Obsidian is an incredible development team with an eye for making some of the best video in all of gaming. That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact. I won’t go down the list of incredible that they’ve made over the years because the focus of my review is on Pentiment, the latest offering from the great Obsidian. With the sheer number games that I’m playing and reviewing I was finally able to sit down with this game for awhile and really kind of figure it out.
WHAT IS PENTIMENT ABOUT?
The crux of the game is centered around the character Andreas Maler in what is essentially medieval times or the renaissance period. It’s somewhere in the 16th or 17th century. He’s an artist trying to finish up what he considers to be his “masterpiece”. He works for the Kiersau Abbey in the town of Tassing. From the moment the game begins you can tell that Andreas is a bit of a wise ass who takes himself entirely too seriously while taking nothing else very serious.
Pentiment begins to take shape once a baron that none of the townspeople seem to like very much stops in town but never makes it out of town as he ends up dead and thus the murder mystery that is Pentiment the game, begins. Pentiment is a game of murder “whodunnit?” that for the person that loves this game style will get addicted to.
CHOICES, CHOICES, CHOICES
Choices are the point of Pentiment. As you go through the game and read the dialogue, the choices you make affect how the game will ultimately play out. Starting from your job skill set, your area of learning and skill set. It’s the part of the game that’s the most fun because as you proceed and the story unfolds, the game does become more engrossing.
The reality of your choices in this game also can determine how fast you can actually get through Pentiment. There’s no rush of course but you do want to get to the bottom of things. When I started the game, I attempted to apply my own personality into my choices only to realize that being a jerk wasn’t helpful and made the game drag a bit as a result. The beauty in this game is how you curate your responses and knowing when to be diplomatic and when to be coarse.
The game starts of very slow in terms of when you’re able to get to making choices that directly affect outcome but once you do the story gets quite interesting if you see it through. Kudos to the writers of this game. Pentiment does a good job of allowing you to manifest a story and carries sort of an RPG element to it.
PENTIMENT IS A BEAUTIFUL GAME VISUALLY
Pentiment is a beautiful game to look at. While it may not be what may usually see like when we play Forza or Halo. This is a different beauty. Pentiment is a game designed in a way that’s so unique. I felt as if I was playing a live action TV show. It sounds weird yes, but that’s feeling it gave me. This game captured the time period perfectly from the towns, villages, castles, character movement and interaction, speech bubbles and even how the dialogue looks. This was all done under the supervision of the game’s director Josh Sawyer and Hannah Kennedy who did the art work. The attention to detail is second to none.
PENTIMENT IS A GAME THAT’S FOR SOME NOT MOST
I’ll be quite honest, for all it’s uniqueness and what we KNOW what Obsidian brings to any game they work on, Pentiment is just one of those games that you’ll either hate or love. I found Pentiment to be boring personally. It’s not in any way, shape or form a bad game and I’m not saying its a boring game to be intentionally mean or dismissive of the time and effort that Obsidian put into making this game, it’s really me saying that this is a game that takes quite a bit of patience to get into and I didn’t have it. I was well over an hour into the game and still had very little clue of what to do. The dialogue of the game can be very overwhelming. I will say, the longer I played, I did realize the beauty of a game of this type but I stand firm in saying that this game isn’t for everybody, it really isn’t for me.
This game is very specific to a certain group of people and I’ll say this, those folks who love this genre will absolutely LOVE this game. If you’re not patient and not into complex and developing storylines, choice consequence that will take awhile to come to fruition, then this game is NOT for you. It’s a love or hate game but a very good game. If you’re interested you can pick this game up on Steam or if you have GamePass you can buy it or try it there.
