A silhouetted city lit up by a bolt of lighting against a neon teal night sky. To the casual viewer, this would suggest a dark, neo-noir world, brimming with crime, decay, and civil rot. It's no place for any sane human being, let alone a young woman wanting to make it as a private eye. She calls herself Kathy Rain, a catchy name for a hardboiled detective set on trying to make her town a better place, one small step at a time.

Alas, that's nothing close to the actual result. Kathy Rain is a point-and-click adventure title rendered in the same old-school, early-PC style as other games like Clock Tower, King's Quest, and early-Lucas Arts' products. Our protagonist is no hardened veteran, instead being a journalism major still attending colllege at Conwell Springs. Springs is a bright place, full of a shrewd vibrancy in spite of its small population. Or so one would think.

Despite my disappointment at this sharp contrast between the title graphic and the actual game, I wasn't entirely disappointed with Kathy Rain. For starters, I've always been a fan of unconventional detectives- people who seemed to sort of fall into the line of work, despite being in that general career path. Easy Rawlins, Matt Scudder, and even Nate the Great. And Kathy joins that line-up quite well. While I did feel her interest in finding out what happened to her grandfather was a bit sudden, her characterization more than makes up for it. She has that sardonic style of humor typical of the "bad girl" archetype, but there's enough depth to her revealed over the course of the game that expands her beyond those parameters.

Visually, the game looks good enough. It's hard not to perceive the whole set-up as low budget given the 16-bit graphics, but developer Raw Fury packs every setting with lots of props and details, providing plenty of eye candy and showcasing the artists were far from lazy. There is no set color pallete either, meaning you get a surprising amount of variety from the different locales. I also liked how there were several character boxes per a character when speaking that showed different emotional states. There wasn't much there, but it was a nice touch.

Voice acting was mostly positive. I wasn't a big fan of Arielle Siegel's Kathy at first, as I felt she was trying too hard to do a Daria/Raven impression. But you get used to her voice, and her performance overall was good. All the supporting performances were top notch, showing that the developers were committed to providing a quality experience for prospective buyers (and proving a point I made about To the Moon losing something without having any actual voice acting). There was one exception, however, and that was Shelly Shenoy's Eileen. It was clear she was trying to go for "cute badass," but ended up coming off as borderline sociopathic ala Lily Aldrin in Karma.

I liked the diversity of dialogue options, especially when examing stuff or trying to combine stuff. It shows the developers were prepared for the crazy things players would try to do (like drinking booze in front of Kathy's grandma, or tasering someone, or smoking in front of someone).

Sound/music not particularly memorable. Seemed like there was only one tune that played for each area.

The story is where the game gets a mixed rep from me. As I said, was admittedly expecting something grounded ala Se7en or those classic noir movies, but Kathy Rain is much more in the vain of Twin Peaks. There are a lot of subtle supernatural elements that go on behind-the-scenes, and to me it hurt the potential this game had. There could have been a deep tale about drug abuse, cults, small town cover-ups, and so forth, but by having these fantasy facets, it makes it more akin to the X-Files. Some people will like this regardless, and it was overall enjoyable, but be warned it's not grounded.

I didn't feel Kathy really got proper character development either. There are two narratives at play here- Kathy becoming more into her journalism career and letting go of her morbid past. The first one doesn't really work because, outside of skipping classes, we never get a sense that she's reluctant to pursue journalism, meaning her ultimate decision to go through with it is blatantly expected. The second doesn't work because we don't get enough on her backstory or her inner feelings, only glimpses. And that would have been fine for an introduction into her, but a big part of the final act is about Kathy confronting her past actions, and it doesn't have much weight to it because we weren't given enough info about it and how they affected her. But the game never gets tear jerky, and it has a nice maturity to it, never caving into the bad young adult writing tropes that, at times, hit Life is Strange.

Didn't like how entering a new area meant repeating the same animations. It was obviously okay when there was no animation for entering, but coming to places like the Cemetery or the Lake House meant seeing Kathy stop her motorcycle, get off it, remove her helmet, and finally enter. It got annoying.

Kathy also moves too slow ala Clock Tower. It's tolerable since the areas themselves are small, but I would have liked for her to move faster than this Morrowind pace.

There are a lot of puzzles in the game with a good amount of variety. None of them are particularly hard, but that isn't a bad thing in the slightest as their variations make up for that. I would have liked for the developers to make environmental interactions a little bigger as there were times where I got stuck because I missed something ala the Water Temple keys in Ocarina of Time (okay, not that bad, but my point stands).

Also didn't like that you had to click twice to interact an object in your inventory with another object. They should've just had left click allow you to drag/drop and right click to open up the other options of examining/thinking about an object.

One of the biggest problems with the game that kills immersion for me is the lack of consequences for making the wrong choices. There are times where you have to give the right dialogue options, and if you fail there is no consequence- you just restart the cycle. Having the deputy fall for the same "hobo is sick" routine or redoing the same conversation with the Air Force guy, for instance, seems strange considering you're talking to authority figures who should be smart.

Priced at $15.00, Kathy Rain took me about 6-7 hours to complete, so it technically falls just under my price:gametime ratio for recommendation. Combined with my reservations about the story, I personally don't think I would recommend this to anyone with my tastes without a small discount. That being said, this is an indie developer, and I always say it is worth supporting them, especially when they do put effort into their craft. Plus, many other people will no doubt enjoy the narrative.