Sweet Middleground 3 ~the lost keys~

Ah shit, here we go again! (don't worry, Antigone is not surrounded by spectres! Read the review now!)

Welcome to another review of another episode of Sweet Middleground, the game of slice of life adventures that I play between adventures in creepy dungeons.
For those who do not know this game, it's a visual novel adventure with puzzle elements, that for the first time has completely custom graphics! (even if the flashback still uses the old graphics of the past games but in black and white).

And speaking about the graphics, you can see that these were totally "revamped": there are much more details in the no longer grey neightbourhood, there are dynamic effects like falling leaves and they look much more lively and pretty than before. Yes, because the place and the characters are always the same despite looking different due to the new, custom charsets. But I like this new version more, they are more unique and the only think that looks odd are the "generic pedestrians" new appearance that at first may surprise those new to the series (shame on you!) since they look like some strange humanoids (and not like anonymous shapes like in the two first games), making the new player (wrongly) think that this is a surreal/fantasy game!


That's the much hated cart from the puzzle of the second game! RUN!!!
Jokes aside, here's a comparison with the same location of the previous game. It was more "grey" isn't it? I also wonder what happened to the chicken...


If I like a lot the improved graphics (yes, including Antigone's new "thicc" sprite and the animations of the running characters, those were great!) and the more colorful and animated setting (even if there are no new interactions with the items of the scenarios you do not need), music also is better than before, and custom too!

If the first was an introduction to the characters and setting, and the second was a following adventure, this one has some strong ties to the previous episodes. I saw much more references (but maybe it is obvious since this is not the second, but the third episode!) to the past adventures, and if you played them you will feel right at home. If not, do that now because now I am going to give some details about the story.

Once again we play as Vincent & Antigone and the beginning task will concern transporting Antigone's clock from the first episode to the library (a place that everyone knows well for being always quite crowded). Incredibly this won't immediately lead to a disaster (see the second episode for the "sweet in the middle of the ground" heheheh!) but to an interesting investigative adventure game (even if there are still some puzzles regarding pushing people around and cooking dishes, reminiscents of the first episode). Then there will be an interesting investigation part (that is obviously related to the "missin keys" of the title), but I won't tell you more of course, what I can say is that there's a substantial "growing up" of the series as the relationship between Antigone and Vincent develops and grows too.
This game is a bit longer (took me about 1 hour and 15 minutes) than the second episode and it's a welcomed feature: this episode format is nice, but it's even better when the episodes are, like in this case, composed of more different and apparently unrelated sections (the previous episode, if you do not consider the extra Dlc, was just focused making the birthday cake of the title). Clearly there is nothing new for those who are familiar with this series, but if you downloaded this game is because you liked the precious installments.


Uuuuh what is she going to tell him?


FINAL VERDICT
Sweet Middleground 3 is the high point (so far) of the series: the environments and locations looks better, much more detailed and colorful, the animations of the busts are more and better (I found extremely pleasant and well done the movement of Antigone's hair, especially when she turns, and this was not easy!). I am just a bit confused by the use of different generic characters... I mean I get that (like in the Repent Loci series) these shapes are used to indicate "generic pngs" but if they should have no details why they are of different shapes and heights? Also why some meaningful characters like the poor shop assistant that we know from the very first episode are generic bystanders (unlike the professor that so far appeared only once!)? How unfair! (ok, it's not a complaining but the shop clerk may have been an interesting recurring character since we interact him so many times during the series, even more than the neightbour or Vicent's friends!).

The story is a bit bizarre this time (but not at the point to be surreal or weird), but I liked it. The game has the particular capacity to immerse the player in the night mystery (not that I complain for the tedious part of transporting that damn clock, I was even disappointed that I hadn't to do that for all the map!). I also liked a lot the references to the previous episodes, from the more obvious ones like the mentioning of past events (not related in any way to this scenario, so totally forgettable) to the more subtle ones (the presence of some elements belonging to a puzzle of the previous adventure).
I like also how Antigone mentions the map (that was forgotten in the second episode, even if present) that is also finally updated with the location of her apartment.

I only found one typo... "mourning" instead of "morning"!

Speaking about the gameplay, I think this time there were not difficult sections (unlike the previous game where the first puzzle was hard!), but sometimes it was not totally clear what I was supposed to do (for example: the crowd part tells you to push people away, but you can actually move them in any direction. Also I did not understand how some clues for the blackouts are gathered since I used a light switch, exited the room, used another switch in the corridoor, went back and used the first switch and... I got the clue! Uhm but I already used that switch, so what?), but experimenting is a fun component of the game, and I do not mind at all (was just an observation).

So far this was my favourite episode, a great linear but funny experience. How will be the next one?