Series The Dark Pictures has already made us see all the colors with Man of Medan, Little Hope and House of Ashes. However, it comes close to more traditional horrific codes with The Devil in Mewhich will pit our band of playable heroes against a mysterious serial killer, who has invited them to an island housing a hotel/museum inspired by HH Holmesa serial killer of the 19th century that did indeed exist. What to excite us for a new adventure under tension?
By digging a little, this semblance of realism is marred by many faults.
On the background, The Devil in Me is very similar to what its predecessors offered. 5 alternately playable characters, binary dialogue choices defining action or relationship possibilities for the sequel, QTY simplistic, exploration phases with clues and documents to find… Everything is there, with the small improvements of recent episodes and nice news.
First there are more dynamic movements, with elements to move to open up spaces or gain height, ledges to climb or gaps to jump… Either things that should have been there a long time ago and which deserve to be less rigid than the mechanics of a tomb Raider 2000s. And there is also an inventory system, to easily use your flashlight, better keep an eye on important objects that will be useful to you or handle a camera that we are not sure we have yet understood how it works or interest. Nothing revolutionary at allwhere we would have simply liked more lively interactions, less archaic movements and a less capricious camera.
The technique is also in line with what we know. The graphic rendering is very correct in appearance, thanks to good modeling of faces and detailed textures. But by digging a little, this semblance of realism is marred by many faults, from dark, static, little varied and uncharacteristic settings, to characters who often have inhuman body animations or strange facial poses, half-open mouth, which regularly remind us that we are only dealing with a video game. Let’s not spit in the soup, the title remains technically pushed and these concerns are forgotten in the flow of the adventure, but it does not manage to achieve the totally immersive photorealism that it has been seeking for years.
However, all of this remains secondary to the scenario and the atmosphere of The Devil in Me, narrative experience above all. Does it manage to fascinate to make people forget its few technical faults and its gameplay simplistic, even archaic? We have mixed feelings about this. Yes, the title plays well and its 6 hour playtime makes it short and condensed enough not to lose interest. There are enough secrets and tension to keep us going, but we regret that the main information helping to understand the identity and personality of the killer are almost exclusively disseminated in documents and archives to be found, and not in the playable experience. If you knowingly avoid all the clues, which is technically possible, but not interesting, you will mainly be entitled to survival in a trapped mansion, facing a killer who will not go down in history. Thus, passed the first encounters under tension and the discovery of his violent methodsdifficult to continue to be afraid in the face of this certainly worrying and omnipresent threat, whose slowness and silence struggle to make it frightening, and end up discrediting it, if not with a few jumpscare free.
A fairly traditional serial killer story, without any narrative or horrifying brilliance.
The mystery will thus gradually thin out as we read and listen, but to our taste there is no not enough false leads, twists or twists to restart the story, which weakens over the chapters in favor of the action. And it will be necessary to overlook the fact that so many clues are cleverly scattered anywhere in the mansion, or that our heroes sometimes don’t seem so interested in the nature of the drama that is happening to them (or by the idea of counter-attacking). They’re no more memorable than the villain, by the way, unfortunately, because once their personalities and relationships settle in, there’s only few opportunities to evolve their ties or become more attached to themeven if certain routes necessarily leave room for more scenes that go in this direction.
And, yes, the system of narrative branches based on our choices of dialogue and action as well as our discoveries of information and objects is still there, and it is still just as interesting. It may not be as diverse as before, with the more Cartesian setting of the story giving way to fewer possibilities, but it still allows for build a personalized adventure based on our decisions, our desires and the deaths that we will have voluntarily or involuntarily caused. It will be difficult to make the right choices in your first game, because it is impossible to foresee that certain small decisions will have such consequences, or even to succeed in all of them. QTY, sometimes destabilizing. It is still possible to save all or part of the tape, and especially to experience totally different passages for a better understanding of the story and the characters, enough to encourage players to restart a game with different approaches. And if, like us, you haven’t hooked enough to restart the game, watch compilations of secret deaths and endings on Youtube is now almost part of the experience The Dark Pictures.
Finally, let’s quickly move on to the sound part: the sound design is very successful, with in particular small noises which often succeeded in making us jump, the soundtrack is effective, but is forgotten, and the English dubbing is of quality, even if not always in agreement with the facial expressions of the characters. Note that we have started the game in French before changing the language of our consolethe fault of dubbing actors who seemed to us to disagree with their role, a disturbing lip desynchronization and above all a lack of spatialization which gave the impression of listening to a separate audio tape.
You will understand, for us, The Dark Pictures: The Devil in Me will not remain our best memory of the series. After a slow rise in power on the first three parts, this one stagnates on the technique, by proposing a fairly traditional serial killer story, without any narrative or horrifying feats. Its polished staging and dynamic rhythm are enough to maintain the attention and the tension, without fully captivating or surprising over a story that loses intensity in the face of its rather classic revelations. Every good soap opera has less successful episodes, this may be the case for this one, but if you like the franchise, there is also no reason to miss it, especially if you like adventures narratives based on choices with well-oiled cogs. Now that the Season 1 is over, hope the Season 2 be less unequal.
The Dark Pictures: The Devil in Me is available from €39.99 on Amazon.co.uk.
Most
- A fluidly branching interactive horror film
- The dramatic and captivating staging
- Technically clean on the surface
The lessers
- The forgettable characters
- A gripping scenario, but neither original nor surprising
- Some strange animations, camera issues, rigid movements…
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| Favorite editor of your favorite editor since 2009, passionate about music that makes boom boom, follower of comic series of all kinds. I’ve played a little too much Pokémon in my life. | ||
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