Now I know I will never take colour for granted ever again!
Another name for Purgatory, in this case, is The Void. It acts as a haven for Souls who have not quite managed to fall into hell yet, but also have the potential to return back to life. The two main dwellers are The Sisters; beautiful, female beings which hold resemblance to Nature's beauty, and The Brothers; Demonic, hideously mutated Souls that possess a lot of power over the Void and answer to 'the Sleeper' and will do anything to ensure his Survival if it even means destroying everything in TV. The world there is dying, because colour is going to waste and the Brothers are only making it worse. You are a Soul, guided by Sister "Death", and it is your job to decide whether to earn the trust of the sisters and save the Void, leave it to its doom, or rule as the Brothers do.
The initial gameplay is like a first person adventure, with a little point-and-click but nothing close to the sense of previous games of that genre. You still move around in a fully immersive world, but taking any action requires colour. For example, in combat when you hold down CTRL, the world slows down and you choose out of what colours you have available and either fill an enemy with it to inflict damage or draw 'glyphs' which can do things such as launching missiles, opening decoys etc, depending on the kind you draw. And that's only combat. In order to replenish new colour, it is your job to grow colour on garden trees which consume it, but give a lot more back in return. Each colour has its advantages/disadvantages, for example Violet (the colour of inspiration) reduces the required amount of colour for growing gardens, but makes your attacking hits weaker. As a soul, you bear many hearts that desire colour and finding new hearts unlocks tutorials to new glyphs for you to draw; filling hearts with the appropriate colour will ensure its advantages/disadvantages to be active.
Everything in the World is superficial, but beautifully symbolic. The Sisters you meet each require you to fill one heart out of their favourite colours to allow you to access their chambers, and a second to pass to the next sister. It's a challenge, but rewarding in a sense. It may be controversial in the West due to the fact that each of them are completely nude while you're talking to them, and most do Erotic poses as they consume your colour, but unlike meaningless Porn it's here for Artistic purposes to demonstrate their beauty and non-violent nature (although sister Ura seems pretty dark). Besides, I wonder how you would expect them to wear clothes in death and it is definitely nothing gratuitous, and I'm pretty sure it is more suitable for young generation than brutal, over-the-top violence that is found in many games these days, even though the stupid ESRB thinks otherwise. It's easy to pick Sister Favourites, and for the strongest Emotional Bond it was Sister 'Death' for me. In terms of Attractive faces/looks and poses, my personal favourites are Ava and Aya.
The brothers on the other hand, or rather in contrast, are hideously ugly, scary-looking beings that symbolise the stereotypical Bad side to the Void's dwellers. They are civilised, but their mutated bodily forms don't make that seem obvious. The Mantid's, Whaler's and Warden's forms are especially horrid and gross just to name a few. Even that though, bears symbolic purpose. They may look monstrous, but they are not stupid. Their personalities are not black-white, even though some just downright distrust your character. Some of their designs are even very creative, such as Ironclad whose neck almost resembles a vacuum cleaner while his whole body is surrounded with little cannons. They definitely contribute to the 'horror' aspect of the game, and stand as another awesome side that sets out to test where you really belong.
This game was described as weird and bizarre amidst all the positive reception. True to some extent, but that wouldn't be a very fair or even appropriate description, as that only tends to limit the themes and impressions one comes to expect from gaming. Who says that video games cannot be works of art? The most important thing one must know about genuine art is that it never provides a fully definite answer or theme, and may even deliberately be bizarre in itself. It just needs to be beautiful and metaphysical and that is the kind of thing you get here. Some players may lack the energy to use open minds, but those that can are to be highly rewarded. The theme about colour in TV can be whatever you want it to be: Is it a symbolism of happiness and freedom that is killed off by the monstrous acts of humanity? Maybe it deep down holds the true meaning of life? Could it be an implied anti-violence theme as war tends to destroy colour? You decide.
Further going along that line not long before I come to my conclusion, the more common game features deserve to be mentioned. The graphics are dated, but they get the job done. The voice-acting ranges from decent to bad, but some of the bad voice-acting (like the voice-over you hear while fighting brothers like Pit) is unintentionally funny, but considering that it appears to be multiple roles for voices, its forgivable.. Sister Death does not change her sound much, but her genuinely weak tone in her voice is effective in portraying a helpless creature whom you can't help feeling sympathy for. It's unfortunate that the Steam version does not allow the original Russian language which would have been interesting to hear, but the voices here already work fine. Music is not ambitious, but it is very unique and "colourful" displaying many different moods, situations and places. In the Soundtrack I own, the most effective tune would be the theme that plays during a Sister's death; it is filled with lots of sadness and darkness, but at the same time with inspiration and determination to continue fighting and surviving, reminding you there still is hope.
The last thing I should point out though is that this game is VERY HARD. The actual difficulty for this game is actually meant to be JUST RIGHT, but this game requires near-perfect understanding in order to reach that which is why I classified the difficulty in between. It required me to read a good number of hints in order to get fully adjusted to the unforgivingly challenging experience and that is partly because the game doesn't teach you the most important solutions. It's because of this that I have prepared some tips below my conclusion in case you get too stuck need to be properly acquainted, but I would suggest doing that while playing through the game as they may spoil a bit of the experience.
CONCLUSION:
I may have sounded a bit too analytic in this longer-than-usual review, but rest assured this is only scratching the game's surface. Simply to sum up, The Void is a FANTASTIC game and easily one of the best, and most original, I have ever played. It's disappointing that the game did not get the amount of attention and awards it deserved, but on the bright side that's what makes me proud to be one of the few that are aware of this game's existence and have purchased it. If you want to be among those few, then be sure to look up this game and buy it! Like I said before, if you're at all stuck then read my tips and grasp them well, then just like my first playthrough, you won't need cheats to truly enjoy this mysterious masterpiece which will beg you to replay after you finished the story!
TIPS:
- I did not realise this until I completed it, but the game is only limited to 35 cycles. This means that at the end of that last cycle, there will be one of two possible endings (the third involves something else) so be aware who you are siding with and don't leave any brothers standing if you support the sisters.
- You'll find yourself in situations where you may either have too much, or too little colour. If a certain 'Lympha' colour is full, try not to fill your hearts with that particular one as it will just go to waste when outside in the Void.
- The time limit of surviving out in the Void depends on which of your hearts has the most colour, not how much colour you got in yourself per se. So filling other hearts which withhold less will still drain away at the exact same rate, just deplete sooner than that fullest heart. This is important as you need a LOT of the 'giving' colour in your Lympha to defeat a brother in battle, because if you don't have enough you are practically dead and later in the game, some battles appear unannounced. If the colour to put in your hearts is low in quantity, then be sure to conserve by only keeping one heart filled at a time.
- When you feed colour to the garden chambers, predators will start to appear throughout cycles. Try to avoid attacking them unless there is no other option, because they will just respawn the next time you come in and that would have been a waste of used colour.
- When you get up to experiencing all colours, keep around a 100 for Red and Green for your hearts, and blue - the colour of speed - if possible. Red is good for making your attacks stronger, and green gives you less damage, while blue can help you against bosses that move around to attack you. 100% is the limit (1% for one piece of colour) for their effects and anymore is just extra health, so it is good to add the extra additions into the Lympha. This is most important for going up against a brother, and DON'T keep violet as that makes your blows less strong.
- When you grow gardens, be sure to draw the proper glyph well since doing it wrong won't supply you as much colour on the next cycle. And when you draw the glyph, try filling it to full as you will get even more colour in return next time. Don't worry if you hold it longer than necessary as that entire additional colour will go back to your supplies.