The short verdict is that Pentiment is an amazing narrative adventure game, second only to Disco Elysium with the goal of telling a coherent interactive story with clear themes that seamlessly braid into a compelling plot delivered through a lot of really interesting choices and consequences. Some people will surely write really long and engaging essays about the themes and substance and delivery of this game, but, honestly, it's so dense that I don't feel like I can really scratch the surface of that kind of analysis without playing it multiple times and treating it like a college essay, so I'll instead just lightly cover why I enjoyed it as much as I did across the important elements of narrative gameplay.

STORY / PLOT - 8/10
The game's plot is a series of interconnected mysteries spanning three separate time periods. The plot isn't riveting in the sense of a dramatic thriller, but that's because the focus of the game ends up being the characters and the larger narrative of the town. The mystery is used as a structural skeleton to weave together the stories of the townsfolk and those living in the church on the hill above them. The game is, by volume, actually more "slice of life" than it is "murder mystery", as even talking to townsfolks about the mystery or recent dramatic events often takes place during literal meals that you share with them.

Given that premise, the plot is serviceable and keeps the ball rolling. It's not going to blow your mind, and at times it might even feel a bit frustrating because not everything delivers a clear or direct conclusion when and how you might expect in a murder mystery. However, the plot does its job and ultimately pays off in a relatively satisfying way that ties all of the story and theme threads together.

DIALOG - 8/10
In terms of raw prose, the dialog is spartan and naturalistic. There is a lot of levity and sarcasm, and while I can't say the game actually made me laugh a single time, it all flows in a way that feels relatable and incredibly human. You feel at home with the characters fairly quickly, and the way soft personality-driven humor comes through in the vast majority of conversation is one of the major components of making the game feel real and relatable.

There is a real sense of economy of words, as all dialog is delivered in speech bubbles instead of the giant text boxes common in Obsidian's (and similar) titles. You can tell this "word-per-bubble" budget genuinely forced the writers to actually edit their ideas down and not waste the player's time. Conversations flow very organically, with interruptions and asides, and everything feels timed out such that it's the closest feeling you can get to voice acting without actual voice acting.

CHARACTERS - 6/10
The naturalistic style flows into the characters. No single character is a standout -- no one steals the scene, no one is hilarious, and no one is the most charismatic or the most memorable. This is because the town is the "main character," and everyone makes up its corpus in a meaningful way.  Even while some characters are more or less "plot-relevant," if you take the time to actually talk to everyone, you see that everyone is the star of their own little story, and they're all focused on their immediate lives and relationships. The details about each character's life flesh out the setting more than tell you individual compelling narratives that will stick in your mind, yet their delivery of those details is at all times enjoyable as a result of the very believable naturalistic dialog.

Unlike classic Obsidian (and similar) games, talking to every "NPC" in this game doesn't feel like you're just bouncing from exposition dump to exposition dump. People tell you how they feel and who they are in ways that are poignant and direct, which is enhanced by the word economy that the speech bubbles enforce. You learn exactly as much as you need to about any given character, no more or less. Death, relationships, and raising children are ubiquitous topics, and how each person speaks about these things gives you a sincere dive into the time and society in that they live. 

PACING / STRUCTURE - 8/10
The game is broken into three acts. Fully explaining how these acts are structured is impossible without spoiling the flow of the game, and experiencing how those parts flow into each other without foreknowledge can greatly enhance one's experience of the game.

So without spoilers, it can simply be said that the structure and pacing of the game are quite good. There are lulls at certain steps, periods where you talk to a LOT more people in a dozen disparate little stories, and then there are parts where you're only allowed to experience the plot on rails and not allowed to explore or talk to anyone. Some of the flaws in pacing tie to narrative design flaws explained below, but all things considered, the highs and lows of the story structure are compelling, and the slowest moments of the game are also the richest in character and tone, so it never feels boring even if sometimes you are mozying and other times you are running.

NARRATIVE DESIGN - 7/10
It's a very simple game with very basic mechanics.

- You can pick background details for your character that unlock special dialog options.
- You can talk to people and select dialog options.
- You can sometimes "persuade people" (which shows you a meter being filled/emptied based on things you've said or done that affect that persuasion positively or negatively, and the only way to "succeed the check" is to have enough positives to fill the meter).
- You can walk through (many) interconnected locations, most of which are always available but some of which are contextually available (such as based on time of day) or only available at specific plot beats.
- You can interact with a small number of interactable things that are prominently highlighted with a big interactable icon (there is no "pixel hunting" like in a point-and-click game, anything you can do in a location is completely obvious).
- You can choose how to "fill your time" within certain windows where the resulting scene will move time forwards to the next time block.

So how do you create a compelling murder investigation with multiple possible outcomes with those limited mechanics? Well, to really explain the answer to that would mean spoiling the entire story. One of the strongest elements of the entire story and narrative structure can only be understood after finishing the game, experiencing the outcomes based on your choices, and then looking up the other outcomes you didn't choose. Without spoiling anything, suffice it to say that the game does a pretty good job at making it so every possible outcome feels narratively satisfying, even if it may suffer a bit from the "well technically there is still a best choice" syndrome so common in games like this.

Taking it in good faith that all of the narrative design is fundamentally okay and enjoyable, let's look at some of the frustrations a player might run into. All of these flaws are very common in narrative games, and almost no game has "solved" the frustrations these types of things can result in for players who think really hard about how they interact with games (though, again, the game that has solved all of these issues is Disco Elysium).

First off, it's not always obvious who you can talk to at what time of day. If you're thorough and a completionist, you'll eventually realize that you are basically obligated to talk to everyone, everywhere, every day if you want all of the content. It's often very random who has something new to say and who doesn't, and there are even some special events in places you might not expect to look at some times in the day, encouraging a completionist to walk through every screen of the entire game during every time period and trying to talk to every person (which would easily add ~2-3 hours to the game given the number of days there are). This is arguably not fixed by playing multiple times, since most of the time you won't find something somewhere you didn't expect to, so it wouldn't feel like you're exploring story branches in a second play, it would just feel like you're wandering around randomly hoping to see something you maybe missed.

The above problem also results in a lot of paranoia about "how you use your time." It turns out an enormous amount of the narrative is NOT something that uses up your time block. In any given time block, you can and should talk to many people, sometimes every single character in the entire game, if you want to best get all of the information you can get before proceeding to choose a scene that will progress the time block. This makes the pacing of the game feel very weird because it's obvious that the designers intend for you to maybe talk to a few different people at different times of day and what they have to say will be the same whether you did it in the morning or afternoon, but the time pressure the game puts on your makes the "gamer brain" constantly paranoid whether they're going to miss something that there was no reason to miss.

Next, when it comes to choice and consequence, it turns out most of the game states are very binary. Many outcomes result from a large number of prior dialog choices you've made, but in most of these cases, getting what you want out of the situation is a result of simply being polite and agreeable to everyone all the time (go along with what they say, respect them, don't make a fuss). It's arguable this "agreeable" bias ties to the themes (see below), but there are not many opinion-driven outcomes wherein siding with one versus another idea results in equal narrative pay-off. You're often not choosing A or B (or N) but instead choosing A or !A. This failure in narrative design is very common, Disco Elysium may be the only narrative game that manages to avoid it for the majority of its runtime.

Many outcomes are dependent on specific character backgrounds that you pick at the start of the game, so you're allotted a handful of things that seem like you could interact with (in conversations and in the world), but in reality, you can't unless you have the right background. As an example, in Act 3, there are three conversations wherein three people each ask you for advice and the conversations each end with a choice, and then to convince them to do the thing you choose (your advice) you must succeed a "persuasion check." However, in this game persuasion checks are tied to accumulating "positive points" based on dialog choices you've made, and in ALL three of these conversations, being able to gain "positive points" is tied to conversation options that are only shown based on your background. If you don't have the relevant background(s), you see few dialog options that can change the outcome at all, and the persuasion check at the end is completely impossible, leaving you wondering why and possibly just looking up the solution. (Also, START MINOR SPOILERS to make matters worse, you can make them do what you want by telling them to do the opposite thing and then failing the persuasion check, which in this case does not feel like a thematic and purposeful narrative decision regarding "reverse psychology actually works" or something. END MINOR SPOILERS)

THEMES - 10/10
This game has a LOT of themes, and it manages to weave all of them into the entire story and even somehow manages to make all of them relevant to the murder mystery and the final outcomes of the story. It's a rare occasion to see game writing that understands themes at all, let alone makes it a rule to make them present in every single aspect of the narrative and every conversation you have in the game. This is the meat where someone could write a very thorough essay on every one of these.

- Agreeability and mob mentality.
- Social bonds and obligations.
- Myths and legends evolving with culture.
- Proletariat versus the rich.
- Mortality contrasted to daily living.

It's also remarkable that it's a game where Catholicism is ever-present (you literally talk to over a dozen monks/priests/nuns) and yet it doesn't actually feel like religious doctrine and religiosity are being shoved down the audience's collective throat. Some might actually get ruffled at the idea of being forced to play as a character who participates in a highly religious society without the option to meaningfully not be religious, but the thorough focus on making all of the characters feel human first and religious second (or third or fourth) helps you to understand this is just how it is. The story does not specifically regard Christianity or Catholicism in any real detail -- it's historical fiction for sure, but it's "light" historical at best. It instead regards much more how religious and political institutions affect small societies and it just so happens in this case it's the Holy Roman Empire.

OVERALL
This is a great narrative game with an enjoyable structure, a compelling story, and interwoven intelligent themes throughout. Absolutely worth playing for anyone who enjoys storytelling-focused games, even if you think the "historical fiction" focus might not be your cup of tea.