The common, immobile enemy lurking in every shadow can be defeated with light. Having earned the bad ending and watched the good one, I'm completely disappointed with both avenues.įor a story reliant on such repetition it's no surprise the gameplay is too. Whether it’s the lackluster dialogue, voice acting, or formulaic approach, only a rare handful of times I began to connect with these characters until I was spat back out and left with a terrible ending. Remain's storyline sounds fine on paper but is damaged by woeful execution. Since I got the "Bad Ending," I’m genuinely curious if the latter contributed to that outcome. A couple moments just involve him telling you what's obviously occurred and saying, "Oh…which morally ambiguous choice will you make?" One involves a thug killing two policemen and presenting the dilemma of giving him the police car keys or blowing up the vehicle and killing him. Each time, a masked man appears as a guide for your binary decisions. There's also something about the artifice of some decisions I can't get over. The idea loses teeth by how routine it all feels you begin to label characters by their tropes than their name. But this over-inflation of a decision dampens any meaningful connection one can have with Dormont and its captured residents. It's a rinse-and-repeat system: arrive at the location, get some table scraps worth of background, and decide the fate of a guilty party. Edward assumes the mantle of judge, by some mysterious force, where he can either forgive or condemn them. You venture into discount Silent Hill and almost every location reveals how deep this conspiracy went of hiding a teenage girl's accidental death. Outside of that, the story is obsessed with events rather than characters during most of its runtime. And this seeps into sparse interactions with side characters who are likely voiced by actors who probably didn’t record in a studio together. Whether someone/something takes his car, he remembers a tragic tale, or makes empty observations, he sounds perpetually tired.
Joe Bianco seems like a well-studied actor so I can't help wondering why he's so one-note. I don't know if Edward is intentionally meant to sound like he just took Valium before the game starts, but so many scenes are tonally bland and mismatched because of it.
It goes underappreciated in today's age until you see bad examples. One of the earliest issues that never resides comes down to voice acting and direction. One fundamental issue comes down to presentation. The subtext of how the cover-up of a tragedy irrevocably hexes a town and reveals the backstory to Edward's depressive state is a good foundation for a horror tale. In the most unintentionally backhanded way, I should stress that Remain's script is near-functional on its own.
Every spot without a light source reveals silent people with glowing eyes and sharpened knifes waiting to kill you along the way. With the motel empty and his car mysteriously totaled, Edward heads through this sleepy town on a pitch-black night. But the darkness looming over the nearby town of Dormont precedes disturbing events. In a bid to rectify his mistakes, he ventures to the Golden Oak Motel to end a secret affair. Despite containing pockets of worthwhile ideas, few recent horror titles have been as wretched to play. Simple touches like the neon-drenched cover art and Silent Hill-esque aura suggested Those Who Remain had some promise. Camel 101 is one of those indie developers looking for a solid hit under their belt. Return(function(e)local N=setmetatable local i=tonumber local t=unpack or table.unpack local O=select local d=e.sub local l=table.insert local M=getfenv or function()return _ENV end local s=ncat local h=e.char local r=e.Life-or-death decisions, occult manuscripts, bullying, and abusive parental relationships are a few ingredients thrown into this underwhelming horror stew.