In this, you play as the spirit of Nina, whose beautiful singing continues to have a positive effect even after her passing. The other three members of the titular group grieve in different ways, as is true in real life, depicted well, and you have to help them through that, bringing them to a cathartic final performance. It's very clear that this was made by people who actually are mourning - the real person was named Emma Ninnel. The beautiful forest that served to distract the four from the big city, which literally led to depression for one of them, has now fallen dark, gloomy, creepy. And it's up to you to restore it. Every step of the way, the atmosphere is incredible. Despite this similarity, it doesn't have the challenging puzzles of, say, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It really is a mood piece and I think that was the right choice. There are no real brain teasers here. You could brute force this if you wanted to, given that the ones that aren't intuitive literally have the solution shown and you just have to go and find that spot and then return to accurately recreate it. You never spend terribly long on any individual one of these. It's more like tasks, similar to Adios.
The graphics are great. Stylized. Not attempting photo realism. Everything feels alive, vibrant. There's so much movement without it being overpowering, overstimulating. This is isometric. You move through areas that are connected and relatively closed off, linear. Certain spots require you to pick up and move something. You connect lines, you float, and you transform back and forth between yourself and a swarm of butterflies. I was struck by this not going for the appeals of flying in other games, such as Just Cause 3, where it's about the freedom, the speed, the thrill because you might crash and you have to carefully avoid that. Here, it goes for the majesty of reaching a higher altitude. And as cheesy as it sounds, "there ain't no mountain high enough", to keep you from helping the trio. This was made entirely by Danes and it's one of many pieces of media that makes me proud of my fellow countrymen. We really do have a lot to offer the rest of the world. By the way if you play just a little into this you might worry that all of the spoken words are in Danish. But it's only the very start, which like the rest of them are subtitled into English. And as one of the six million people who speak the language, I can confirm the acting for that first bit is excellent as it is for the rest. As others have pointed out, over the course of it as you listen to the score it does feel incomplete, in a purposeful way. It never sounds "bad"; you can tell that you're listening to musicians who should be playing together, and this further urges you on.
It is advised that you play this with a joystick; it is possible to use the keyboard and certainly that's how I got through most of this, and was fine with it. Still, it definitely is slightly awkward and the menu does not allow for remapping the keys. It feels a bit like an afterthought. This saves your game each time you've completed an entire area. Not a single one of them should take more than 10 minutes. As someone who's recovering from tennis elbow and dealing with chronic back pain, this was never straining. I would also recommend it to people who like the basic idea of games that have you solve things, yet are currently nervous about if they are smart enough to make it all the way through them. And I don't mean that as an insult. It reminded me somewhat of Dear Esther, albeit this does have interaction. As such I think it helps show how that one could perhaps have been improved albeit I maintain that it's fantastic. What I mean is both have you moving through areas that have you wanting to fully explore where you don't encounter NPCs, much less enemies that you have to fight, and every so often you get a voice over snippet. Frequently here, it's a part of an interview.
There are not a lot of achievements in this and only one of them is something other than just ones that encourage you to keep playing further. And the addition of collectibles could also have greatly increased the replayability. I do respect that that wasn't the choice made again I'm really just helping people who are considering buying it adjust their expectations. Most of the negative reviews I've read make it clear that it really is just that they didn't realize what this would be before they got into it. Which is of course frustrating to experience. I've seen it criticized that these don't really give you much of an idea of who the band members are as people; I agree that this is an accurate statement. However, I take issue with the notion that this is bad or that it represents a failure. It was not what they were going for. This is not a character study; it's about the effect that this individual and the location had on them. Like other stories told by men about specific women and how they inspire them, think for example the first Alan Wake, this definitely does not feature very much depth for her at all, and does perpetuate the misogynistic trope of them literally existing entirely for the sake of males, to motivate us, serve us. I mean it does help that at least it's a positive way, rather than positing that they as a group intentionally go out of their way to harm us. With that said I definitely think a strong case could be made that there should be greater emphasis placed on underlining the humanity of them. 8/10.
The graphics are great. Stylized. Not attempting photo realism. Everything feels alive, vibrant. There's so much movement without it being overpowering, overstimulating. This is isometric. You move through areas that are connected and relatively closed off, linear. Certain spots require you to pick up and move something. You connect lines, you float, and you transform back and forth between yourself and a swarm of butterflies. I was struck by this not going for the appeals of flying in other games, such as Just Cause 3, where it's about the freedom, the speed, the thrill because you might crash and you have to carefully avoid that. Here, it goes for the majesty of reaching a higher altitude. And as cheesy as it sounds, "there ain't no mountain high enough", to keep you from helping the trio. This was made entirely by Danes and it's one of many pieces of media that makes me proud of my fellow countrymen. We really do have a lot to offer the rest of the world. By the way if you play just a little into this you might worry that all of the spoken words are in Danish. But it's only the very start, which like the rest of them are subtitled into English. And as one of the six million people who speak the language, I can confirm the acting for that first bit is excellent as it is for the rest. As others have pointed out, over the course of it as you listen to the score it does feel incomplete, in a purposeful way. It never sounds "bad"; you can tell that you're listening to musicians who should be playing together, and this further urges you on.
It is advised that you play this with a joystick; it is possible to use the keyboard and certainly that's how I got through most of this, and was fine with it. Still, it definitely is slightly awkward and the menu does not allow for remapping the keys. It feels a bit like an afterthought. This saves your game each time you've completed an entire area. Not a single one of them should take more than 10 minutes. As someone who's recovering from tennis elbow and dealing with chronic back pain, this was never straining. I would also recommend it to people who like the basic idea of games that have you solve things, yet are currently nervous about if they are smart enough to make it all the way through them. And I don't mean that as an insult. It reminded me somewhat of Dear Esther, albeit this does have interaction. As such I think it helps show how that one could perhaps have been improved albeit I maintain that it's fantastic. What I mean is both have you moving through areas that have you wanting to fully explore where you don't encounter NPCs, much less enemies that you have to fight, and every so often you get a voice over snippet. Frequently here, it's a part of an interview.
There are not a lot of achievements in this and only one of them is something other than just ones that encourage you to keep playing further. And the addition of collectibles could also have greatly increased the replayability. I do respect that that wasn't the choice made again I'm really just helping people who are considering buying it adjust their expectations. Most of the negative reviews I've read make it clear that it really is just that they didn't realize what this would be before they got into it. Which is of course frustrating to experience. I've seen it criticized that these don't really give you much of an idea of who the band members are as people; I agree that this is an accurate statement. However, I take issue with the notion that this is bad or that it represents a failure. It was not what they were going for. This is not a character study; it's about the effect that this individual and the location had on them. Like other stories told by men about specific women and how they inspire them, think for example the first Alan Wake, this definitely does not feature very much depth for her at all, and does perpetuate the misogynistic trope of them literally existing entirely for the sake of males, to motivate us, serve us. I mean it does help that at least it's a positive way, rather than positing that they as a group intentionally go out of their way to harm us. With that said I definitely think a strong case could be made that there should be greater emphasis placed on underlining the humanity of them. 8/10.