The transcending nature of this title takes me to 4D levels of adventuring, in an overarching sense. It's the kind that wants to transition between two different worlds, one is where the small mundane tasks are involved, and the other is where the insane comes to life. Like Inception, but for books.
I think people who played Disco Elysium might dig the artwork and premise overall, because it exudes this highly eclectic presentation. Sort of this anachronistic look where the cars and building architecture are something from the 50s or 70s, but computers, laptops, and other electronics from the modern age do exist here as well.
Serious though, if someone told me this is a different version of The Matrix, in some spin-off, I'd believe it. But it provides the best of the genres it mixes, with a great sense of mystery, amazing and likeable characters to even boot.
Our story begins with a writer (Quist) that has gotten a flat by a sponsor, helping him to cut down his sentence time by working with a shady organization. There's a gibberish language when he speaks, but reading the subtitle translates what is going on.
A man, with a shady past, has to work his way into clearing his debt by working for certain shady people. The apartment he dwells in has barely anything, but a phone, an empty desk with a small window, and his bedroom. One kitchen per floor is provided, for all flats. Looks dreadful. He later gets a giant briefcase with a safe enclosure for a certain item, papers, and a book.
After a call from his employer, and some monologue to himself, I clicked on the book and have dived into this wormhole of words riddled before the game changes into an isometric RPG. Interacting with the objects in the cell my character is in, which has a two-headed skeleton for some reason.
Turns out diving in was a bit too soon, as he didn't have something specifically needed to open his cell door. So instructed to dive out, I did, and for some reason, I had a lockpick in my apartment. Ok...., so I took the lockpick back into the book world and behold, it opened. I couldn't explain the logic, but hey, if Brendan Fraser can bring characters to life reading books, why not.
Some RPGs letting players constantly dumpster dive into inconspicuous places kind of makes it something addictive, so instead of moving on, even with a dead body infront. But I did interact with that body, and somehow, an object shaped like a bird cage strapped to it starts to talk.
This small interaction would eventually lead these two to bond in all kinds of complicated scenarios, I'll tell you why later on. He becomes my partner, and now I am exploring the area, and then find a key that should be open, but because of the steam above, MC trips and it falls down. On an unrelated note, I also found a giant skeleton body.
All I did for the remaining time was walk through a few areas, and kept looking for items or way around places, then I found a wall that could seemingly break, but didn't have the object for it. My partner suggests maybe looking for a sledgehammer, and later on, I get out of the book again, and ask my neighbor, leading to a heated but warmly received conversation, where he gives it to me.
If it hasn't gotten weirder enough, it will even more much later on. There are intriguing conversations where 80% of the time has wit and humor sprinkled on them. I mean, it subtextually opens up about the game's world and characters, but also makes it more enjoyable and eager to anticipate what'll happen next. Especially when I find a room with a man on a chair in bondage. All of a sudden, the medieval settings changes when lights, metal tables and tool boxes become revealed, and the guy is wearing a T-shirt of some metal band. Held hostage by the alchemist, the main antagonist.
Ah yes, the endearing relationship of the two, even to the point of the other guy spoiling the contents of the book for the thief. More exploring, after breaking the wall and finding the lab prisoner, led me to the basement where I finally found the key that kept dropping. But then I started battling spiders in the next area.
The combat has a basic design, but it's made to work effectively. Everything has limited use because of finite ink, which can be restored by draining an enemy, but they have the possibility of damaging me if not missed. Stunning the group would consume more ink, but taking out each enemies' health point did to give relief. Good strategy only got me out.
But the more interesting part of the game comes later on, and there are times it has created illusions of choice where dialogues lead to the same outcome, certain junctions of the story don't. And that has more to do with me and my partner (Roderick). Because am a Thief, Roderick has moral qualms about how I treat the characters in here.
My first job is to steal a potion from the alchemist, but Rod here wanted me to split the potion and give the other half, as the story ends with him reviving his dead wife. If not, well, the book is long gone. Rod didn't take the harsher option I picked well.
The next book, I dived into, has my character walking the frozen tandras of Midgard to find Thor's hammer. For some reason, this is a facility swarmed with drone robots. These guys are a funny bunch, but the saddest one is the one playing with a cat, after I got him down from a tree. I needed his battery, and while Roderick understood, he wasn't exactly handling it well.
Going back and forth, even fighting robots, the other thing I got was a new ability which allowed me to shield myself from attacks. Giving me more breathing room, and letting me plan my next attacks better. The robots, on the other hand, they were annoying.
And then finally doing a puzzle involving sequences and codes for getting the right package to fix a panel into the vault of the Mjölnir. Only to see an angry mob of workers trying to get it opened, I had to pick the right dialogue sequences into fooling them giving me a try at cracking the vault. Didn't end well, and ah, funny result, me fighting them was laughably tragic. Poor guys.
But after getting Mjölnir, the dilemma of fixing the robot finally came. I wanted to pick the option of helping fix, but I accidentally picked the above option and Roderick said "not to speak to him anymore". I was disappointed at myself, I wish I did better. Even if they are book characters, there's this sense of humanity that I lose from doing all this.
Quist has to do all this so that he can retrieve his ability to write again, it's the only way he'll survive in this world. But, the game does beckon the question, "what is really important for me?". Sort of this moral reflection in the grand scheme of things. I hope I still get a chance to pick the good ending, on my third job, and maybe unveil the conspiracy about who I work for.
The artstyle is incredible, the gameplay and story provides a lot of intrigue for an adventure game, and it's from the guys that made Final Station. But the star of it are the two central characters, and the writing that helps to elevate that aspect.
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