The Drifter
This review contains spoilers
Although the first few hours of gameplay do a decent job of pulling you in, the game rapidly devolves from being 'inspired' by old-school point & click games to just straight up copying them and their worst features.
The artwork quality feels hit and miss, while never actually degrading the experience it's certainly not the greatest pixelart you've ever seen, a particular annoyance is that all the inventory items are just grey splodges. The voice acting is high quality, though does sometimes come across as 'forced' for some characters and scenes (largely due to the ridiculous plotline requiring outlandish responses and behaviour). Music overall is servicable but forgettable.
While the game is admittedly described as Pulp Adventure Thriller the actual storyline still seems over the top, and the rapid escalation of stakes in each chapter means it quickly goes from unbelievable to just outright nonsense that you stop trying to comprehend. Although cold opens are obviously very popular here it's just too cold, you're given no actual reason to care about the MC, even though a technically heavy backstory is right there for the taking, and it ends up feeling like someone is trying to 'add' threads into the story mid-way to give it more depth.
The worst offender however is the general puzzle aspect, literally advertised in the blurb as
"puzzles are down-to-earth too, designed to be unobtrusive, and give an investigative feel. We're keeping the pacing quick and lean, you'll never be wandering around lost or confused"
this almost feels like outright deception from the developers. The reality is that the puzzles are in keeping with the worst of the point & click genre, you will end up just talking to every character about every option, and using all items on any point of the screen, just to find whatever convoluted 'solution' was dreamed up. A brief selection of some of the worst:
In conclusion if you truly enjoy point & click adventure games, even at their worst (likely through sheer nostalgia), then by all means buy this, you'll likely enjoy it too. Just don't buy into the advertising blurb promising anything different; if this is 'investigation' then so is throwing darts at a board and seeing what sticks.
The artwork quality feels hit and miss, while never actually degrading the experience it's certainly not the greatest pixelart you've ever seen, a particular annoyance is that all the inventory items are just grey splodges. The voice acting is high quality, though does sometimes come across as 'forced' for some characters and scenes (largely due to the ridiculous plotline requiring outlandish responses and behaviour). Music overall is servicable but forgettable.
While the game is admittedly described as Pulp Adventure Thriller the actual storyline still seems over the top, and the rapid escalation of stakes in each chapter means it quickly goes from unbelievable to just outright nonsense that you stop trying to comprehend. Although cold opens are obviously very popular here it's just too cold, you're given no actual reason to care about the MC, even though a technically heavy backstory is right there for the taking, and it ends up feeling like someone is trying to 'add' threads into the story mid-way to give it more depth.
The worst offender however is the general puzzle aspect, literally advertised in the blurb as
"puzzles are down-to-earth too, designed to be unobtrusive, and give an investigative feel. We're keeping the pacing quick and lean, you'll never be wandering around lost or confused"
this almost feels like outright deception from the developers. The reality is that the puzzles are in keeping with the worst of the point & click genre, you will end up just talking to every character about every option, and using all items on any point of the screen, just to find whatever convoluted 'solution' was dreamed up. A brief selection of some of the worst:
In conclusion if you truly enjoy point & click adventure games, even at their worst (likely through sheer nostalgia), then by all means buy this, you'll likely enjoy it too. Just don't buy into the advertising blurb promising anything different; if this is 'investigation' then so is throwing darts at a board and seeing what sticks.
Mini Review: Although the first few hours of gameplay do a decent job of pulling you in, the game rapidly devolves from being 'inspired' by old-school point & click games to just straight up copying them and their worst features.
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