i always figured my top 10 was solid. there's a bunch of games on there that maybe aren't masterpieces, maybe aren't the greatest stories ever told, but they're important to me in one way or another. i didn't think anything could breach it.
until now.
pentiment is now in my top 10 games of all time. when i think about portal 2 i think of it as a mathematically perfect game. pentiment is the artistic equivalent. this game is LITERALLY art.
i didn't think i could get so invested in the world of 16th century bavaria, where half the cast are devout members of a religion that i've never felt particularly close to, and yet the humanizing of each and every character from a lowly peasant to even the archdeacon is absolutely fascinating.
acts 1 and 2 both involve investigating a murder, and the time limit never felt too short, there's never too much pressure, but you're always faced with the choice of what lead to take, which person to investigate. and even afterwards, you're often given the question of "SHOULD this person be punished" because of new information you discover through your investigations.
speaking of discovering information, the ease with which certain things in this game can be revealed to you is sometimes dependent on which backgrounds you pick. sometimes these backgrounds don't do much other than add flavor text or a bit of extra depth to your character, but other times you can use your fluency in other languages to read different texts, whereas other people might need to find somebody to translate for them. furthermore, the sheer number of backgrounds you can choose from means any and all replays can be unique and interesting.
every playthrough is likely at least a bit different. my andreas was a hedonist who also studied medicine, but was also an excellent orator and logician. he could make reasonable inferences based on context and so despite his flirty, fun-loving demeanor, he was a force to be reckoned with intellectually. other people's andreases will be different, and even my own, second andreas will be different from my first. this was utterly fascinating, and led to tons of replayability.
normally i like to comb a game once i finish it for the first time, try to get every achievement possible. i started up pentiment to do just that and found myself... hesitant. i was skipping dialogue and, sure, it was slow, too, but... i didn't want to. i didn't want to just go through the motions, making random dialogue choices. i wanted to build a new andreas, one that made different choices from myself.
joshua sawyer once more proves himself a competent writer, who utilizes the historical lens to craft a unique, touching, beautiful story that floored me many times. highly recommend even if you're wary. give it a shot.
until now.
pentiment is now in my top 10 games of all time. when i think about portal 2 i think of it as a mathematically perfect game. pentiment is the artistic equivalent. this game is LITERALLY art.
i didn't think i could get so invested in the world of 16th century bavaria, where half the cast are devout members of a religion that i've never felt particularly close to, and yet the humanizing of each and every character from a lowly peasant to even the archdeacon is absolutely fascinating.
acts 1 and 2 both involve investigating a murder, and the time limit never felt too short, there's never too much pressure, but you're always faced with the choice of what lead to take, which person to investigate. and even afterwards, you're often given the question of "SHOULD this person be punished" because of new information you discover through your investigations.
speaking of discovering information, the ease with which certain things in this game can be revealed to you is sometimes dependent on which backgrounds you pick. sometimes these backgrounds don't do much other than add flavor text or a bit of extra depth to your character, but other times you can use your fluency in other languages to read different texts, whereas other people might need to find somebody to translate for them. furthermore, the sheer number of backgrounds you can choose from means any and all replays can be unique and interesting.
every playthrough is likely at least a bit different. my andreas was a hedonist who also studied medicine, but was also an excellent orator and logician. he could make reasonable inferences based on context and so despite his flirty, fun-loving demeanor, he was a force to be reckoned with intellectually. other people's andreases will be different, and even my own, second andreas will be different from my first. this was utterly fascinating, and led to tons of replayability.
normally i like to comb a game once i finish it for the first time, try to get every achievement possible. i started up pentiment to do just that and found myself... hesitant. i was skipping dialogue and, sure, it was slow, too, but... i didn't want to. i didn't want to just go through the motions, making random dialogue choices. i wanted to build a new andreas, one that made different choices from myself.
joshua sawyer once more proves himself a competent writer, who utilizes the historical lens to craft a unique, touching, beautiful story that floored me many times. highly recommend even if you're wary. give it a shot.