I recently reviewed Tiny And Big: Grandpa’s Leftovers which was a great game with a polished and modern stylized look. Resonance on the other hand I appreciate for its rough, old school look that warms my gamer’s heart. It reminds me of the days of Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest and Alone In The Dark, back when Sierra was creating its point and click legacies. Well I am obviously not the only one who remembers it because xii games and Wadjet Eye Games teamed up to bring this game for gamers by gamers to life in all its old school glory with a new school twist.
Storyline:
The game starts off letting you know that bad things have happened around the world, some great attack that is being covered by the world’s news feeds. You can’t tell quite what and right before you get a chance to even guess the game takes you back in time where you get to choose from four clocks on the screen, each one representing a moment in the four main characters’ lives. With this you begin to piece together and influence the events leading up to the disaster and cause all the characters who were otherwise strangers to cross paths over a research project called Resonance.
Graphics And Sound:
These are all designed to give you the feeling of playing the game back in the old days and the game never breaks the illusion of being a two decade old point and click game. It doesn’t fill a wide screen, the graphics can only look so clean and the audio is far from state of the art. All this comes together to create nostalgia for those who gamed in those days and a sense of discovering the old days for those experiencing it for the first time. Heck this seems to be reason enough to pick up the game, then when you add a complex timeline and engaging story this is a definite pick.
Gameplay:
This retro feel continues heavily into the gameplay which, for the most part, is a standard old school point and click where you move your arrow around the screen until you find something you can click on and you do and see what happens. You do the same thing with your inventory items, sometimes separating an item, some times dragging them together. Anyone who has played a point and click adventure will find this all the same as it was two decades ago. The twist in the game is the use of long term and short term memory. During conversation or examining things subjects will automatically pop into long term memory to the character you are playing. This can be dragged down to the conversation bar or interact with the short term memory items which consists of items in you inventory you think might be important and you drag into the short term memory.
So maybe you pick up a coin next to another character. That character sees it and it triggers a long term memory. You can drag that down to the conversation bar and discuss it or you can drag it to short term memory and see if it helps triggering more long term memories. It sounds complicated but really is based pretty much on the same principle of items in your inventory interacting or being dragged down to interact with your environment. The items just have more locations to interact with and you have two more “inventories.” It is obvious though they wanted us to remember the old days they also wanted to improve on a system that hasn’t changed much over the years. It would not surprise me if this wound up becoming the new standard for these type of games if enough people take notice of it, the curse and blessing of an indie game is how easy it is for the mainstream to overlook it.
Last Call:
It is hard to talk about the game much without giving away plot. It mostly plays and looks like an old school game with the exception of new innovations in the “inventories” and the fact that you can create your own timeline to a certain degree. If you like the old school point and click play or you are curious about the new additions to it this game is an absolute steal at $8.99.
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