Resonance (2012)

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.

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.