This was supposed to be an indie darling, loved by everyone. So when the dice chose it, I was happy to give it a shot. It did not feature controller support on it's store page, but it felt like something a controller would be best for so I was ready to do my usual tricks to make it work... only I didn't need to. Happily surprised to see native, support, I settled into my couch for some much needed relaxation. No, I did not expect a game with much gameplay. After all, that is now why this game is so well loved. But I expected to relax, take in a nice story for a few days, and have a descent time of it. I did not expect a broken mess to ruin the game in such a way that research not only showed fairly common, but blind luck was the only solution to get around it. Unacceptable.
Story: Meet Dr. Rosalene and Dr. Watts, two physicians of sorts working for the Sigmund corp. And their job is to grant wishes. Not literally, of course, but still fairly directly. You see, the Sigmund corp has a technology that allows them to enter someone's memories and alter them and their job is to use it with terminally ill patients so they can live whatever their biggest wish is before they leave this world. Tonight, they are at the house of a man named "Johnny" who's comatose and in his final days. His wish: to go to the moon.
This basic setup will send you through his history as Johnny remembers them with the goal to go back to when this dream was formed so they can "change history" with him and let him have that life where he indeed got to go... and expect a very detailed and well thought out tail to get there. I really can't complain about how well this story is told, and I won't. In fact I have to highlight what might be one of my new favorite game characters in the form of Dr. Watts. Sarcastic, witty, and yet somehow dumb in a mix that never fails to entertain, this is the guy you will want to focus on as he brings a very real sense of humor to the entire ordeal.
And ordeal it is. Before you are one, you will find complications to the job caused by serious things like childhood drama and loss as well as really tough and heartbreaking choices that will have to be made if our unlikely heroes are to complete their job and grand a dying man his ultimate wish. Expect to be pulled in whether you want to or not... and enjoy the show.
9/10
Graphics: We are looking here at a very retro-looking title, harkening back to the days of 16-bit consoles. You will guide small sprites around a beautifully detailed world made of the various locations John has been in. They all really do look spectacular and fit to the style one might expect. The only issue I can come up with for the look of the game at all is spaceal detection: there are many places where it looks like you should be able to walk over something, but you can not, making navigating amongst this detail a bit of a pain sometimes.
Still, the look itself is very solid, just don't go in expecting cutscenes or the like... they are used exceptionally sparcely. This is a strictly top-down affair where you will navigate maps made of the tiles the world needs to display it's glory.
7/10
Sound: While there is no voice-work and the sound effects are very minimal, I can say nothing against the audio of this game, either. The music simply carries the game, scene for scene and mood for mood, and simply sounds fantastic, generally relying on string instruments before all else... and doing so masterfully. But at the same time, this is the exact kind of treatment one might expect from a game of this nature, so I'm afraid there is little I can add to the picture here. Just enjoy the soundtrack while you play and don't expect anything you will likely remember or want to play on it's own.
7/10
Gameplay: I can not say this is a strong suit for this game unfortunately. You will spend your time navigating a top-down environment looking for objects called mementos. These objects will need to be unlocked by tying them to specific events or items within the memory as well. Find enough and you can break open the memento to open it's connection to the next as you travel backwards through Johnny's life and find the moment where a change would lead him to land on the moon like he dreams of doing.
There isn't a lot in the way of puzzles and no combat to speak of (besides potentially one joke fight early on). This game is more about using the vehicle of a game to tell it's story then anything else. In short if it was a first person affair, we would be calling it a walking sim. And like most of those games, you really are here for the experience first and any real gameplay second. Still, what is here serves that purpose so as long as you understand that going in, there really is nothing to complain about either.
5/10
Bugs: Sadly this game comes across as broken.
- Interaction Arrows don't work: Seriously, that's it. About halfway through the game you will reach a memory where "Johnny" is confessing something about when he first met the love of his life. Navigating the area of this memory will involve jumping on and off of logs which is done by walking over arrows. If something goes wrong it can cause a NUMBER of effects. For me, the first time froze the game solid. It was still running, and I could access the timeline, but I could not click anything or use any controls. It was as if the game failed to finish the "jump" animation and was still waiting before it did anything else. I had to use "ctrl-alt-del" to get to my desktop and force the game to turn off. Thinking it a fluke, I reloaded the autosave (I had not saved in a while) and it let me get right back to this area, but this time the map turned off. I landed on the other side of the log only for everything else to freeze and stop interacting. Rock, tree, air, I could walk over it all like a ghost. This was when I quit and declared the game broken.
Overall: I wish I could be kinder to this game. The story it tells is actually really good, running the gambit from dour and serious (as you are dealing with an end-of-life story) to absolutely hilarious (Dr. Watts might just be one of the best things to come out of indie games... period). And yet it's all cohesive and flows brilliantly, and looks and sounds great doing it. But at the same time the gameplay is more carried by everything else then actually what carries everything.
Still all of this could have been great in it's own right despite (and maybe because) of it's own flaws if it had actually worked. On a technical level, game ending bugs killed this one before anything else could really stand up.
Score:
System Requirements:
- 1.8 Ghz processor
- 512 MB RAM
- And GPU capable of running DirectX 9.0c (1024x728 resolution minimum
- Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10
- 101 MB hard drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 5 5600G running at 3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 11
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
Source: gog.com
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