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[Humdinger]

I've been playing Pentiment on the PS5, thought I'd share some impressions.

I wouldn't say I'm thrilled with the game, but I am enjoying it enough to keep playing. I just completed the second act, which I think means I'm two-thirds finished.

This is not a game for most people. This is an extremely narrative-focused game. It involves a lot of reading. It is more dialog-based than any game I have ever played before. There is puzzle solving and simple mini-games, too, but the game is based almost entirely on reading and responding to dialog. I like reading, so that's okay with me. But it does get to be a bit much sometimes. I sped the dialog up to maximum, and I click through a lot of it quickly.

The game is very well-crafted. You can tell that the developers (Obsidian) took care with it. I like the time period in which it is set (the Middle Ages) and the religious themes. I appreciate that you learn things about the Middle Ages as you play. There are plenty of choices and significant consequences that play out in the story.

You get a little modern messaging here and there. Nuns make feminist speeches about their oppression by men. Homosexual priests get it on in the abbey library. It's nothing too over the top, but it does stand out.

I find it very relaxing to play. Nothing is rushed. The ambient sounds are pleasant - sounds of nature, etc. The artwork is nice to look at.

I don't feel particularly connected to the main character or anyone else in the story, though. That's a problem when your game is so narrative-focused.

So, I don't know. I have mixed feelings. There are times I feel annoyed with all the reading, and I feel like stopping. I think to myself, "If I am going to do this much reading, I might as well pick up a novel about the Middle Ages. I'll probably get more out of it." But I keep continuing, so the game must be doing something right. I have to give it credit for being creative and unusual. They had to have known it would not sell well.

 

[fallingdove]

Hated the game when I played it on Xbox. Didnt like the art style, the animation, the gameplay, the story was boring, didn't find the writing to be that clever.

That said, I can appreciate that the game has a following and wish that there was a greater variety of games they people could get behind.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I find it very relaxing to play. Nothing is rushed.

There's more than 1 investigation where you have limited time to inspect all of the clues. This means you can't explore all paths, because some actions will advance to the next time of day.

I found it quite frustrating to be honest, because I don't plan on doing more than one playthrough and there isn't any manual save system.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Pentiment has the same level of care and detail of a Nintendo-made game. As soon as I saw the dialogue balloons being handwritten in real time, with the nice detail of writing mistakes being corrected on the spot, I was in love.

Stuff like “feminist” speeches and gay love between friars isn’t modern pandering. These things have existed throughout the entire history of religion, and you can bet they were at a high in the years after the Reform. These themes should be viewed in the game with the same lens as people in the village discussing about science and heresy. It’s ”modern” stuff, yes, but it must be viewed more as modern for the characters in the game than for us. It never felt forced to me, and you can participate a bit in it when you have the chance to

Spoiler

bang a nun in the library.

This is what more games should be about. Art, history, imagination. We have the means to represent history like this, but we still keep getting so many shooters and pixelly metroidvanias and generic medieval fantasies. I’ll rather you put me in the shoes of a 1518 German artist, than those of hypermuscular military guy #2785 or your usual Naughty Dog smugface in a photorealistic “imagined“ world that’s not as creative or exciting as any real-world picture or video.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

I like it.

I think Obsidian brand of writing I am able to enjoy.

It was simple, mundane village setting, but authentic. Yet I enjoyed it cause I could draw parallels.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

Stuff like “feminist” speeches and gay love between friars isn’t modern pandering.

I did not play the game, and can't talk for OP. But I understood this part differently than you did. Remember GOW Ragnarok, and how some people found Odin voice actor being compared to a mob boss? I saw his critic the same way. The subject is valid, but the way it was shown is "modern pandering". Once again I did not play the game.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

I did not play the game, and can't talk for OP. But I understood this part differently than you did. Remember GOW Ragnarok, and how some people found Odin voice actor being compared to a mob boss? I saw his critic the same way. The subject is valid, but the way it was shown is "modern pandering". Once again I did not play the game.

I can assure you that the way this is inserted in Pentiment doesn’t feel like forced lib pandering at all, unless one is so sensitive to these things they absolutely can’t see them in any other light.

 

[Senua]

Pentiment has the same level of care and detail of a Nintendo-made game. As soon as I saw the dialogue balloons being handwritten in real time, with the nice detail of writing mistakes being corrected on the spot, I was in love.

Stuff like “feminist” speeches and gay love between friars isn’t modern pandering. These things have existed throughout the entire history of religion, and you can bet they were at a high in the years after the Reform. These themes should be viewed in the game with the same lens as people in the village discussing about science and heresy. It’s ”modern” stuff, yes, but it must be viewed more as modern for the characters in the game than for us. It never felt forced to me, and you can participate a bit in it when you have the chance to

Spoiler

bang a nun in the library.

This is what more games should be about. Art, history, imagination. We have the means to represent history like this, but we still keep getting so many shooters and pixelly metroidvanias and generic medieval fantasies. I’ll rather you put me in the shoes of a 1518 German artist, than those of hypermuscular military guy #2785 or your usual Naughty Dog smugface in a photorealistic “imagined“ world that’s not as creative or exciting as any real-world picture or video.

Hear, hear!

 

[Roberts]

I was really enjoying it as far as I can enjoy a game with no VA and barely any gameplay in it but then the ending happened and it kicked my ass in the best way possible. Very memorable, weird, funny, sad experience and once again proves Josh Sawyer is one of the greats.

 

[Daneel Elijah]

I can assure you that the way this is inserted in Pentiment doesn’t feel like forced lib pandering at all, unless one is so sensitive to these things they absolutely can’t see them in any other light.

It probably depends on how you grew up and learned about the middle ages probably. For me I grew up with this image of 2 faiths: the rich secular ones in my country(France) and the poor but more faithful monaster orders that just have harsh lives in far away abbayes. Showing one of those monks not respecting their wows when I had this image of them is in bad taste to me. Once again, did not play the game, just talking from what have been said in the thread. I will have to try it one day, if I find the time to.

 

[tommib]

One of the best narrative games out there along with As Dusk Falls.

 

[Zheph]

Very enjoyed playing it but I don't know if I can say it's that relaxing, there is a lot of stuff you can easily miss but I tho it was very well done even if I messed up big time on some choices.

 

[King Dazzar]

Loved the subject matter, loathed the game. I tried multiple times to get into it and I just ended up finding it tedious and boring. Yet here I am with it sitting on my PS5 wishlist. Doubt I'll ever actually buy it though. I clearly want to love it, but just cant. I think as Humdinger points out. Its likely the extensive reading required, is at least part of my issue with it. Art style only carries a game so far I guess.

 

[Zheph]

Loved the subject matter, loathed the game. I tried multiple times to get into it and I just ended up finding it tedious and boring. Yet here I am with it sitting on my PS5 wishlist. Doubt I'll ever actually buy it though. I clearly want to love it, but just cant. I think as Humdinger points out. Its likely the extensive reading required, is at least part of my issue with it. Art style only carries a game so far I guess.

Art style is fine but you didn't got into the plot either? I wanted to know what was happening next and how I could impact things

 

[King Dazzar]

Art style is fine but you didn't got into the plot either? I wanted to know what was happening next and how I could impact things

Yes, to a degree. But I think the way I interfaced with the game, just over whelmed any desire to find out more. Read a bit of text, press a button, move a bit, read a bit of text, press a button, move around, read more text, press a button. I think that gameplay loop just wore out its welcome too quickly for me.

 

[Roberts]

Loved the subject matter, loathed the game. I tried multiple times to get into it and I just ended up finding it tedious and boring. Yet here I am with it sitting on my PS5 wishlist. Doubt I'll ever actually buy it though. I clearly want to love it, but just cant. I think as Humdinger points out. Its likely the extensive reading required, is at least part of my issue with it. Art style only carries a game so far I guess.

I get it. It is not like I was glued to the screen all the time. It can get a bit slow in the first years Andreas visits the village but the way village reacts and alters their relationships with him depending on your choices is what captivated me and all the dramatic stakes later on is pretty nuanced stuff. I said it before but to me it felt a bit like watching the first season of The Wire (not comparing the plot - they have nothing in common). The first 8 episodes are kind of watchable prestige crime TV but then it rewards your attention to a point that fucks you up and stays with you forever.

 

[King Dazzar]

I get it. It is not like I was glued to the screen all the time. It can get a bit slow in the first years Andreas visits the village but the way village reacts and alters their relationships with him depending on your choices is what captivated me and all the dramatic stakes later on is pretty nuanced stuff. I said it before but to me it felt a bit like watching the first season of The Wire (not comparing the plot - they have nothing in common). The first 8 episodes are kind of watchable prestige crime TV but then it rewards your attention to a point that fucks you up and stays with you forever.

Yeah, yeah, there's probably something to that. And maybe thats why it sits on my wishlist again for PS5. Perhaps I know I need to try it again and push further into it. We'll see...

 

[damidu]

if you got 2 acts in, you'll finish it for sure. game is great.
i was particularly hooked to see the changes and effects you caused after those huge time lapses between acts. and last one ties everything in a beautiful and melancholic way.

just wished it leaned more heavily on puzzle aspect and played like a standard point and click adventure. its mainly just dialog and choices as it is.

 

[West Texas CEO]

This game has an amazing aesthetic. It'll definitely be on my "must play" list for summer.

 

[Humdinger]

[In response to my comment that "Nothing is rushed."] There's more than 1 investigation where you have limited time to inspect all of the clues. This means you can't explore all paths, because some actions will advance to the next time of day.

I found it quite frustrating to be honest, because I don't plan on doing more than one playthrough and there isn't any manual save system.

Yes, that's true. There are time limits on the investigation, so you have to make choices about which paths to investigate. That surprised me during the first Act. I wasn't paying close attention, and I assumed that I had all the time in the world. Then the clock ran out, and I had to go with what I had. I was more prepared during the second Act.

Maybe I should've said, "I never feel rushed" rather than "Nothing is rushed." What I was getting at was the relaxed pace of the game overall. There is nothing that gets your blood going - no baddies rushing at you with weapons, no quick reflexes required, no timers ticking down before a bomb goes off, no race to the finish like you get in other games. There isn't any rush to complete dialog, no hurry (indeed, no ability) to run from one place to the next. Even the time limits on the investigations go for a full day or two, so it's about choice, not hurry. At any rate, I always feel relaxed playing the game. It's one of the things I enjoy about it.

Pentiment has the same level of care and detail of a Nintendo-made game. As soon as I saw the dialogue balloons being handwritten in real time, with the nice detail of writing mistakes being corrected on the spot, I was in love.

Yeah, I like that, too. One small thing about that puzzles me. Why do some of the dialogs appear upside down in unreadable black typeface, then translate to English? I know that some dialogs appear in different languages first, then translate to English - that makes sense. But the upside down unreadable black typeface confuses me.

Stuff like “feminist” speeches and gay love between friars isn’t modern pandering. These things have existed throughout the entire history of religion, and you can bet they were at a high in the years after the Reform. These themes should be viewed in the game with the same lens as people in the village discussing about science and heresy. It’s ”modern” stuff, yes, but it must be viewed more as modern for the characters in the game than for us. It never felt forced to me, and you can participate a bit in it when you have the chance to

Spoiler

bang a nun in the library.

People are picking up on that comment, so I should clarify. I didn't mean it was pandering. I meant that those moments stood out to me as a modern concern, rather than something more historically grounded. I'm not denying that those issues were present in the era, in some ways. I'm saying that in actual history, those things would not have been so prominent. Your chances of encountering a nun speechifying about male oppression were very low. Your chances of stumbling across two gay priests making out in the church library was ... well, probably a little higher, lol, but still pretty low. I mean, the only "sex" scene I have encountered in the game so far was a gay one. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

I'm not saying I was bothered. I'm certainly not saying the game is "woke." It was two little bits of the story, no big deal. I'm just saying it stood out to me. It broke my immersion, caused me to step back and think about the writers. It seemed more like a modern framing, a modern setup if you will, rather than being historically faithful to the on-the-ground reality of that era. But then, I realize we're dealing with a videogame here, not history.

In any case, not a big deal. Just something I noticed.

This is what more games should be about. Art, history, imagination. We have the means to represent history like this, but we still keep getting so many shooters and pixelly metroidvanias and generic medieval fantasies. I’ll rather you put me in the shoes of a 1518 German artist, than those of hypermuscular military guy #2785 or your usual Naughty Dog smugface in a photorealistic “imagined“ world that’s not as creative or exciting as any real-world picture or video.

Yes, that's part of why I enjoy it. It's so different than the usual templates for games.

I don't expect that it was commercially successful, though. I know it released on GP, and that's probably where most people played it. I assume one of the reasons that it launched on PS5 is that MS wanted to see if they could find a larger audience for it. It's definitely a very niche title.

 

[xrnzaaas]

Maybe I'm too negative about this, because it's kinda like in real life - a lead may look promising and it turns out to be a dead end and you just wasted time investigating it. It would still be nice to have a traditional save system, even if that interfered with having to live with the consequences of your actions. I'd love to know how non-linear some choices can be without having to do constant save backups or replaying the whole game.

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

One small thing about that puzzles me. Why do some of the dialogs appear upside down in unreadable black typeface, then translate to English? I know that some dialogs appear in different languages first, then translate to English - that makes sense. But the upside down unreadable black typeface confuses me.

You mean the printer’s and his daughter’s dialogue? Surely you know that originally, printing meant making an upside-down (a “negative”, if you will) version of your text that then got doused in ink and pressed down on the paper to produce the final printing. So, of course a printer and his family’s dialogue would be ”printed“ like that on the screen. That’s another exquisite detail that made a bibliophile like me lose his shit.

 

[DrFigs]

It's a cool idea and the art direction is fantastic, but it's a little too basic gameplay wise. I'm also not a fan of the idea that many religious people in the game are secretly liberal atheists or forced to to join religious orders. I didn't get far, but I encountered too many characters like that in the little I did play. I feel like it does a disservice to the setting of the game to insert modern sensibilities in there.

edit: I shouldn't have used "atheist" here. That's not quite right.

 

[semiconscious]

So, I don't know. I have mixed feelings. There are times I feel annoyed with all the reading, and I feel like stopping. I think to myself, "If I am going to do this much reading, I might as well pick up a novel about the Middle Ages. I'll probably get more out of it." But I keep continuing, so the game must be doing something right. I have to give it credit for being creative and unusual. They had to have known it would not sell well.

& that's the conclusion i arrived at a few years ago as far as games like pentiment & visual novels. I've read novels all my life, &, if i'm going to relax with some text-heavy entertainment, that's the way i'm gonna do it...

I can respect the efforts put into some of these games (really enjoyed steins;gate), but i just prefer books. also, reading text on a television is not my idea of fun (I played stein;gate on vita)...

 

[Humdinger]

Maybe I'm too negative about this, because it's kinda like in real life - a lead may look promising and it turns out to be a dead end and you just wasted time investigating it. It would still be nice to have a traditional save system, even if that interfered with having to live with the consequences of your actions. I'd love to know how non-linear some choices can be without having to do constant save backups or replaying the whole game.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I kind of screwed up the first Act, because I dilly-dallied around, not realizing that time was running out for my investigation. I would like to see how it would have turned out, had I played differently, but I'm not going to replay the game in order to do it.

You mean the printer’s and his daughter’s dialogue? Surely you know that originally, printing meant making an upside-down (a “negative”, if you will) version of your text that then got doused in ink and pressed down on the paper to produce the final printing. So, of course a printer and his family’s dialogue would be ”printed“ like that on the screen. That’s another exquisite detail that made a bibliophile like me lose his shit.

That makes sense. I didn't notice it only happened with the printer and his daughter. It did remind me of old typeface.

I appreciate how the game gives different scripts to different types of characters. There was an option to turn that off in the beginning and default to an "easy to read" script. I didn't want that.

It's a cool idea and the art direction is fantastic, but it's a little too basic gameplay wise. I'm also not a fan of the idea that many religious people in the game are secretly liberal atheists or forced to to join religious orders. I didn't get far, but I encountered too many characters like that in the little I did play. I feel like it does a disservice to the setting of the game to insert modern sensibilities in there.

That's interesting. I hadn't noticed that, but it lines up with what I was saying about anachronisms. Still, I think that overall, the game does a fine job of bringing the history forward in a more-or-less accurate way.

& that's the conclusion i arrived at a few years ago as far as games like pentiment & visual novels. I've read novels all my life, &, if i'm going to relax with some text-heavy entertainment, that's the way i'm gonna do it...

I can respect the efforts put into some of these games (really enjoyed steins;gate), but i just prefer books. also, reading text on a television is not my idea of fun (I played stein;gate on vita)...

I hear you. It's a unique game, and I'm glad they made it, but all the reading does get tiresome at times. Part of the reason is because it's all dialog, dialog, dialog. Yap yap yap yap yap... That's different than a novel, where you're reading not just dialog but descriptions of interior states (so you can get to know the characters better), environments, actions, etc. Constantly clicking through hundreds of lines of dialog does get tedious. I'm to the point now where I think, "Do I need to talk to this person in order to progress the story?" Otherwise, I pass them by.

Makes me want to pick up some historical fiction about the Middle Ages. World Without End, maybe - if I'm up for a 1000-page epic...

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I can assure you that the way this is inserted in Pentiment doesn’t feel like forced lib pandering at all, unless one is so sensitive to these things they absolutely can’t see them in any other light.

Pentiment's homosexual relationship etc. is on the same level as Umberto Eco's characters in Name of the Rose, which I assume this was absolutely inspired by to some degree.

I actually really dug those storylines and felt they were very natural considering the game's behind-closed-doors vibe. Everyone's got some dirt and I loved the small town drama angle of it. Also a big fan of the time skips, very cool idea.

That being said, I did also have beef with the pacing and super basic gameplay at times. There's so much wandering back and forth that sometimes the loop of "go here, talk a lot, go back, talk a lot, go back again, talk a lot" felt TOO transparent. The game is still a really impressive achievements on most levels either way in my opinion. The art style is incredible.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Really weird this thread pops up and I just bought it on PSN ten minutes ago

 

[Punished Miku]

For anyone that has beaten the game and wants more detail, these are fantastic videos to watch. Possibly the only game with a bibliography, and this guy delves into the source material for more context while summarizing the game.



Nice documentary interviewing the team. They even went to the trouble of animating gait patterns toe to heel instead of heel to toe because people had simple leather shoes with no padding and that's how they walked.

 

[calistan]

& that's the conclusion i arrived at a few years ago as far as games like pentiment & visual novels. I've read novels all my life, &, if i'm going to relax with some text-heavy entertainment, that's the way i'm gonna do it...

I can respect the efforts put into some of these games (really enjoyed steins;gate), but i just prefer books. also, reading text on a television is not my idea of fun (I played stein;gate on vita)...

I liked Steins Gate too, but I found Pentiment a lot more engaging - it's more focused, much better written, and it isn't bogged down by speeches and catchprases that exist mainly to show how zany a character is.

Also, in Steins Gate I got an ending that cut out an entire chapter of the story. (Because I didn't realise you had to interact with the text messages, I settled down with the cat waitress and forgot all about time travel - it was only much later that I googled it and discovered I'd been robbed of the actual resolution to the story.)

Visual novels can be cool though. I take them as a supplement to actual proper real novels.

 

[Punished Miku]

Visual novels can be cool though. I take them as a supplement to actual proper real novels.

I highly recommend everyone play Citizen Sleeper. Part 2 is also coming this year.

 

[semiconscious]

Makes me want to pick up some historical fiction about the Middle Ages. World Without End, maybe - if I'm up for a 1000-page epic...

world without end sounds interesting. if you haven't read name of the rose (set around almost the exact same time), i highly recommend it...

 

[balls of snow]

The perfect portable game really. Have it on my steamdeck backlog.

 

[Humdinger]

world without end sounds interesting. if you haven't read name of the rose (set around almost the exact same time), i highly recommend it...

I've heard of that. Haven't read it yet, though. I'll put it on my list. If you don't know, World Without End is the sequel to Pillars of the Earth. If you haven't read Pillars, that would be the place to start. I loved that one.

 

[calistan]

I highly recommend everyone play Citizen Sleeper. Part 2 is also coming this year.

50% off on Steam too - I'll have that.

 

[GHG]

50% off on Steam too - I'll have that.

Can be had even cheaper:

Citizen Sleeper PC

Buy Citizen Sleeper PC ✔️ CD Key ✔️ Instant download ✔️ Fantastic price ✔️ Digital Download ✔️

www.cdkeys.com

 

[justiceiro]

Yeah, I'm with op, I had mixed feelings too, but I was so eager to finish, that I tried to rush, but that's a mistake, because this game can become very frustrating if you try to rush it.

I felt like the narrative not always focused on what I was most interested in, or the characters that I cared more. Also felt like the personality traits you choose at the beginning are kinda irrelevant, so why bother? The art in general is very good, but don't necessarily comes together as well as it could in a video game.

The main highlight for me is that you can actually discover who behind everything kinda early in the game, so I felt really good about realizing it so early, even if made me want to rush even more. It's worth one playthrough. Anything beyond that, I'm not so sure.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

For anyone that has beaten the game and wants more detail, these are fantastic videos to watch. Possibly the only game with a bibliography, and this guy delves into the source material for more context while summarizing the game.



Nice documentary interviewing the team. They even went to the trouble of animating gait patterns toe to heel instead of heel to toe because people had simple leather shoes with no padding and that's how they walked.

That toad is my O face.

 

[Bridges]

I really didn't gel with this game in the beginning but once it clicked with me I really loved it. I was completely captivated by the story and characters. I'd really like to see more historical fiction done like this in games

 

[MrRenegade]

Hated the game when I played it on Xbox. Didnt like the art style, the animation, the gameplay, the story was boring, didn't find the writing to be that clever.

That said, I can appreciate that the game has a following and wish that there was a greater variety of games they people could get behind.

And they sold around 200k units. That's a marvel in itself.

 

[SirTerry-T]

Loved every minute of it.

 

[Jadsey]

Tremendously boring game.

Lots of pretentious waffle.

Still, Xbox registered my 'engagement' in the 2 hours I suffered through.

 

[Humdinger]

OP here. Finished just a moment ago.

I wasn't as engaged in the 3rd Act as I was in the 2nd or 1st. I just didn't care that much about excavating the history of the town. I found the final revelation weird and unsatisfying. I actually nodded off during the long expository sequence where "who dunnit" was being revealed (although in the game's defense, I was tired). They wanted the finale to be emotionally evocative, but I didn't feel a whole lot. I think that was because I didn't feel much connection to the characters. Maybe Andreas a little. The others felt like cardboard cutouts to me.

Nice attempt, though. Not a bad game at all. I appreciate its artistic ambitions and the story it tried to tell. I think it fell short, but it was good to see them try. I got impatient with all the dialog about halfway through and had to speed things up, but I'm glad I persisted. At least I know how things turned out.

7/10.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I've finally finished the game and the final act wasn't that great (I liked the "summary" at the very end though). The big revelation about who the "killer" was felt like a stretch to be able to keep this plot active throughouth the entire game. Looking at the trophies it's interesting how many different people can be falsely targetted and executed as killers, but I'm still not planning on doing another playthrough.

I think I'd rate it a 7/10. It's okay, but not a goty cotender even among the indie releases.