Fatum Betula is, arguably, a nearly perfect video game, depending upon your philosophy when it comes to criticism. If you, like me, believe that to a large extent the success of a game depends upon how well it achieved what it set out to do, I think you can get very far with such an argument.
After all, Fatum Betula …
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Fatum Betula is, arguably, a nearly perfect video game, depending upon your philosophy when it comes to criticism. If you, like me, believe that to a large extent the success of a game depends upon how well it achieved what it set out to do, I think you can get very far with such an argument.
After all, Fatum Betula more faithfully recaptures the look and feel of playing weird Japanese PS1 games as a child than anything I’ve yet seen, and that is clearly what it set out to do. The aesthetic is spot on, right down to the swimmy textures. It’s sharper and higher framerate than the actual games it’s a throwback to, but doesn’t improve things enough for you to really notice, it just looks like how you remember those games looking.
The gameplay itself entirely consists of talking to people, using items on things, and filling and emptying a set of vials with various liquids. It stretches these basic interactions into a truly captivating and haunting world full of secret endings and hidden areas and weirdness and wonder. And it somehow imparts these nostalgic feelings with ruthless economy, it took under three hours to see all the endings but I felt like I had gone on a much longer journey.
If you have any nostalgia at all for weird PS1 games like King’s Field, LSD: Dream Emulator, Soul Reaver, Clock Tower, Tail of the Sun, etc. Fatum Betula is an absolute must play.
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