interactive graphic novels are your thing.
It took me 6h40m to beat the game which is ok for the price.
As you know presentation is Fantastic. But story is a mixed bag.
If you wanted Sin City you won't get it. The closest comparison to me is Hellboy or Constantine movie with Keanu Reeves. Constantine has some major 'mood killers' that make you say 'it couldve been so perfect, how did they ruin it?' well...
This story has some major 'mood killers' aswell. Im not talking only about tonal shifts although theres a lot of that. Humor is good. The goofiness is what I don't like. You want to explore dark subjects of afterlife, sin, evil, religion, nihilism then you need much more serious approach. It really needed to be more serious, creepy, misterious etc. at times. It was as if the game wanted to be 18+ with its subject matters and presentation but than wanted the universe and dialogues to be more for like 13+ audience.
Really if you know movie Constantine you will see a lot of commonalities between those two.
Big problems in the story [No big spoilers]
- Shouldve taken its time. We jump into deep waters way too quickly.
- Too much exposition dialouge.
- Too much lore. Less lore is more lore - at least sometimes.
- [Light spoiler] One character is sort of forced into the narrative, mostly for exposition dialouge... It was really annoying.
- Too goofy at times. Not consistent enough with the tone. The universe and some characters became unbelievable to me.
BUT overall recommend. Especially at a discount. To me i think it was more fun than Hellboy or Constantine. Perhaps because, well, its a game. Its interactive. I hope the creators will continue to work on games.
