The controls are sharp enough and the gameplay never breaks your connection with the story, although it lacks in variety and challenge. The game progresses at a steady pace and it's fun just to find and explore every room in the house, but it also never stimulates any creative thinking.
The story is great and well told but I think it had the potential to be much more. One or more videos/cut-scenes with the main characters, which are sisters – maybe memories from the past of the one you play – would’ve helped to make them feel even more alive and interesting, and the personal story of your character’s sister even more believable and compelling. Just hearing the excellent voice acting of great lines and reading some well written papers was enough to make me feel emotionally invested in the sister’s emotional journey, but the lack of visual animations and interactions of the two main characters limits your understanding of the relationship between them and with their parents.
The audio-visual presentation of the the house is immersive, with some great and fitting 90s music and an impressive amount of well crafted period and personal details, but you can only imagine how life must’ve been like in it. A visual glimpse into the past, even just a small one, I think would’ve greatly helped to make every detail more meaningful to the story and to make the whole house feel more real. When you enter the house, it feels cold and unwelcoming, like you just entered a haunted house or invaded a house of a stranger that’s unrelated to your character (the thunder storm outside also helps with that), which I think it’s great as a starting point but not so good if it lasts until the end, which was what happened to me.
You’ll probably see the end credits in less than three hours, which isn’t very much for a 20$ game, and there’s no incentive to replay it, at least no more than there is to re-read a good book or re-watch a good movie.
GAMEPLAY = = = = = = = = ( 8 )
GRAPHICS = = = = = = = = = ( 9 )
SOUND = = = = = = = = = = = ( 10 )
VALUE = = = = = = ( 6 )
STORY = = = = = = = = ( 8 )
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MY GAME SCORE = ((( 8.5 )))