I think D4 was worth a day’s laugh, but even paying $10 (specifically for it) in a bundle feels a bit steep now. Though it’s called “Season One”, it’s like a third of the length I’d expect from a modern graphic adventure game, at just two episodes. This took me completely by surprise while playing. It seems that things were prematurely cut short; Swery left the studio and there’s no more coming.
The ridiculous characters would fit in well with an Ace Attorney episode, and the same stand-out Swery style is here, but the small cast on D4’s airplane didn’t pull me in like Deadly Premonition’s warm town, which had some of the most relaxing pacing of any game. It’s unfair of me as a reviewer to expect to bond with an incomplete experience, I suppose, but it’s also unfair to be sold one, so, here we are. I’m sorry if things fell apart for the studio, though–I don’t really know the details at all.
Sadly, the actual mode of interaction is gimmicky and unenjoyable; you do little unnecessary “tilt the control stick” QTEs whenever you want to open a door or whatever, and you do longer, annoying scored sequences of QTEs when the action heats up. Life Is Strange did amazing things just on the basis of exploration and interaction and a simple time control mechanic as well, but where in its case it didn’t feel the need to throw pointless tests in to distract you from the story, D4 doubly overcompensates. There are also a few timed interaction challenges and a bad minigame where you touch objects that fall from the top of the screen before they reach the bottom–the latter of which just feels pathetic as ideas go. I’m trying to imagine this game if you just walked around like a normal person and looked at things, and it seems nice.
There’s a million collectible objectives, and I do think it’s kind of cool to have characters commenting on your outfit or saying they don’t like your beard or whatever. The Tales From The Borderlands model of this stuff, which also put currency and items in a graphic adventure, was certainly better. I’d prefer fewer missable items and associated achievements, but it seems they had some bigger ideas they couldn’t quite deliver on. We see hints of the game as a New Game Plus-minded thing, including one quest that can’t be solved unless you replay the chapter with an item from later in the game. I found it tedious getting past the content I’d already played even just to do that one sidequest, though: I could skip dialogue, but the mission structure was still pretty locked up and there were still various little motions you had to go through. This chapter-select replay for scores and other junk is far better suited to games like Resident Evil 5; graphic adventures like D4 are better off keeping their eyes straight ahead.
It’s not all bad. The mechanic that lets me shove people at any time is extremely good. Some parts are really funny, like the crazy passenger making a scene about how the plane is going to crash and who needs calming down. Or the overtly stupid sidequests–like travelling through time just so the player can check a shelf in their house and find out which James Bond movies Timothy Dalton was in, simply because the question was bugging somebody. That’s the kind of game this is, and I can definitely appreciate that.
The reviewer finds this game hard to get excited about, but still has a positive opinion of it. It may be somewhat fun, having good features or ideas counterbalanced by a few boring parts, bad design or other fundamentally irritating qualities that can’t easily be overlooked. Alternatively, it could be pleasant, but with nothing new to offer. Worth a little money if you’ve got the time for it.
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