This game was one of my first horror experience. It has a beautiful aesthetic and everything handdrawn looks amazing. Some of the characterdesigns really look fantastic and straight out of a cartoon. The story idea is really something creative and interesting. The Walt Disney parallels are amazing. Sounddesign was perfection and the voiceacting was so good. Sadly the gameplay isn't as compelling as it could have been and the combat is really bad. Somehow the first chapters are way better, than the last chapters. The game prioritized the horror aspect in the first chapters and sometimes you really felt frightened. After that the game focused more on the combat and with only beeing able to hit and do nothing else, the gameplay got repetitive and boring. Still worth a try for some easily scared people and for fans of this cartoon artstyle.
It took me nearly three years to finish this game, and honestly, I don't know what to rate this so I'm going to convince myself of a score as I write this.
First things first: I love the aesthetic. I love the art style, the color pallet, the dreadful ink filling the corners of the screen, and every beautiful classic cartoon design they managed to stuff into here and warp into a lively 3D Model. If there was any draw I had to play this game, it was all in the art style.
Now the story... well I'm torn. The actual plot of the game is pretty fun, but trying to understand the greater lore is a headache-inducing mess. The amount of rewrites and complete inconsistency makes learning the story and characters nearly impossible.
So that leaves the gameplay, which is extremely varied. Between the long stretches of stress-inducing hallways with unexpectedheart-attacks I mean Jump-scares, you have puzzles that are usually pretty tedious, entertaining character moments, and mostly fun boss battles. So... the gameplay is mixed. The horror is pretty fun, and the jump-scares are a not as cheap and unwarranted as you might expect. The first two chapters have the best horror atmosphere, whereas the third and fourth chapters have the best gameplay. Chapter five is the worst of both worlds, choosing the "let's just get this over with" approach and not trying particularly hard with the puzzles, horror, or boss fight.
So in the end, have I decided if Bendy and the Ink Machine is good or bad? Nope. It's really mid. 5/10.
First things first: I love the aesthetic. I love the art style, the color pallet, the dreadful ink filling the corners of the screen, and every beautiful classic cartoon design they managed to stuff into here and warp into a lively 3D Model. If there was any draw I had to play this game, it was all in the art style.
Now the story... well I'm torn. The actual plot of the game is pretty fun, but trying to understand the greater lore is a headache-inducing mess. The amount of rewrites and complete inconsistency makes learning the story and characters nearly impossible.
So that leaves the gameplay, which is extremely varied. Between the long stretches of stress-inducing hallways with unexpected
So in the end, have I decided if Bendy and the Ink Machine is good or bad? Nope. It's really mid. 5/10.
i've liked this game since 2018 but actually playing it is what ruined it for me. The first two chapters are interesting, rough around the edges but interesting. Chapter 3 is by far the worst one, too tedious and i had to do it 3 times all over because it kept breaking due to the bugs. Chapter 4 is definitely an improvement and chapter 5 is just forgettable. The ending is meh and leaves a not so interesting cliffhanger. Overall the game is just not worth it, it was too ambitious and failed miserably imo