Pentiment (2022)

Love these games that teach you about a culture you don't know. Mid millenia Bavaria wasn't in my top 10 cultures i thought i would be interested in. But the idea of transporting into that space learning what kept them going in a disco elysium style murder mystery def caught my eye. Along with the incredible art style and in-convo glossary!!

All these aspects were bangers and def got me to thinking it was a 5/5. The game started losing me 60% of the way through when all the reading with lots of repeat on-foot navigation just got me exhausted. I noticed myself trying to speed through the dialogue more and ingest less. This game with just a little extra pacing to keep people going would have been incredible. It got me wondering how i could play such a similar game - disco elysium - for even longer and still feel good and how its length was fine. That game is fully voice acted and full of tons of humor to keep the game going. Without as many of those elements, my brain was just exhausted part of the way in, trying to take in so much reading with little break

While some people criticize how it ended I actually thought it was very well done the whole way through. A little ridiculous but the ending didn't feel crazy out of the realm. And felt on theme in many ways. Final verdict: 4/5 (more a 4.5/5 if i could do that) but could have been a masterpiece 5/5!!!

If you are reading this to decide if you should buy Pentiment, please know that its publisher, XBOX Game Studios, is currently under boycott due to their parent company Microsoft's financial and technological support of the genocide in Palestine. So don't buy Pentiment until Microsoft fully divests from Israel. (Also cancel your Game Pass subscription if you haven't.) That said, if you happen to have a generous friend who already owns the game and will let you play it on their account or console, give it a go. My feelings about it are complicated, but it's an extremely good game.

Act 1 of Pentiment may be truly perfect. It's an incredibly compelling mystery where you're presented with a cavalcade of realistic human characters and have to make impossible choices around which one of them deserves to die based on the evidence you're able to collect. There's a pretty good case for each of around four different people, but they all have good reasons for murder and just enough room for doubt that you will feel awful convicting any one of them. The remaining two acts are good, but you also start to feel the developers' hand on your shoulder more and more. At first they mostly get away with the magic act of making the parts of the story that change with your choices flow into the parts that don't. They show you a slight variation on a fixed scene and say "See, this was your choice. You did this." and for a while you really feel the weight of it.

Then the game keeps going, leaning harder into railroading and becoming more heavyhanded with the philosophical points being made, and eventually you see the seams. Once you see them, of course, you can't un-see them. And I'm not saying there's nothing emotionally impactful in the latter part of the game (I certainly cried in act 3), but it loses something that would have helped carry it better through the parts of the story that are more about ideas than characters. I left act 3 feeling unsatisfied, but not in the intentional way that act 1 left me unsatisfied.

Still, I liked Pentiment a lot. I may have loved it. I keep going back and forth. It gave me some things to think about, though not as much as it clearly wanted to. It was beautiful and in places incredibly affecting, even if it couldn't stick the landing. Maybe that's enough? I don't know. Still, I'm glad I played it.

“This shows the world as it is, as you have seen it, even if it is not what we may want to see”

There lies an intuitive idea in a collectively shared understanding of this world. That first requisites a belief in the existence of immutable truths, which can be consistently and repeatedly observed. That through accumulating, cataloguing and depicting these observations, we can establish a concrete foundation for rational thought. Which can then be built atop of to give form to an objective reality. And through this social collective project we can develop a world in which logic and decorum will eventually prevail above all.

“Can you ever picture someone clearly if you **** them?”

This belief is however a fictitious fantasy. A romanticised ideal that does not mesh with any lived experience. To indulge in this thought is to deny in the pervasiveness of how one’s latent bias pigments reality. Social hierarchies, dictated by material and social incentive, heavily dictate that which we allow ourselves to publicly accept or deny as truths. Additionally as individuals, we are limited to witness only a select fraction of the observable world. That which we cannot personally oversee we instead must entrust faith in the accounts of peers and predecessors, whom also are influenced by their own unique predispositions. Even genuine attempts at historic preservation can be muddied through embellishment and fabricated extrapolation. This robe of objective reason, in which we stitch from tattered scraps of anecdotes, results in a multi coloured garment. Functional and perhaps pleasing, but certainly not cohesive nor replicable.

“You can already see things that I never could. See things and make them real”

So we gradually find our way to a conclusion that this world’s foundation is not comprised of brick, but instead of clay. Perception molds reality. Our preconceptions feedback into the world through our works and actions, shaping it to conform to our visions. Established truths become the result of ideological Darwinism rather than from nuanced consideration. The selective ideas deemed palatable by those in positions of power survive unsuppressed, becoming consensus. While competing ideas that run contrary to these are crushed and buried, lest they threaten to usurp this contemporary axiom of truth. The pen falters in the presence of the sword.

“There are layers to everything. Even our memories”

Yet it can never be buried deep enough. The detritus beneath our feet comprised of layers and layers of buried history, of our collective memory. Fragments and ideas of the past recurring perpetually, both incidentally and through a deliberate and inquisitive excavation. If a strong enough conviction is all that truly requisites reformation, then so too can we make even naive delusion real. That the world in which we dreamed, of that of an objective pursuit of truth, we can realise and give form. In all it’s prismatic glory! So long as we have the daring to actually wear it.

“It’s your church, father, but you can’t put this off forever. The foundation is going to crack”

(Pentiment is a game that depicts the nature of depictions. About how we colour the world around us into a presentable image and the process in how history and art is formed. About the discrepancies in that which we record with that in which we observe. Is it candid in it’s form. It’s own world explicitly being revised in real time based on the accumulated knowledge you attain, and the decisions you make. The game earnestly and arduously attempts to accurately portray a world as it was lived and perceived, whilst acknowledging it’s own incapability to truly do so. The relative mundanity in the scope of its conflict, reflects in how we all individually participate in the making of history, and in turn the relevancy of it’s ideas within the present. I strongly recommend it to nearly everyone, it is fairly easy to play, but those interested of art and of historical record may find it of particular fascination)

“Please don’t imagine me telling you in your own mind”

I have to open this review by saying I am absolutely suspect. I am a trained historian, I teach History in Brazilian basic education and I'm PhD candidate studying the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. So I had every reason to love this game before starting it, and I do love it.

Let's just start with the visuals: stunning. If you have never seen a medieval illuminated manuscript, I assure you: they get it right. The choice to make the entire game modelled on the medieval style of illuminated manuscripts was such a gamble and to make it work, I mean, just amazing.

I think an adequate word to describe the storytelling here is "careful". There's lots of information on this game, sure. Mostly, it's just context. However, I think that the dialogues and the options we're given really make a difference into what this game really is about: the portrayal of different people, with different struggles, trying to figure what life is. I mean, thinking about this little community that is dealing with civil unrest, changes in their faith, and altogether not knowing what the future holds.

Sure, the murder-mistery is what makes the story go on. But, in my opinion, that's just the engine in a greater machine. I think what really gets me is what we, historians, try to convey in our accounts of the past and, many times (maybe, most times), cannot: the sense of change as it was meaningful to the people in the past. The dialogues in this game show this at all times. Change is always happening and we all experience it, but our lives change in different ways even if we're intertwined with our families, our neighbors, our communities. Each person experiences individually the passing of time and the changes that occur, but also collectively. And dealing with change in these two ways is hard. You feel forgotten by your community, or you feel like you have outgrown your own family and their lives in this little city that they've been living for generations. And these feelings? They're right there, in the heart of this game. And that, I think, is what makes Pentiment a veritable treasure.

Still really enjoying this, though I do think the murder plot and its surrounding investigation/trial mechanics are pretty consistently the least interesting part of the game.

The mystery works perfectly fine as an excuse to traipse about town and chat with the inhabitants, which is clearly the game's focus and is lovely. But taken on its own the murder stuff is mindless, poorly-paced, and dull.

‘There’s too much text. No voice acting is a bummer. The visuals look drab. It’s probably boring.'

I urge you to ignore everything you might be employing as a possible internal deterrent against playing this game, and just give it a go. Pentiment serves as the poster-child argument for a subscription service like Game Pass, since in Josh Sawyer’s own words, it wouldn’t have been made without it. Regardless of stylistic or design choices, its quality is palpable: it is an intellectual flex, an undeniable labour of love that, despite its humble development, still manages to impress by its tone, originality and intent.

Broadly, Pentiment is a narrative whodunnit. However, it is the sum of its individual parts that elevate it beyond what I initially thought I was going to get. What it does, it does remarkably well: rather than being overwhelmed by its amount of text, info dump and historical references, I found myself captivated by the way they handle exposition (relevant words in the speech bubble are clickable in order to access short, useful context); rather than being put off by its art, I found myself mesmerised by the drive behind its beautiful illustrations, filled with colourful medieval-looking vignettes that show tremendous attention to detail, from the lighting to how different fonts reflect the characters’ different social statuses; rather than missing voice acting, I found myself almost hypnotised by its soothing medieval music and nature soundscape as I took in the the text-based dialogue; rather than feeling bored by its apparent passive delivery, I found myself enthralled by the exceptionally rich narrative, which offers a healthy amount of agency in how the story is shaped, with choices ranging from picking your own background and personal traits to the literal fate of some characters; rather than wanting to get through everything quickly, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the way the game rewards exploration and curiosity by giving you an extra piece of useful dialogue, a new interesting NPC, a visually different area. In a lot of ways, Pentiment is an exercise in subverting expectations, making use of all its elements to continuously punch above its perceived weight.

To tie it all together, the game anchors itself in an incredibly layered mystery, an imposing tale split into acts that span literal decades, superiorly threaded for the most part, with twists and turns and a strong ending and tons of attractive moments. Against this narrative backdrop, there are two things Pentiment does that I absolutely love: one is how it effortlessly involves your own thoughts and opinions in the actual interpretation of the world, and how that consequently influences the way story beats play out; the other is completely novel, or at least something I had never experienced in a game before, and that is how it handles meals. These are a very relevant aspect in most of your playthrough and a faithful depiction of the portrayed time period, during which they served an important social function. It is through meals, and the characters you choose to have them with, that you better interpret and assess the world and people around you. In a sense, they are the perfect in-game showcase of their real-life role as interaction tools from back in the day. Kudos to Pentiment for turning such a mundane event into a crucial moment of social exchange in a surprisingly elegant manner.

Not everything about the game is flawless, though. There is some narrative inconsistency noticeable on occasion - eg when you already spoke to an NPC about something and the game acts as if you didn’t, or at times as if those NPCs haven’t even interacted with you yet -, and there’s also a bit of a pacing and directing issues present in Act III, which sometimes feels a tad disjointed, repetitive and ‘handholdy’. But these are rare and infrequent instances of flaws within the game’s design, and do very little to bring down the overall experience.

Playing Pentiment, I was often reminded of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, my personal favourite game of all the ones I’ve played this year. Not only are there a lot of cross-cultural and historical references between both titles, the two games often feel like custom-made extensions of each other. KCD can be seen as the action RPG yin to Pentiment’s narrative-adventure yang, an amalgamation of genres perfectly blended and thrown into an ideologically consistent world. This, however, isn’t to say that Obsidian’s game lacks tension, just that this tension is seen and handled differently. In fact, there were moments in my playthrough that felt like absolute gut punches, which made me ponder on how remarkable it is that a game of such a seemingly static nature can command this much intensity at certain pivotal points. And in a tiny nutshell, I feel this is what best describes Pentiment: its ability to deliver genuine impact when, at first sight, it couldn’t possibly look more incapable of delivering it. 8.5/10

I love this game. I love that it does such a nice job immersing itself in a very realistic feeling history. I love the art style of having speech bubble written out in manuscript style. I love the way it doesn’t tell you who the real culprits are during the first two mysteries. I love the characters and story and ‘reasons’ for the different crimes. Obsidian and the minds behind Obsidian have made many games that are beloved by many people. I’ve only played a few of those but the one I have played I have mostly enjoyed and some are top tier for me. This game will definitely get added to any list of gems from this legendary company. The entire thing is so touching and well done from start to finish that I’m surprised I didn't tear up at moments. Absolutely, unquestionably 5 stars and among my top all time games. I can’t wait for Avowed!!!

I played on my Steam Deck and it worked flawlessly.

I enjoyed my time with Pentiment immensely. As a murder mystery, it had me on the edge of my seat – who was(were) the murder(ers) and why? As a historically inspired game it had me wanting to play the game right away once the credits rolled – right after I finished adding all the books from the game’s bibliography to the wish list at my local library, of course!

Pentiment explores the passage of time and like the concept the name of the game is pointing to, it wants to engage with the belief that everything is built upon something else. What lies beneath or behind us may not be visible, but it still very much affects us.

The game is elevated to another level that few games reach by accentuating the themes explored through design decisions. ‘Save scumming’, the process by which a player loads an earlier save to make a different decision or see a different outcome from one of their choices is simply not possible in Pentiment and right fully so. There is no restarting, respawning, or rolling back to an earlier period in life. We can only move forward. Each decision is made only once and in so doing we add to a tapestry of our life that cannot be undone. We can add, but not subtract. We can re-interpret or modify but we cannot discard.

The game also interrogates the fallibility of historical records and who gets to write history. A slight spoiler is to follow, but the identity of the killer(s) is never strongly stated. Memory and by extension historical records are messy. We must be critical of what we read, see or hear because so much of the important context and content could have been lost to time, in translation or wholly omitted by the powers that be.

I encourage anyone with a passing interest in narrative adventure games to make time for this gem.

Imagine, if you will, Disco Elysium but as a medieval illuminated manuscript…well, that’s very reductive and doesn’t quite do justice to the masterpiece that is Pentiment! While it has some similarities in terms of gameplay mechanics, there’s so much more going on here! It’s lovingly crafted by a small and extremely talented team. The game runs around eleven hours and I was hooked for every bit of it. As a history buff, I loved the ability to hit a button that pauses the game to explain medieval figures, places, and concepts! The art was immaculate (much like the conception of Jesus, am I right 😏😏😏) and the characters were all believable and felt three-dimensional despite literally being two-dimensional. Anyways, definitely give this game a shot if anything I said tickles your fancy!

Un jeu très particulier, très bavard, très peu de choix (quelques options de dialogue qui changeront un peu le cours de l'histoire et les réactions des PNJ à votre égard, mais opas de grands bouleversements à attendre) , une sorte de point and click ... mais tellement intéressant dans son histoire, la période historique traitée, le traitement graphique...

A la moitié du jeu attention, il y a vraiment un passage assez ennuyeux (très peu d'intéractions, beaucoup de dialogues...) mais ça vaut le coup de s'accrocher pour aller jusqu'au bout de cette fabuleuse histoire et d'avoir le fin mot de l'histoire...

I feel like most people will know pretty much immediately whether or not this game is for them, so reviewing it seems a bit navel gazey. So suffice to say, this game is great, if it seems like you’re even remotely interested in playing a heavily historical story based story set in late 16th century Bavaria, you should play it.

You’ll learn something, you’ll read a lot, you’ll go through a great little mystery story, with beautiful, evocative art.

Pentiment's first act setup is a 16th century village murder mystery made personal. Your friend and mentor is falsely accused of the killing, and it's up to you as somewhat of an outside mediator to prove his innocence and gather evidence on who really did it. It's a messy search for the truth, colored by personal biases & sympathies, potential consequences, rules, time constraints, and the uncovering of deeper mysteries that make true closure seem impossible.

Before long, it's not just murder suspects under question, but the foundations of the village itself, its history, laws, faith, families, and relationships. It's not only a detective story, but also a story about stories, belief, and how "truth" can mean many different things—not just looking back, but witnessing events that themselves will one day be the new history and legends. After a slow start, it gets a real spark and remains constantly engaging and surprising throughout its choice-driven narrative.

As an adventure game with neither puzzles nor combat, Pentiment focuses its interactivity primarily on decision-making. The player's dialogue choices can have pretty major impact on the story and its characters, or at least a believable enough illusion of impact at some points. Even the player's choice of how to spend their limited blocks of time in-game can have a big impact on what opportunities you find or miss out on.

Though you can and will miss many things in a single playthrough, the game does a generally admirable job at making it work regardless of what happens. Particularly early on, I found myself a bit frustrated at tantalizing conclusions to story threads that were left just out of my reach due to a time limit, but ultimately I felt that enough of the game resolves in a satisfying and thematically-appropriate way. Converging paths do seem to funnel back into each other in a way that may bother some people, but I was generally okay with it, even when it was obvious.

The game's presentation is also interesting, with a mixture of art and different handwriting styles mimicking its historical European time period. It's a very simple look, but does occasionally bring out some really neat visual ideas. My main complaints here are very small. Though you can swap to a more readable font, the way text appears can definitely be a bit cumbersome to read. And it's accompanied by the constant sound of the scratching of a pen, which I found a bit grating at points.

Otherwise, there are a few obvious mistakes in the script, and a few minor difficulties with navigating the world, menus, and little minigames, but that's about it.

I found this game overall to feel pretty creative and fresh in its setting and its approach to its gameplay and narrative genres. I really liked its cast of characters and what ends up being a pretty unexpected structure to the whole story. Of course there are small annoyances and lacking places here and there that I didn't touch on, but my general impression with nearly all of the game was very positive. Definitely one I can recommend as one of my favorites from this year.