Murder mystery novels aren't my thing, there are plenty of those game types to scrounge for in the Steam marketplace. But none that really gets my interest. The only reason I jumped in this game is because of Obsidian's namesake, before I even realized it was one. Taking place in 15th century Europe, Bavaria in the then Holy Roman Kingdom. Where I play as Andreas Maler, an illustrator who got caught up in a grand conspiracy about a series of murders in Tassing and Kiersau Abbey.
To my surprise, there's quite a lot to see here in Pentiment because of the game mechanics that involves you just choosing how to engage with other characters and allow those decisions to weave different threads of the stories. There are ideas taken from their prior games, involving persuasion, and making me the player remember what they did earlier.
It's less gameplay and more of reading texts, but when you play a game or virtual novel like this that has engaging dialogue, quality storytelling, branching paths, and the big dose of Obsidian's ways of making such things interesting, I think it would be quite a hell of a murder mystery to be exact.
What you see here is taking place rather in a fantasy dream that Andreas uses to process with his daily life circumstances. Afterwards, he wakes up in the attic of a cottage he rented from a small family in the village he's staying, which happens to be close to a Catholic Church where he works as an illustrator.
Going around the town, interacting with the people, it seems pretty obvious that he is a well-liked figure, probably because of how he keeps a conversation going, listens to people, and that he has a higher education that gives him a bit more prestige. But even then, the game allowed me to go further by picking my background, and field of expertise. Almost like am in a pen and paper RPG, but would become essential for later parts of the game.
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Throughout the village, while most seems to be devoted Christians, they all have different ideas and claims about things. Not too distinguished, but enough to carry interesting conversations. I guess this would be the bread and butter of Obsidian's character writing, like if you've played their prior games like Fallout: New Vegas, Tyranny, and KOTOR II, the kind of engagement you get from just talking to other characters is pretty up there with these aforementioned titles. Except taking place in one of the most interesting times in history, right before protestant church was found, most of the Holy Roman states split up, and Europeans travelling to the new world (America).
I took the liberty of trying to talk with everyone, and needless to say, I just chose whatever dialogue I kind of fancied, just to speed through and process what I am exactly supposed to be doing here. That was when I started getting the "They will remember this" notification right after one of those dialogue choices that I've decided to maybe take it a little more seriously. And I just continued to walk around, talking to people, even in mills, the forest, and somewhere behind the church. A great cast of colorful characters to boot.
But as soon as I was done fooling around, I followed my main objectives and got to the crazy parts of the story, at first is where Andreas makes the choice of whether giving a book to a nun to burn it down or not. So I picked the latter, and prayed it was worth it. But it got even more interesting, because waking up the next day, in the middle of heavy rainfall, a big event came along and changed how I viewed the game.
The baron, whom I've spoken to, wanted to discuss something very uncomfortable with the monks and the Abbot during lunch, which lead to some ire and later, on the next faithful day, he was found dead. Stabbed, with a father Pierre holding it. And thus, it began leading to me accounting every design I made on the fly prior to this.
Reap what you sow, I guess that's how I'll sum up these persuasion mechanics. Decisions you make, dialogue you choose, it all amounts to how in the end you could manage to convince them to allow you to do certain things. Like, getting the Nun to accept that you can take a forbidden book, asking someone to spill the beans, lend you some secrets, allowing you to dig a grave for investigation, etc.
While I was kind of bored at first, things started really heating up after that murder, because it shocked the town intrinsically. MC wanted to investigate the town about the Baron, starts snooping around, and then picks gossip tangential to the entire matter. But he doesn't stop there, of course, if you choose to. And I guess if you want to go nutty, casting a shadow of doubts on whoever you want, you could do that too. There are so many approaches to the game you could make, creating branching story paths even.
And then there are these mini-games, at times they're random, like if you're tailing a guy, you flick off bugs inside a tree trunk. Then there are those where you solve puzzles involving astrology and the Latin language. Quite sophisticated stuff. I never felt like a lot of these puzzles were obscured and difficult to figure out, it just takes a bit more of your time and brain power to solve.
Also, remember the part where I mentioned the part where you choose the backgrounds, traits, and expertise? Yeah, they factor in so much because of how much dialogue options they open up to. They also make things easier in the investigation phase, and the mini-games even too.
You're going through these dialogues like they're written down in a book, certain references mentioned can be looked at by this index that disambiguates it all for you. There's nuance to be found once in an awhile, that just adds this crazy level of depth on top of something that is so well written.
There's something also to be said about the audio, like in a creative immersion way. I would suggest wearing headphones to fully get into the sound you hear from the surroundings. Just amplifies the overall experience, too.
The description for the game states that it spans between 25 years of the story, meaning it wants your choices to matter in the end. Because of how they'll shape everything, including the townspeople, the person of interests, and the overall outcome. I've deviated at times, like joining in with mothers and their children with Andreas, as they huddle up during lunch while a clergy tells a story. It's kind of wholesome, and there's silly stuff going on behind him too. Just Obsidian doing what they know best.
I haven't finished the game yet, but I played pretty far enough. This is something unique, even though virtual novels existed in the 90s. Obsidian brought something that felt like it was fading away, and made a bold choice to not cater to the mass market. I am glad they're flexing somewhere, while working on their other big budget titles. Keep throwing stuff like this, we want more. I also don't understand some of the scrutiny about this being overrated, 10/10? Not quite, for me 8/10 would do, but that's not bad either.
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