White Night

Great game. The twist in the story is sheer brilliance. 10/10

I am only 30 minutes in and . . . frustrated with the game mechanics. I find the artwork aesthetically interesting. I don't mind a narrative rich gameplay. But the moving around...is tedious. You start off injured and slloooow. There's stumbling around and the movement doesn't always match what I do with the arrow keys. The perspective changes, sometimes in ways that aid, other times in ways that frustrate progress. And I can see the constant need to relight a match getting old very, very soon. So, I'm walking away for now. I am slightly intrigued, however, so perhaps I'll do a little spoil sleuthing to see if I can move things along a bit. Eventually. Again, only 30 minutes. Take my review with a hundred grains of salt.

The artist part of my brain loves the visual style. Use of jazz and noir story telling of this game. The gamer part of my brain is frustrated as hell. Problem number one with white night is the placement of enemies. There was a lot of times in the later half of the game where enemies would be in multiple parts of the room that you can sometimes barely see because they are colored in grey tones that blend in with the unlit spaces. Problem two would be the main gameplay mechanic of using matches. You only get to carry 12 and at certain times one or more may not even light properly. This intentional designed feature makes things really not fun. Not only can you not kill the enemy that you have a hard time seeing, but you also have to worry about your only means of progression randomly turning on you. Problem three is the story. Anyone who's consumed a lot of media could put the ending together pretty fast. However a great chunk of the plot is kept in letters/journals throughout the game. This content is unfortunately missable depending on how many matches you have at your disposal and access to save points. Save points which btw are sparse throughout the game. So once you die a…

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Its pretty good. I love the innovative visuals, but the jump scares do make it difficult for me to get back in. I would like to finish it, but I remember not know what to do and I just kept getting stuck. It does freak me out a bit but it is also kind of annoying.

Incredibly boring to me, the pace of gameplay would best be described as slug-like