First of all, this game is incredibly well done. The puzzles aren’t the absurd kind that usually drive me away from this type of game (“find the candelabra, smash the tree, and stick the wasp up your arse to get the key you hid there to get to the parlour”, that sort of unintuitive and unintentionally hilarious thing). In fact, they’re the kind that makes one go “ah, but of course!” after one figures it out. It sounds silly to say, maybe, but it makes one feel a bit smart, a bit in cahoots with the developer.
The ambience is also fantastic. The attention to detail—in Valérie’s story this is most striking, though Jordan’s isn’t too shabby—is chilling yet delightful.
(spoilers below!)
As for the characters, Carlo and Jordan are my favourites. I think Carlo was the most innocent; it was an accident, after all, and the bastard deserved it. And Jordan had actually worked for his redemption already; whatever he’d done in the war was more than paid for at the hospital. Given the opportunity, I would’ve tried my damnest to give them a second chance in life—perhaps in the future, today’s world, where they would’ve found living a tad bit easier. Though not by much, unfortunately.
I see the characters more or less represent society’s downtrodden: a gay man, a mentally ill woman, and a black man. However, I find it most disappointing that the storyline for the woman was “husband dead, life over, kill my cat”. The game sells it just fine, thanks to the glorious atmosphere, but the story errs on the side of ridiculous in retrospect. Also, as a mentally ill cat lover myself… yeah, that’s an unforgivable crime, lady; I don’t give two fucks about your husband. To be perfectly candid, one does become a bit numb to storylines about women that centre on heterosexual romance, especially when one has two fascinating stories to compare them to, like in this game. “Woman goes mad for man, kills cat” is not nearly as compelling as Carlo’s or Jordan’s story.
After finishing the game, I cannot help thinking that the writing is just not on the same level as the game design, and that the ultimately predictable story, the cliché ending and resolution drag the game down. It’s still worth playing, though.