Developer: Goblinz
Publisher: The Digital Lounge
Platform: PC, PS4, Android
Tested on: PS4
True Fear, Forsaken Souls Part 1 – Review
Normally, you wouldn’t expect a point-and-click game on the PlayStation 4. Especially when a game that’s been around for some time on PC and Android gets a new release in 2018 for a console. But maybe it might just be something the PS4 was lacking. Something adventurous, scary, yet strangely calming. It’s True Fear, Forsaken Souls Part 1.
Story
You’ve been haunted by strange dreams lately. Incoherent nightmares that seem to leave you with an unsettling feeling. Past, present, future? Only time can tell. After another rough night, you are woken up by some firm knocks at the front door. You try to switch on a light but the bulb is burned out. You change the bulb and switch it on before you go to the door and look through the peephole to see a mailman waving a letter in your face. Mail? At this time of night? Carefully you open the door to accept the letter. It’s an express service letter from your sister who didn’t contact you in years. She wants to see you, right now. Intrigued by this event you set out to find her, only to find out things about yourself and your family you never knew.. As you solve puzzles and make your way further into madness, more and more becomes clear.
Graphics
Most interactive items and some environmental items are half-animated, meaning they will have multiple drawings to indicate the state they are in. If you have a rope that you cut, you will have a rope before cutting and after cutting etc. This works really well for a point-and-click style adventure, but the game itself wraps itself as some type of extreme horror where you would expect jumpscares and hellish screams. This is not the case. Furthermore, whenever there is a scene that’s supposed to be scary, the lack of animation and overdone cliché’s (scary Japanese black-haired girl for example) seem to be somewhat of a parody on itself, while a proper tense atmosphere is maintained elsewhere during normal levels. That being said, the game looks good and has original imaginative rooms and interactive mystery everywhere.
Sound
Cinematic background tracks are the main source of great tension that fills the air. It melts together nicely with you trying to discover new clues, items, and possibilities. At times, this might even feel like some form of meditation where you try to figure out what the hell is going on or how all the pieces fit together. On top of that, there are some neat creaking floorboards, ravens laughing at you, whispers in the wall, and additional other sound effects on interacting with items that will make you feel like you are actually there. It’s a great example of making not just a game by adding sound, but an experience.
Gameplay
It might take a little bit of time to get used to a point-and-click on the PS4, but it surely is a good thing it’s there. Maybe the cursor doesn’t move as smooth as it should but that’s about all the critique on controls this game should get. Trying to uncover puzzles and truths on the big screen is strangely fitting, and a good decision it was to bring this game out again. If you like point-and-click games, this one should be something for you. The puzzles might lack some difficulty, especially since you can ask for directions of where to go when you use a creepy doll sitting in the bottom right of your screen, but the game also allows each player to set hints and possibilities to a difficulty of their liking. And even if it would be too hard or too easy for you after that, this is a game you enjoy because of the ride you are on. A thrilling and mysterious ride it surely is.
The gameplay is classic. You pick up an item, use it on a puzzle as it fits your logic, find another item you use elsewhere and so on. Sometimes it does seem difficult to make a game filled with items as logical as it is mysterious though. As an example, if your character doesn’t want to reach for an item until it removed a few cobwebs with a broom you start to wonder how important her sister actually is to her. Don’t be a pussy.
Then again, the game does seem to cover itself up nicely by creating a feverish environment which has fantastic high fantasy and horror elements, while also including in the story some hallucinations of the main character, making the player wonder what’s real and what’s not at times. For what the game aspires to be, it does, feels and creates an experience that’s worth the title of ”classic” in terms of point-and-click adventures. It’s an experience that can be just as fun and exciting ten years from now, and isn’t that exactly the test that qualifies a game as good?
Conclusion
True Fear, Forsaken Souls is a game that’s best to just dive in without knowing anything about it. Let yourself be immersed in its atmospheric experience and lots of mysteries to solve. The sounds, well-made graphics, and rather meditative gameplay make it more suitable for a relaxed night of playing than the logo and title would let off at the start. If you haven’t played a point-and-click for some time and are yearning for a throwback to the 90’s when tons were made, this is definitely a good one to pick up.
True Fear, Forsaken Souls Part 1 - Review,
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