Review of Resonance by PadanFain

Since the very beginning, something is off. The game starts at the end, and is mostly done in flashback. Which is usually a sign of bad storytelling (not always, but 90% of the time).

The puzzles for the first third of the game are extremely boring. That is mostly felt because of lack of any sort of pacing during that time. It picks up afterwards, but I was seriously considering leaving the game at the “hot-wire door to the lab” puzzle.

The puzzles are NOT helped by the EXTREMELY irritating and unwieldy interface. I order to do anything, one must go through 3-4 sliding screens. And I mean ANYTHING. Whether you want to talk, or access memories, use inventory or change characters. That gets seriously irritating after the first hour, and then you’re forced to constantly change characters, so it gets worse. I feel like the game would be 2 hours shorter if only I didn’t lose so much time with the interface.

The story is, for the most part, a predictable cliche. No surprises and interesting developments, until about two-thirds in the game, when a turnaround happens. And it dead perk me up a bit, so the final stretch of the game was ok to play. But beware, the identical “turnaround” has already been done in a certain PS3 adventure game from two and a half years ago. So no points for originality.

The most interesting part of the story (the secret brotherhood bent on controlling the world) has received the most minimal attention. Unfortunately.

The characters are (mostly) archetypal, so there’s nothing more to be said.

All of this makes for a game that is only somewhat interesting in the second half. And not much.

So please. Borrow it from a friend first, to try it out. My guess is, you won’t be buying it after.

V.