Just finished the first chapter of Rhiannon: Curse of the Four Branches (note that it's not episodic, I haven't finished the game yet, but I've put in two hours which I think is plenty sufficient in this case...you'll see why shortly.)
The story, dialogue and voice acting: You play "Chris," the protagonist without a last name or set gender, who's been asked to housesit for Jennifer and Malcolm Sullivan, as they look after their daughter who has been suffering from mental illness (or HAS she?) Things quickly take a turn for the creepy as you're greeted by voices and visions, and your job is to...figure out what's going on as well as make sure the cat is fed and the fireplace is lit so the house has hot water, because you are still housesitting after all. I'll give them proper adulation for this. It's got an interesting setting (Wales) and it seems to have some basis in Welsh legends, not something I've ever encountered in a game before. So points for culture. The voice acting is decently good - normal people speaking with normal inflections and no overacting. Jennifer sounds like an ordinary British mother, the construction worker sounds like an ordinary British man. All is well. So why am I about to tear this game a new one?
The graphics: The game opens promisingly: with an FMV cutscene which looks like it was taken from a car driving to a house. So immediately expectations are set high: oh, maybe this is one of those point and clicks where every location is done with photos of real places? Nope. As soon as the cutscene ends and gets to the gate it dissolves into...well, there's no real other way to put this except "1994." That low-poly, badly textured, low-res effects, "hey mom and dad, look at this, I made a stone bowl on the computer!" look. Had I played this game 20 years ago I might have been impressed with the graphics and said "Doesn't look as good as Myst but it's pretty cool." But everything from the poorly-rendered inventory items to the tutorial's yellow text with drop shadow makes it feel like it was done ages ago and forgotten. You only get snapped back to reality when you have to charge the mp3 player and you realize "oh right this was ACTUALLY developed in 2008."
The gameplay: The store page states that the digital deluxe edition includes "Improved Navigation." I can only take that to mean that the original navigation system would have been similar to moving the turtle cursor in the LOGO programming language, because the existing one is BAD. They took the worst aspects of Myst's navigation and amplfied them. I got constantly lost, especially in rooms with two similar-looking doors. Entered the wrong room? Click left, click left again, click the door. There are certain areas comprised of only one screen that have a cursor that allows you to "turn around" - that would have been so useful in regular areas, but nope. Things that appear accessible in a room aren't accessible until you've got the right combination of forward and left/right clicks to be in the right screen to get them.
Oh, but it gets worse. You know how in a lot of point-and-click games your character will just pick stuff up and you have no idea what they'll need it for? And you think, that's silly, why would they do that? Then you realize what the alternative is: seeing an item, and being unable to pick it up until you encounter something that needs it, at which point you have to go backtrack and get it. The only exception to this rule seems to be the dead mice that the cat is leaving for me. This is made funnier by the fact that I found a box of rodent poison. THAT, I don't need yet. Dead mice, I do, apparently. "Interact with a comprehensive inventory of nearly 200 items," the store page reads. Playing the game, I realize that statement is now a threat.
And finally...the worst possible sin a point and click game could commit: a text interface for a password box. That is some bush-league Kongregate flash escape game bullshit right there, especially when I had the right answer but didn't get it in just the right way. What was the right way for the password, you might ask? Two words. With a space. Case Sensitive. Once I had to look up a guide to see what I was doing wrong (the lack of capital letters and the space) Chapter One ended and I decided that was the perfect place to make some impressions.
The length: two hours to beat one chapter, five chapters, so extrapolating will make it about ten hours. A decent length for a point-and-click, assuming you can tolerate the navigation that long.
The verdict: The game had a good idea, a good setting, good voice acting, and utterly no clue of how to put it together into an enjoyable game. If you need five clicks to face something you want to interact with, you need to rethink the room's layout. I don't care if Chris doesn't need the salt right now, let the player take it so it's ready when he does need it! If you can't do 3D well, hire 2D artists instead, it's okay, really! So I guess my verdict is...if you want a frustrating experience or you yearn for the days when Riven's navigation system was revolutionary, get this game. Otherwise, stay far away.
