Some quick impressions for
Betrayer: I only put a couple of hours into it before it crashed on me, so that's as good a place as any to stop for impressions.
The story: The game appears to be "figure out the story as you go along," but near as I can tell, something went down at an English colony/fort involving the Spanish and the Native Americans sometime prior to the American Revolution, and now the only actual human around is Little Red Riding Hood, who doesn't even notice the monstrous Spaniard-beasts. Maybe this is gonna be some Silent Hill 3 "They look like monsters to you?" shit, but I'm not sure. You have the ability, using a bell, to travel between
Fog World and Other World day and night, with different monsters for each, and the ability to see ghost quest givers at night. "Find my wife plz" "Find my head plz" etc. The way it's set up though is not too bad. It's intriguing, but without too much cryptic bullshit. It's a bit sparse, but it's alright.
The gameplay: You've got limited ammo and three main types of weapons (bow for long range, musket for medium, pistol for short,) a melee attack that appears to do somewhere between "sneeze" and "mosquito bite" for damage, limited healing, and enemies that can very quickly close in on you for the kill. So...it's more or less a first-person survival horror variant. The only jumpscare so far was a giant spider jumping out of a crate (zkylon alert!) One point to note is that I tend not to go for horror games, but it was a birthday gift so I'm giving it a fair shake. I'm also not GOOD at these sorts of games, so when I say it's pretty hard, you guys might say it's decently challenging or even fairly easy.
You can manually save, but I haven't tried loading a save before I died or anything to see if I can scum a bit. And also, two hours in I tried to save and it froze on me where previously the saves worked fine. So that's a strike against the gameplay.
The graphics: Stylistic. The default graphical style is black and white, with certain things in red for emphasis (the woman's cape, highlighted monsters or items of interest, etc.) However, there is a slider where you can make the game in full colour, or if you want just add a little colour and keep things muted. Nice touch. The environments look rather nice, but the guards and skeletons look...I don't know, rather basic. As if the artist said, "It's a skeleton, what more do you want from me?" They don't look BAD, they just look simplistic and without any creative flair.
The audio: Sound is important in this game. There's a "listen" key that alerts you to things, and collectibles give off a chime like that root in the Elder Scrolls. It's not always clear WHAT I'm going towards, so it would have been nicer to get some kind of clarity in the sound, but it's something. I didn't see any alternate options for the hard of hearing, so if you do, this game might not be for you OR it might just present an additional challenge.
The verdict: For a game in a genre of which I'm not particularly fond, it's alright. I was expecting something scarier, and I was expecting worse gameplay, but I was pleasantly surprised. I guess all that's left for me to do is "git gud."
