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radiofloyd
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I’m about seven hours into this and I’ve finished the first act of the game so I thought I’d share some thoughts.

 

Pentiment is a very unique game. It’s not a point and click adventure, it’s a basically a visual novel, or an interactive book. It’s set in the early 1500s and is clearly a labour of love for the team that created the game at Obsidian (I guess they must have several teams now). It was written and directed by Josh Sawyer, who I’m guessing must be a massive history buff, or at least must have done a lot of research for this game. Many reviews made comparisons to The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco which is a good comparison I guess. 
 

It’s a very highly quality game. I don’t know if the music is strictly made by instruments of the time period or not, but it sounds like it, and it’s very impressive. The art and presentation are excellent as well.

 

The game is unapologetically slow. It moves at its own methodical pace. It feels very much like the result of one person’s strong vision (although that’s just my assumption). I’m really enjoying it. I think it’s great. The time period setting and whodunnit mystery nature of the game make it somewhat comparable to The Case of the Golden Idol, but that was much more of a game and requires much more effort and thinking on the player’s part. Time will tell which I prefer.

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Finished, after about 18 hours. But depending on your play style you could probably finish it in far less.

 

In the end, it was another very good adventure game that more or less stands equal with other highlights from last year (The Case of the Golden Idol, Return to Monkey Island). All very different, hard to choose between them.

 

But Pentiment is probably by far the most ambitious of the three. Not in its gameplay, which is very basic, but in its attention to detail, story and world building. Not many games focus on story above all else, and try to pack as much in as Pentiment does. 
 

Visual novels are nothing new but Pentiment is a kind of fresh spin on the adventure genre, hopefully it will inspire similar games in the same way that Return of the Obra Dinn inspired The Case of the Golden Idol.

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  • 1 month later...

I started this up last weekend (or maybe the weekend before 🤔 ) despite the art style and pretty much everything about it being a huge turn off, I was kind of staggered when it got the reviews it did and such a glowing reception last year to be brutally honest but boy could I of eating some serious crow on this one.

 

I think possibly the biggest mistake I made was thinking this was a visual novel that you pretty much just sit and press buttons to passively whilst reading through the story in a medieval script but it's actually an adventure game with a lot of dialogue choices, a few puzzles and a whole medieval Austrian town to explore (mostly) at your leisure. 

 

I'm still only in Act I but it has been bloody fantastic so far, just getting to know all the townspeople and their different personalities, getting to mould and shape their personality, backstory, traits etc. of Protagonist Andreas in the process. I haven't played many Adventure games over the years, and those I did play were pretty much reserved solely for Broken Sword back when I got my Gaming PC around 2014, but yeah this is a really impressive game. How tangible the town is, how real all different all the people are, how you can anger, disappoint, please, romance other townsfolk, it's just a really cool place to be, exist and see everything in motion.

 

The story started off quite slow with you shaping Andreas' backstory, traits etc. that I mentioned above, it basically introduces you to all the different characters of the town, the different areas of the town and all the key locations you'll be exploring later on. The story gets significantly more exciting once an event takes place at the towns Abbey, I won't spoil what it is but yeah it is pretty much the catalyst for the story really ramping up for the rest of the Acts to come. 

 

Owing to the era, it is a bit religious at times for me, lots of 'Thank the Lords' and lots of dialogue about Jesus, God, the Lord etc. with lots of people praying and other Godly acts, Nuns and Monks all devoted to God and all that. Religion - particularly Christianity - has always been a huge turn off for me really, and it is still a bit full on in this in some ways but whilst there is a lot of religious overtones it never really becomes overbearing and hasn't massively effected the story or shaped Andreas (the Protagonist) thankfully.

 

So yeah, fantastic game so far and I'm only about 5-6 hours in at a guess, judging by Tommy's posts I've still got quite a way to go. Unfortunately it'll be shelved until after I finish Jedi Survivor now, but I still want to try and squeeze it in at some point if I can, it's that bloody good.

 

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