Reveail

Not sure why I picked this up, but I played Reveil.

You are Walter, with a wife and a kid who work with you in the circus. However, there are some strange things up with your relationship, and what happened to them anyway? And was it really your fault?

This game does start with the basic ideas of "troubled family man" and what gets revealed about him isn't that surprising considering this is a horror game. However, there is a reason as to why he did the things he did... the problem is, the explanation has nothing to do with the themes of the game presented so far, so it is less a hard swerve and more jumping to another game entirely. And the explanation undercuts any sense of "why is this?" that the first part generates.

I don't mind "walking simulator" games, heck I even like Dear Esther, but... this was just a heck of a walking simulator that a lot of time passed with nothing happening other than "hey, here was something we designed for you to walk through". There are there sections where you have to actively game (ie avoid an enemy) but they weren't a lot of fun because it wasn't clearly explained what it was I was trying to do.

And during the puzzle segments... dead gods. I don't know if this was supposed to be Controller first, but mouse and keyboard sucked, especially when it came to turning things. Mouse and turning does not work well, and it was always an effort to get through.

I played the game once through, then again with a walkthrough to get all the collectibles and such. One cheevo left, which I could get, but I don't care to. There are some extra features, but I'm not sure how to access them, so I'm not going to count them.

As I said, not sure why I got this, but I have now played it. Can't recommend you do the same.

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