I don’t know about others, but in 2022 on a live broadcast Xbox Games Showcase I felt a slight cognitive dissonance – it was all because of the Pentiment trailer . Starting with displaying logos Xbox Games Studios And Obsidian Entertainment, it seems to immediately set you up to anticipate something more or less large-scale, ambitious, capable of attracting the attention of a huge number of gamers, even if not by shouting about its mind-blowing budget graphics or innovative gameplay, but at least by the fact that it will be another solid and familiar RPG from a famous studio.
And in anticipation, like Pavlov’s dog, you are already sketching out in your thoughts the approximate appearance of the game, when suddenly all your expectations are shattered in an instant by a completely different reality: a pure niche 2D “turkey” with an unusual visual style, clearly inspired by medieval miniatures, appears on the screen.
Of course, I couldn’t help but be surprised by this, especially considering the fact that now almost every major gaming company is racing to create something as vast and monumental as it has the strength to do.
And therefore, looking at Pentiment, I couldn’t help but wonder: “Why did the Xbox gaming division suddenly approve the development of such a modest and extremely non-mainstream game??».
Well, as Josh Sawyer himself explained on the Waypoint Radio podcast, he wouldn’t even pitch the project if it weren’t for the existence of Game Pass. Having held the concept for several years Pentiment in his head, the game director of a medieval adventure game dared to propose his idea only in 2018, when Obsidian Entertainment officially became part of Xbox. The game was ideal for the growing subscription service, but Sawyer still had to literally persuade his boss to allocate funds for production. As a result, having hired a very small staff, so as not to interfere with the creation of other, much higher-budget titles (such as The Outer Worlds and Avowed), the work began in full swing. The release took place on November 15, 2022 with simultaneous inclusion in the Game Pass library.
However, returning to the discrepancy between expectations and reality, this very reality was able to kindle my interest an order of magnitude stronger than if instead Pentiment would announce some notorious AAAA. I, of course, like many, was instantly hooked by the unconventional and charming art design that imitates medieval painting. And, since the Middle Ages is perhaps my favorite setting, it was pointless to resist the gradual formation of the waiting pose.
The name of the aforementioned Josh Sawyer also added significant weight to the game, but given my complex relationship with Obsidian, it certainly wasn’t defining. I started Fallout: New Vegas many times and abandoned it just as many times for reasons unknown to myself, although I perfectly understood why everyone else adored it so much. But with Pillars of Eternity the situation was more prosaic: after about 20 hours of playthrough, I was suffocated by the isometric real-time combat, where in order to fully control the actions of your companions you need to pause on CD (turn-based – one-love).
So, after waiting for the release Pentiment, official translation into Russian (its quality traditionally leaves much to be desired, which we will discuss a little later) and an acceptable price given the impossibility of direct purchase in Russian-language Steam, I finally got to this rather original project. And, I won’t hide the intrigue, I really liked it, but it wasn’t without its flaws. In general, let’s talk about everything in order.
Pentiment is a story-driven adventure set in 16th-century Bavaria. You play as the artist Andreas Mahler, who came to the city of Tassing to work and gain experience in the scriptorium of Kirsau Abbey, illustrating books side by side with the monks.
In parallel with this, he is trying to finish his main masterpiece, after which he can return to his native Nuremberg, get married and take orders from the most famous people, opening his own workshop. In short, the protagonist intends to become a successful person with a capital S.
But, as usually happens in such stories, everything does not go according to plan: the baron and part-time patron of the abbey, Lorenz Rothvogel, dies at the hands of an unknown killer. And, even worse, Pierrot, Andreas’s elderly friend, is accused of the crime. A man of such advanced age would simply not have the strength to stab a healthy man with a knife. However, he was found right at the crime scene, and it will be difficult to find other suspects before the arrival of the archdeacon. And therefore, in order to prevent an unjust execution, the main character decides to take on the investigation of the case.
That is, in fact, a kind of detective story is revealed to us, where the player is asked to find the true killer among the city residents in a limited time.
Indeed, in the first two acts (out of three) you need to collect information with your own hands, fill out a diary with various facts and assumptions, find evidence, and also manage your time as efficiently as possible, choosing the more logical one among several ways to achieve your goal. In addition, you will have to rely on your instincts and personal guesses, since even with all the information received, it is impossible to determine the culprit with one hundred percent probability (which, by the way, is one of the main tricks of the adventure game).
At the same time, the detective simulator Pentiment is not. There is no game-mechanical system of hooks and identification of relationships between them, as in the recently released Shadows of Doubt. The developers simply did not set such tasks for themselves, because the most important thing they wanted to concentrate on was to highlight a rather rare era in video games and the problems that were relevant at that time, while simultaneously telling a very intriguing plot.
In other words, the detective part serves only as a means of storytelling. It’s not in vain that the events of the game affect as much as a quarter of a century.
The shift in emphasis becomes especially obvious when you notice how scrupulously "obsidians" approached the reconstruction of the cultural context. Historical references, names of Catholic saints, works of scientists like Aristotle, various kinds of legends, pagan beliefs (like Perkhta) and so on slip through the dialogues every now and then.
It is not surprising that the 95 theses of Martin Luther, which contained criticism of the Catholic Church and, of course, were quite capable of causing heated debate among the educated population, received close attention. And if you start discussing them in the abbey, ooh-ooh.
Moreover, every potentially unfamiliar name, work or concept can be clicked on, resulting in a masterfully woven glossary into the game with a laconic explanation of the necessary. Moreover, this list also includes ordinary residents of Tassing, whom for some reason you have not yet managed to remember: when you click on their names, portraits of the corresponding characters will open. In my opinion, a very convenient and authentic solution.
The visual design, by https://bingbongcasino.co.uk/ the way, turned out to be no less authentic. The game literally takes place on the pages of a book, and the imitation of illuminated (or front) manuscripts definitely adds some charm and charm to the picture, positively influencing immersion. In short, the artists definitely ate their bread for good reason.
As for the plot, it works great even in isolation from this whole representation of the era. Presenting an extraordinary detective story in a setting somewhat unusual for the genre, the adventure game manages to keep the intrigue until the very end. And, although the main secret is hardly possible to unravel before it is revealed, the outcome seems absolutely logical. In the end, everything competently comes together into a complete picture, which personally completely satisfied me and made me think about the humanity of manipulation, rewriting the chronicle and concealing the truth in the name of a good goal.
Pentiment — the game is not about any one specific character, as it might seem at first glance. It is about the city of Tassing as a whole and its inhabitants as a single living organism, mobile and changing. Over an impressive period of 25 years, you will see a change of generations, a serious peasant uprising and much more.
However, the creation is about individual people with their personal problems Obsidian Entertainment doesn’t forget either. Together with many of the townspeople, the player will share tragedies, joys, and ordinary leisurely everyday life. Someone will become a favorite, and someone will become a personal enemy, because skeletons in the closet are not a rarity here.
After spending a sufficient number of hours in the city, it’s as if you yourself become an integral part of a close-knit community, where everyone strives to help each other, gathers for holidays and together tries to survive, protecting themselves from terrible misfortunes. And now you go to visit your friends and carry on a conversation over a meal, not because you want to advance in the main plot: not at all; you are simply comfortable communicating with them.
The lion’s share of the atmosphere Pentiment is precisely built from the creation of precisely such situations.
True, the protagonist’s drama naturally suffers from the chosen approach, since it is usually given less attention than we would like. Accordingly, there is no deep immersion into Andreas’ story, and the player empathizes with the character much less. On the other hand, this is not so critical: not being central, she will only play a small role at the right moment in the plot.
But what’s difficult to justify is the overall length of the story. The murder, which actually acts as the plot of the game, has to wait a little; and the third act should have been shortened, because before event X it’s as if you don’t even know what to play for. And if at first the extremely leisurely pace allows you to feel the atmosphere described above, then towards the end a lot of things inevitably become boring. Still, for a project of this kind, about 20 hours to complete is not so little.
Speaking of the time spent: I think it’s no secret to anyone that you will have to read here constantly, and read a lot. However, the text is written in a moderately light style, and there are no unjustified descriptions in it. Dialogue involves direct speech and nothing more, encouraging you to read emotions on a visual level and making conversations with NPCs much more lively and believable.
It is noteworthy that the appearance of the text also has Pentiment certain value. Probably trying to somehow diversify the reading process, the developers introduced one interesting feature into the medieval adventure game – different stylized fonts. The handwriting of each character reflects the degree of his education in the eyes of Andreas: the more enlightened the interlocutor, the more refined and elegant the writing style. In addition, the main character’s opinion can change right in the middle of a conversation if new information emerges about the person. For example, when meeting the nun Amalia for the first time, the protagonist will perceive her words in a labor-intensive Gothic font, indicating a supposed higher church education, but after revealing the information that she cannot read, the handwriting will immediately switch to a significantly less complex and ornate one.
And the distinctive features of the local writing are not limited to this. Firstly, the appearance of phrases in dialog boxes is accompanied by animation corresponding to a specific font, which displays a reliable algorithm for displaying letters, and also introduces a pinch of dynamics into the routine procedure of clicking lines.
Secondly, sometimes people make typos, correcting them immediately after the end of their statement, which not only embodies frequent slips of the tongue in everyday speech, but also refers to the title of the title in a far from obvious way. In painting the term Pentimento, came from Italian and was subsequently adapted into English as Pentiment – the presence of an altered and painted over fragment of the picture (an early image, stroke, smear), which appears upon careful examination or after many years, when the paint applied on top becomes more transparent. In the game the case is similar: the error is noticeable even after adjustment. And, naturally, there is a point of contact here with the plot, which you will learn about at the end of the project.
Thirdly, any mention of God is indicated in red and appears last, testifying to the deep religiosity of the people of that era, who simply cannot imagine life without faith.
Fourthly, if a character who is irritated by something, speaking in a raised tone, puts a strong emphasis on any word, then ink is splashed around this word, as if it was written with extraordinary expression. A trifle, but as part of the discussion of the text, I could not help but note it.
Still, whatever one may say, true love for one’s own creation is revealed at the stage of producing simple and pleasant details, which clearly show the readiness of creators absorbed in a common idea to invest significantly more effort than the given minimum requires.
And, it is worth admitting, invested "obsidians" the efforts were clearly not wasted. Taken together, the listed elements make dialogues entertaining in terms of visual perception, successfully relieving them of visual uniformity and monotony. And for a game where reading is the primary way to obtain content, this advantage is quite significant.
However, today almost nothing can be done without a huge “but”. Pentiment Expectedly, I was not lucky enough to add to the list of exceptions, so I suggest you remember the hook thrown at the beginning of the review regarding official Russian localization, the people responsible for it did a fantastic job.
Even though the translation itself is done at an acceptable level, the same cannot be said about working with the font. Yes, exactly with the font, because for some reason they forgot to bring in different handwritings. As planned by the localizers, throughout the entire 20 hours of playthrough the player must be content with one single option, which completely destroys the main killer feature of the project.
Such hackwork cannot even be justified, since if the studio, due to a lack of funds, ordered the implementation of only an easily readable version available in the original, two fonts should have been created one way or another – handwritten and printed. However, in translation it helps to recognize only the uneven printing of the second. That is, the stripped-down alternative to the original source turned out to be even more stripped down in our country.
The absurdity doesn’t end here. Faith in humanity is irrevocably lost when looking at the chosen font, because it is difficult to find a candidate who does not fit into the atmosphere of the title so much. Minus the barely visible roundings, the modified question mark and the presence of “tails” on the “ts” and “sh”, this is literally the most standard Times New Roman. No idea how this was even allowed to happen.
Fortunately, on the Internet, skillful people have long added Pentiment stylized fonts that are much more authentic and fun to play with. However, I also had problems with the work of enthusiasts: it turns out that installing a mod can cause bugs of varying severity. So, one prevented the text from appearing, preventing you from completing an optional dialogue from the middle of the game, and the other blocked the opening of an important window with a choice at the end of the second act, which made it impossible to advance further. After a number of attempts to fix the softlock by rebooting, I finally figured out the right decision to delete the downloaded fonts and, having overcome the conflict, never returned to them. The chance is small, but you never know the next failure will not be cured using an identical method?
In any case, if everything had been done without mistakes, I wouldn’t turn a blind eye to this blatant display of unprofessionalism. Console players have no choice – they are forced to endure.
Well, let’s not lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with a studio primarily specialized in developing RPGs. This means that elements of this genre simply could not leak into her new project.
The player is free to choose several key points from the protagonist’s biography: what places he managed to visit during his numerous travels, what sciences he studied at the university, what hobbies he always had a penchant for, and so on.
For example, Andreas, who has visited Italy more than once, will know Italian and a little Greek, and will also be able to notice the cultural features characteristic of Florence, Venice and Milan. He, who spent a fair part of his life mastering imperial law, will understand the basics of the legal systems operating in various subjects of the Holy Roman Empire. In addition, depending on your preferences, the main character is able to become a skilled speaker, a talented logician, an occultist (suddenly) and the like.
Of course, the options provided were not included here out of nothing to do. That’s right, from time to time they are necessary only for momentary display of personal erudition, for which in certain cases you can get an angry reproach. However, sometimes the knowledge accumulated by the protagonist affects dialogue checks.
Speaking of dialog checks. Occasionally, elections in conversations with NPCs are accompanied by the inscription “This will be remembered”. And, although it looks like a similar meme postscript in well-known games TellTale, nascent concerns about nominal variability are only partly true. Slowly accumulating somewhere in the background, the decisions made (even deceptively trivial ones) manifest themselves at the moment of the onset of the central event – the opponent’s conviction that it is beneficial to you. Its success is influenced by the “correctness” of the decisions themselves and the already mentioned biographical factors. The weight of each individual position, in turn, is assessed differently in correlation with their importance in the context of the issue under discussion: developed oratory skills, obviously, will be more significant than random rudeness.
As for the consequences of the elections, their scale also varies quite significantly. Some actions will fulfill their assigned role once, some will not cease to be remembered to you years later (an open charge of murder, you know, is not easy to forget), and some will even decide the fate of some minor character. By the way, a modular ending with slides in the style of Fallout, therefore, side dialogues in Pentiment I don’t recommend neglecting it.
But at the same time, you definitely shouldn’t expect anything deep and fundamental from variability. The main plot in the adventure game is extremely linear: the central story will develop and end exclusively as the authors originally intended. That’s why, even though replayability is actually present here, there’s no particular point in it – you won’t experience a radically different gaming experience. I generally got the impression that the developers themselves did not want anyone to actually replay the game. And it’s not about the ending, which puts a huge fat point without any understatements, but about the realization that comes after the denouement that some of your actions, which at first seemed extremely serious, turned out to be almost useless.
To be fair, the impression from the project does not turn all of the above upside down. I believe that a good story cannot be spoiled by linearity, and the ability to influence side branches makes the procedure for choosing lines more judicious. In short, you don’t pay close attention to it in the moment. You don’t pay attention, partly because something else does a much better job of worsening the player’s final opinion. Its name is gameplay.
As you’ve probably heard many times, it’s perfectly acceptable for story-oriented titles to have moderately primitive gameplay. Like, in order to further observe the colorful characters and the dashing intrigue, sometimes you just need to come to terms with. And sometimes I really agree with similar logic. However, here, unfortunately, the situation is less clear.
Already listing a set of classes in Pentiment sounds rather sparse: you constantly run around the city and talk with local residents, from time to time you examine all sorts of objects like frescoes and flowering plants, and also very rarely go through simple mini-games. However, the real problem lies not in the meager list of entertainment. Wow, the gameplay is my favorite Disco Elysium also not full of variety – they forced a lot of people to walk. But if in an RPG from ZA/UM unique microplots or parts of complex additional quests awaited you at almost every corner, then in a medieval adventure game from Obsidian There are essentially no secondary tasks. Optional content mainly consists of optional dialogues with NPCs encountered along the way to the final destination of the route. This world does not have more interactivity.
In addition, all three acts of the game take place in the same locations, albeit with noticeable visual changes after time skips. The problem does not seem particularly acute when you first walk around Tassing and explore the surroundings, but after the second ten hours, running along the same streets naturally gets boring. The situation should have been saved by the gradual unlocking of previously inaccessible areas of the map, but due to the limited system of interaction with the environment, there is often no talk of any exciting research or sudden discoveries. It’s still nice to see new places, of course, but due to their extreme compactness, the feeling of novelty quickly disappears.
Moreover, my main complaint is not the blandness of the gameplay as such, but that sooner or later it simply begins to interfere with the narrative. So, at first, running back and forth can still be justified by the need to find the killer in conditions of lack of time and information, then the movement inevitably turns into an intermediate and almost rudimentary point between dialogues. Consequently, the already mentioned flaw of the project—its protractedness—is felt more clearly.
In general, going here for gameplay would be terribly reckless. Actually, no one doubted that the priorities of the title are completely different.
To summarize, Pentiment can’t be called ideal. Someone, for example, will abandon it because of the slowly unfolding plot, someone will finally get tired of the tedious running around, and someone, having tried to give the game a chance, will live an exciting and rich adventure that completely immerses in the atmosphere of medieval Bavaria and touches on a number of pressing topics. Personally, I received from the brainchild Obsidian Entertainment exactly what I expected, and therefore, taking into account all sorts of flaws, I recommend that you familiarize yourself with it.
