I finished Pentiment yesterday. It’s fantastic. I was fighting with clunky controls a bit at the start, but I’m really glad I did not give up.

RPG elements (i.e. character progression) are very basic, gameplay-wise it’s like crossbreed between point and click adventure and walking (& talking) simulator. No action whatsoever, just walking and talking. And still it’s a great game. How? It’s all about the story, characters and your interactions with them. All writing is great, as we can expect from Obsidian. The entire game I wanted to progress further and further just to see what happens next, how people react to what you do, how tables turn and the game did not disappoint in this regard. Also art style, sound effects (like writing sounds when dialogs roll) and fragments of music helps it a lot to get that “medieval” atmosphere.

I won’t spoil the story in case there are still people who haven’t played it yet, I’ll just tell the game has three acts, where first one is the most non-linear and open and each subsequent one is more narrow and linear as the story continues. And while it might look like it’s limiting, it fits the storytelling well, so no problem with me. There are quite a few story twists during the game so I honestly enjoyed it a lot and I didn’t know how it would wrap up to the very end.

The game gets 5/5 from me and I can highly recommend it to everyone seeking calm gameplay focused on story and characters. It is similar to games like Disco Elysium in this regard, although the gameplay is still very different. It’s also one of those games you want to start over right away to see how different choices you make alters the story and the ending, which doesn’t happen very often (at least not to me). Thumbs up!

I’m on that Wingspan kick! Recently finished Hogwarts Legacy which was a treat, and Wingspan has been so fun it’s all I play lately. Helps to have a dedicated few friends who love it like I do, so we play asynchronous due to our schedules being crazy lately. Happy belated birthday!