Pentiment, Part One
Sep. 22nd, 2024 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingPentiment is a murder mystery exploration game / visual novel along the lines of Night in the Woods, but it's set in Bavaria around the time of the German Peasants' War of 1525. It's very, very good...
...but I haven't finished it yet. The game is structured into three self-contained acts, and I just wrapped up the second act. If you know what that entails, please rest assured that I cried. A lot.
For the first two acts, you play as an artist named Andreas visiting a small town that lies in the shadow of a large Benedictine monastery. There are some fun Name of the Rose style crimes afoot, but everyone in the town and monastery is generally pleasant and kindhearted.
As with Night in the Woods, though, some of the reviews I've read of Pentiment make me wonder if I'm playing the same game. Namely, reviewers have complained about Andreas being a failson, and about how everyone hates him. To which I want to reply: My brothers in Christ, you're the one making the dialogue choices.
Like obviously you're going to get more out of these dialogue-based games if you don't go out of your way to harass and alienate the NPCs. I think Pentiment is a bit more complicated than Night in the Woods, as it requires your adult protagonist to behave like an adult in situations in which it's necessary to take medieval culture and society into consideration. Still, nobody's forcing you to do a conversation-based genocide run. You don't have to be an asshole on your first playthrough. Why not try being nice instead?
...but I haven't finished it yet. The game is structured into three self-contained acts, and I just wrapped up the second act. If you know what that entails, please rest assured that I cried. A lot.
For the first two acts, you play as an artist named Andreas visiting a small town that lies in the shadow of a large Benedictine monastery. There are some fun Name of the Rose style crimes afoot, but everyone in the town and monastery is generally pleasant and kindhearted.
As with Night in the Woods, though, some of the reviews I've read of Pentiment make me wonder if I'm playing the same game. Namely, reviewers have complained about Andreas being a failson, and about how everyone hates him. To which I want to reply: My brothers in Christ, you're the one making the dialogue choices.
Like obviously you're going to get more out of these dialogue-based games if you don't go out of your way to harass and alienate the NPCs. I think Pentiment is a bit more complicated than Night in the Woods, as it requires your adult protagonist to behave like an adult in situations in which it's necessary to take medieval culture and society into consideration. Still, nobody's forcing you to do a conversation-based genocide run. You don't have to be an asshole on your first playthrough. Why not try being nice instead?
no subject
Date: 2024-09-23 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-24 12:22 pm (UTC)I have one wishlist of games that look "interesting," and a much shorter wishlist of games that I know are going to be good. Pentiment was at the top of the second list. It's just as good as everyone says it is, and also, it's so much better. Since it takes about fifteen hours to finish, I needed to schedule two weeks of my life where I could give it my full attention, and I'm so happy I did. It's worth waiting.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-02 12:30 am (UTC)I have both an appallingly long backlog and a truly enormous wishlist of things that looked interesting, though at least I have learnt to put things on the wishlist instead of buying them immediately? (As much as I am NOT a fan of "all digital all the time", the fact that so many games are sold digitally means that there's less of the FOMO that I had with physical releases, particularly since e.g. Atlus does very small print runs (or at least used to) and if you didn't get it at launch, your odds diminished rapidly. I want to be able to still have physical games but also buy things digitally. This seems to be too much to ask.)