One thing I love about the Nintendo E-shop is that it’s not plagued by reviews, so you choose and buy games based merely off of your own opinion. It’s the best way for indie games and most games to make it. Unjaded decisions. However, that means you always run the risk of buying a bad game.
True Fear Forsaken Souls: Part 1
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Price: $9.99 Nintendo E-shop, also available for mobile and Steam
While searching for games to try, I found the demo for this game. I love escape and puzzle games overall and this seemed awesome, though I was hesitant on the horror part of it. You have the choice of doing escape style puzzles or find the items for portions of the games. I went with escape (it defaults to this). The horror portions were mostly cheap jump-scares, but the story it painted definitely held on to the creepy, Resident Evil-y vibe. So while I wasn’t horribly afraid, I was kept mild-moderately creeped out during the play. Many of the steps seemed unnecessary, but it progressed the story with varied puzzles and the casual mode I played on was very generous with hints. It supports touch or cursor play which his awesome because I’d switch back and forth between the two. Creepy factor increased towards the end and it kept a nicely detailed diary with clues and such to help out. Perhaps it’s the limitations of the programming, but the constant appearance of the protagonist’s 3D-style, static face during cut-scenes annoyed me tremendously.
Overall, it is a solid game, albeit short. Puzzles aren’t TOO hard, with a generous hint system, in-game achievements, collectibles and a healthy dose of the creepy, though predictable atmosphere and cut-scenes. Demo progression is saved, so when you buy the whole game you don’t have to start all over again. There is also bonus content that makes up for the relatively quick gameplay. As part of a trilogy, the cliff-hanger really did make me buy the 2nd one after mulling over it for a day.
True Fear Forsaken Souls: Part 2
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Price: $9.99 Nintendo E-shop
Although I ended up downloading the demo for this part of the game, I was intrigued enough to buy this after the first section. Gameplay controls changed since the first one, some for the better, and some for worse. At first, I lamented the changes, but after a while, I found myself preferring the new. A few tweaks are still needed as the touch “back” button overlaps with the inventory which is hella annoying, but the rest of it is good. The cut scenes were a little better as now the close up of her face isn’t as static and boring. The story itself steps up the creepy factor–though typically anything dealing with insane asylums is inherently scary. MUCH longer game and story becomes more convoluted, but same generous hint system and the puzzles are a harder than before. You are allowed to skip puzzles which is nice, but I accidentally hit the skip button a few times when I was trying to finish without it for the achievement. Some of the touch controls were not responsive and I had no choice but to use the cursor. It was neat to see some Latin involvement, though the loose translation was too loose for a nerd like me.
I liked it quite a lot and was upset at the doozy of a cliff-hanger. So much so that I found myself going on to Goblinz’s Facebook page to figure out why. It’s in the works, which is awesome to know. Despite some touch control flaws and a few unclear puzzles, it was a welcome step up from the first portion and a recommended game.