Main game
3.55 average rating based on 96 ratings
Interesting story, but the controls are very awkward, and the connection between the puzzles is quite hard to get used to. I had to keep checking the walkthrough to understand the meaning. This takes away all the excitement from the game, and you don’t discover the story on your own, but constantly have to look things up. Because of that, I didn’t really get into the game... it’s a shame, it’s just made too oddly. The story was not so exciting either.
The worst game published by Wadjet Eye. Seriously. Annoying puzzles, annoying soundtrack, incredibly boring story and characters... damn, really low on all sides. Like I wrote in the title, really pales in comparison to Primordia, the Blackwell Legacy or Technobabylon....
Sorry XII Games... better luck next time I guess.
I am a fan of WadjetEye Games and after Gemini Rue I was looking into next big story from these guys. But after first chapters I had to stop in the middle of the game. So frustrating multi-person controls and gameplay combined with illogical problem solving forced me to abort it.
I feel guilty giving Resonance a 2/5. I really do. The game, mechanically, is fine. The dialogue is fine, the voice acting is mostly good (there's some PAINFULLY bad accents, though), and the story...well the story was exquisitely boring up until the last seconds of the game. I think the final "twist" touched on a subject that I think is extremely important. I won't say any specifics, but I think that sometimes we should rethink who is a "conspiracy theorist" and who is telling the truth. This, however important to my philosophies, does not excuse the hours of extremely dull story that precede it.
In Resonance you get to simultaneously control up to four characters at once, which isn't something found in most point-and-clicks. While novel at first, it wears its welcome out quickly. Managing different inventories (both physical and mental; everyone has a short term memory and long term memory that can be used) becomes a chore. I appreciate that they did some things differently, but they just didn't make for a fun experience.
So a point-and-click adventure's strengths hinge on two matters: story and puzzles. Resonance made me rethink my feelings on the genre. While playing the game …
I feel guilty giving Resonance a 2/5. I really do. The game, mechanically, is fine. The dialogue is fine, the voice acting is mostly good (there's some PAINFULLY bad accents, though), and the story...well the story was exquisitely boring up until the last seconds of the game. I think the final "twist" touched on a subject that I think is extremely important. I won't say any specifics, but I think that sometimes we should rethink who is a "conspiracy theorist" and who is telling the truth. This, however important to my philosophies, does not excuse the hours of extremely dull story that precede it.
In Resonance you get to simultaneously control up to four characters at once, which isn't something found in most point-and-clicks. While novel at first, it wears its welcome out quickly. Managing different inventories (both physical and mental; everyone has a short term memory and long term memory that can be used) becomes a chore. I appreciate that they did some things differently, but they just didn't make for a fun experience.
So a point-and-click adventure's strengths hinge on two matters: story and puzzles. Resonance made me rethink my feelings on the genre. While playing the game I started to feel tired and frustrated. "Is this just a bad game, or am I growing out of the genre?" I thought constantly while playing Resonance. Too many of the puzzles seemed to have, to me at least, nonsensical answers. They didn't seem clever ("Ah! I get it now! It all makes sense now!"), and more often than not felt bizarre ("No human being would ever do this that way.")
I have a confession to make. I cheated. I fucking cheated while playing Resonance. I looked up a guide for two parts. I didn't give a damn about what was happening story-wise, and frankly I just wanted to get the game over with. There was so much backtracking, pulling different characters to different locations it just became such a hassle. My last point-and-click was Gemini Rue which was also put out by Wadjet Eye. I loved that one. The atmosphere, the homages to the Westwood Blade Runner adventure game, the story...everything that I didn't like about Resonance was in Gemini Rue. I suggest you go play that instead.
A very well written game with many twists and great voice acting.
For some reason, despite not being able to deal with any of gemini rue's puzzles and controls, I really enjoyed this game's 4 character set-up, where the memories are treated as inventory items and some take into more involved and complex mechanics.
Sadly, the story and characters seem to start intriguing, with sci-fi concepts that spark your imagination and mysteries that really pull you along, but around the half point it all starts falling apart. All the story threads that were mysterious were cut short with the most cliched possible resolution, others that you didn't even think too much about were given the spotlight in (frankly kinda racist) weird exaggerated ways.
It's such a bummer when you find out "the real villains" all suck, and there are no more mysteries to hope for.
I'm in the middle of this beast and have been mostly enjoying its atmosphere and style, but there are some harder-than-life puzzles that are exhausting me to the point of almost giving up the entire game.