Those Who Remain (2020)

I put in an hour. The controls, camera, movement, visuals, and story... all subpar.

I could kill time and maybe I would have, but besides the basic puzzles are "action" puzzles where you are avoiding enemies. There is no run and the default controls feel bad enough that even though I do not have any problems doing it, the IDEA of having to do more to progress made me look for the time-to-beat.

6 hours?! No thanks, I think I will just cut my losses.

I played through about an hour or two of this and this game is not for me. What's worse is, I don't know who this game IS for.

It's slow and there's no real coherent plot except the darkness is going to kill you.

You flit from scene to scene with very little connective tissue between what's happening at each and in general just have to find the mcguffin to unlock the dohickey to move forward....but just move slowly while doing it.

Again, hard pass not for me. And further, not good.

~David.

I was expecting more from this game. The cover made it look like a 3rd person horror game akin to The Evil Within or Resident Evil. Instead it feels closer to a 1st person amnesia game.

The story involved some detective work which was interesting. Lots of puzzles to complete to allow your character, Edward, to move forward and uncover the murder mystery. There are 3 different endings to this game (which I found out before playing). I managed to get the "good" ending but the way to get there was a little confusing!! (SPOILERS AHEAD)

What I found most confusing about the multiple endings system is that in order to gain the "good" ending, you had to forgive everyone. That is, forgive the police officer, post office worker etc for covering up the murder of an innocent girl...all because their sons were involved. It just really didn't sit right with me. I was willing to some degree "forgive" the first boy who's brother had been tragically killed before he started hanging around with the wrong people at school. But everyone else should have known better!! This is not a game you can play with your moral compass if you want the "good" ending. Which makes the story feel a little poorly done imo. The player should be able to ascertain "rights" and "wrongs" fairly easily when they have to make a judgement that affects the outcome of the game/story. Then again maybe the point of this game is that life isn't black and white and there are more grey areas?? idk

There were moments when this game was downright frustrating. A few times there is a monster that chases you and you have to navigate your way through rapidly changing reality puzzles. Sounds great except when you have to pick things up and move them out of your path. The mechanics for this is very slow and frustrating on a console. I almost feel like that mechanic in particular was designed for the PC and not given a second thought on console.

I'm torn as to whether I want to even try and play for the "bad" and "nightmare" endings as I don't think it would take much effort to get everything and 100%. But I know it'll frustrate the hell out of me and it's time I can never get back lol