The Blackwell Epiphany (2014)

The Blackwell Epiphany, on it's own, is decent. It's a perfectly solid little ghost mystery game where, yeah, maybe some puzzles are a little janky, and maybe you work with the police more than is comfortable, and maybe it pretends snakepit-style asylums still exist in 2015 for some reason, but overall, you're getting what you came for. The mystery is compelling, the puzzles are fun, the characters feel human and you get a few interesting sketches on different ways to deal with grief. It's a good time, but nothing earthshaking.

The thing about the Blackwell series is that, on their own, none of these games is a mindblowing standout. Some are better than others, but they're all perfectly solid 3/5 experiences.

And yet, playing them all together has been something really special. Over the course of these games, Joey and Rosa come into their own as characters beautifully. It's honestly been a joy watching Dave Gilbert figure out their proverbial voices, listening to Abe Goldfarb and Rebecca Whittaker figure out their literal voices. Their worldweariness, their sad resignation and bittersweet sympathy for each soul clinging to life, it starts to feel real. At some point I stopped wondering "What happened to these ghosts?" and started wondering "What's going to happen to Joey and Rosa?"

Epiphany is worth playing for the answer to that latter question. The entire Blackwell series is worth playing for how it sets up Epiphany. I don't know if I love any of these games, but I LOVE this series.

Whereas Deception was a step back, Epiphany was a step forward. A step forward in such a right direction, it may as very well be one of the best adventure games and one of the most well-written game stories I've ever played.

The gameplay is very much the same, but the streamlining makes it so that the nature of investigation doesn't feel too hard or too easy at the same time. The answer is always within reach, and makes perfect sense most of the time - investigate the Internet, hit up the police station for clues, etc. As for the story, Rosa and Joey tackle every mature theme in the book without going overboard and with the utmost sincerity. Nothing is cheap and everything has an impact - this also helps as they tie into an ending that nobody suspects but pulls at you even as all the pieces fall into place.

As for the graphics and music, the same ol' jazzy soundtrack is back but the graphics have an intense upgrade, erasing any issue I had from Convergence to Deception. The snowy environment permeate the landscape with beauty and gloom, and the pixel art is top notch.

Immediately ending after the setup promised by Deception does sound like a letdown for some, but it was a good move to tie Convergence into what is one of the most emotional and well-done stories in games, with a system refined over five games into an experience that's proven tried-and-true at this point.

Here it is, the big finale, all the questions will be answered, all the stories wrapped up.

To start, this is the longest game in the series and has more puzzles than some of the others, which I always enjoy the puzzles of point'n'click games, even if I'm not always clever enough to figure them out.

The story, what these games have always been about, is a good conclusion for it. [Insert spoiler warning hete] We learn my guess that Joey was a mobster back in the day isn't true, he's actually a businessman who owns a tailor shop with a friend and his death came from some loan sharks gunning him down.
It turns out Madeline is actually evil, or well wanting to die even if it means killing others. I wasn't too surprised cause she had that look of being secretly the bad guy. It turns out she's been trying to possess the Blackwell women and it's that act that made them go insane, not Joey or the refusal to help ghosts. Madeline's plan also ties in the work of the super secret, double probation, group that feeds off people's happiness.
This is all good, until the last few minutes, where it really jumps the shark for me. See, Rosa is able to fight the insanity and uses the power of the universe to become omniscient and save NYC from being destroyed by Madeline. She sends all the ghosts to the other side at once, except Joey, for some unexplained reason. Then she dies to brings Joey BACK TO LIFE! What? That was a left turn into nonsense I wasn't expecting.
I'm okay with the main character dying, even though I thought Rosa had really developed into a good character after several games & she deserved a good ending, but what throws him is having Joey be alive again. He's just a normal guy now who can't see ghosts. And Joey hasn't been a person since the 20's, he is a fish outta water. One of my favorite humorous moments of the game is Joey not understanding technology.

All in all, this whole series is a great addition to the point'n'click adventure genre and creates a really interesting and great world that I'd love to revisit.

The last and best installment of the Blackwell series. You play as Rosangela Blackwell, whose duty is to find ghosts stuck in the mortal realm and escort them to the afterlife.

The games have been made with a freeware tool called AGS (Adventure Game Studio - other games made with the same engine include Yahtzee Croshaw's Chzo series). The games start off quite amateurish, but the quality improves with each installment, and Epiphany could nearly be held worthy of the very best of the adventure gaming classics. The mystery elements, noir atmosphere, magic realism and character-basedness of story remind me of the first Gabriel Knight in a good way. Characters are colourful and complex (the main duo have great chemistry with each other), although the quality of the voice acting does fluctuate, and towards the series' end quite touching, poignant drama involving the ghosts and their backstories are often involved. Puzzles are logical enough that a walkthrough was never needed despite them not always being easy, although the same kind of puzzles are encountered a tad too often overall. All in all, a great indie point-and-click series.

Playing order is by the way: Legacy, Unbound, Convergence, Deception, and finally Epiphany.