No puedo evitar sentir cierta decepción tras pasarme The Last Case of Benedict Fox y además con mucha pena. Tiene una premisa simple e interesante, unos escenarios geniales y el trasfondo que todo fan de dimensiones y seres de locura encontraría atractivo.

Sin embargo, hay muchas decisiones cuestionables que empiezan a empañar la experiencia poco a poco, aunque quizás sea totalmente intencionado para hacer que el viaje hacía la desazón más realista, je.

No, en serio, por un lado el combate como mecánica básica está bien, pero hay momentos en los que es terriblemente injusto sin avisar, enemigos justo al cruzar una puerta o que atraviesan parte de una pared y te pegan, jefes donde un golpe es muerte y empezar desde el principio, los enemigos voladores en general.

Vale que conforme vas mejorando al protagonista algunas se mitigan pero es frustrante cuando mejorar todo al máximo te sigue causando frustración para pelear contra ciertos enemigos normales porque siempre tienen algo para hacerlos molestos.

Y esta es la gran pega en general, que no da la sensación de que las decisiones hayan sido así, sino que, son fruto de no saber balancear los elementos del juego. No es poner a los enemigos en puntos estratégicos y dar algo de información y medios fáciles de entender para lidiar con ellos.

Tampoco es poner áreas enormes que explorar sin puntos de control porque moverse es tremendamente rápido y ágil. Ni pretender que algunas soluciones a puzles impliquen probar cosas completamente fuera de la intuición.

Los enemigos están ahí viéndote acercarte pero la pantalla no te los muestra y te llevas el golpe nada más llegar, la ubicación de algunos implica no poder esquivarlos o huir rápidamente para pensar una estrategia, por lo que morir y volver al mismo sitio puede ser un suplicio.

Además no siempre se puede usar el poder que te permite moverte más rápido o es un pelín puñetero y requiere estar en puntos concretos para sacarle partido.

Menos aún hacer que todo sea críptico para dar una falsa sensación de misterio y dificultad. No, todo esto son malas decisiones a la hora de hacer el juego que en conjunto lastran una experiencia cuyos bugs son la guinda que como te pille a contrapié puede ser caldo de cultivo de dejarlo a medias.

Aunque la premisa sea interesante, la manera de narrarla tampoco es gran cosa pero al mantener el rollo esotérico gana gracias a una ambientación y arte que le sienta como un guante.

No es que uno quiera ser agorero pero me parece bastante acertado que este sea el ÚLTIMO caso de Benedict Fox (a pesar de la escena final) porque o mejoran muchísimo o no se si alguien va a querer más.

Kind of a disappointment with this game the more I think about it. I like a lot of the concepts and the world itself but once you get deeper into the story and mechanics, it all goes downhill.

The story and characters all on the surface are interesting and intriguing but the story itself is really difficult to follow.

The combat is easily the worst part of this game as well. It's standard melee and long range combat but It never feels good. Every enemy is a damage sponge. The gun has very limited ammunition. There are options to upgrade your weapons and other power ups (the game features a set of items you can use in combat. Some are great and useful, others are not) but in doing so, and upgrading everything I owned to its full potential, you just never feel like it's doing much to change things. Some of these increase the amount you can carry, so that is helpful but they never feel like they last that much longer or do that much more damage.

The combat controls also just feel clunky and cumbersome. Despite having a slide and jump and a nice range of motion, the game never strings it together in a fluid way that feels satisfying, often having enemies that can block or make movement difficult. Some enemies are difficult to slide underneath and knock down, others have a wider range of motion in the air and can knock you down. The biggest culprit to this issue is the hit detection is terrible in this game.

There are many bugs in this game but the hit detection is one of the more egregious and consistent issues I ran across. Often times I'd be seeing my character jumping well over an enemy, only to get hit by an attack that was visibly off the mark. It does work in your favor at times as well, so you can use this to your advantage as well, but because every enemy is a sponge, it doesn't really feel like a massive assistance.

On top of that, I had a handful of random crashes, some times when audio didn't load, another time where I loaded up on a save area, only to be met with a black screen (could still see my character luckily). It's fairly inconsistent.

There are some big annoyances this game has on top of this, the one worth mentioning over the rest is that the game will kick you out of some areas if you've died too many times in a row on an area. You'll randomly have this happen just because. It's so damn annoying.

This game sadly I don't think is worth your time. Maybe if you gel with the combat more you'll enjoy this but there are games just like this that are much better, much more stable and deserve your attention.

I don't want to be completely negative about this game though so I will add The vibes and art style are nice, the level design is pretty good, some of the world building and story beats are also interesting. It's just not enough to make up for the deep flaws that exist in this game.

In music, a band that debuts big then needs to face a phase known as the 'difficult second album syndrome' or perhaps the sophomore slump. Playdead could have outdone themselves on a first go with the incredible LIMBO, it would be risky adding even just one extra layer of colour and perspective depth.
Thankfully it paid off and INSIDE excels with excellent sense of pacing and visual control of narrative. Set in a dystopia not far from that of its predecessor, you play another sneaky boy who attempts to infiltrate a frighteningly fascistic testing facility. The sense of dread is better established very early on as you traverse a forest where you hide from 'officers' in trucks carrying dozens of people. It is almost impossible not shake the many associations with historical human atrocities such as the Holocaust. The imagery and even the gameplay (not to spoil anything) follows a consistent theme of having power and control over others; a government manipulating hordes of the public in a chilling unison. Of course, this is just a sci fi concept in a world far from ours, right?