Cell Chamber

I decided to shoot down some games that don’t deserve 5 star reviews, you know, so I’m not embarrassed to go on RMN. I found the actual download through Google means.

So it begins!

The story starts out in a fragmented way, the part that erks me is how the main character faints 3 times during the beginning to make way for slow flashbacks. Actually, everything about this game is slow, the text speed, the cut-scenes, even the interface movement. It is definitely not a computer problem though. It is really how the game feels. I heard XP having 30-40 FPS which might be the cause of the problem but the menu tends to have really useless effects like the character panels moving right after exiting them, why not just have quick fadein/out transitions?

The story starts without any real clear indication who you are, apparently just some guy named Koen who lives in a mansion (absolutely nothing is explained) the objects that you interact reveal useless background info like: “My dad chops wood a lot.” That does nothing to reveal who Koen is. The first ‘plot twist’ (if you can even call it that) is predictable because of the really bad sluggish flashbacks.

IS IT PRETTY?

Yeah, sorta, I guess. There are a lot of overdone fog effects most of the time, but you get used to it! The character graphics are standard XP RTP heavily edited. They are very out of place in some of the detailed tile-sets. There are lighting/shadow effects, but they seem to be very wonky and implemented poorly in some places. I feel there is a huge lack of style, though this is present in a lot of above average looking XP game where overlay effects are strung about. I feel the game’s graphics are okay but has some sloppyness to it. Later on in the game, it turns into this really bland brown and orange ugly lighting that makes it unbearable to play through.


Hell, there should be a shadow puppet mini game

Puzzles!

The game starts out in a very adventure game-eque, you walk around, look at stuff, grab items, it’s quite fun, but sometimes the logic behind them seem dumb. One puzzle you have to find a keycode for a door, you find it by looking through the security cameras and seeing the numbers boldly written on a big piece of paper, it doesn’t really makes sense when you think about it (assuming you played to that part). Eventually you go underground and do a box puzzle. It’s quite clever in its design but I do feel that the instructions were very confusing at first. Sadly this is actually the last puzzle you come across until MUCH later in the game.


I sure love color box puzzles

Somehow the military is involved!

Suddenly this creepy but okay puzzle adventure turns into some stealth game, as you’re attacked by military troops! The cutscene when you encounter them is weird and slow. You are presented with 5 of them saying things like “ROGER” “AFFIRMATIVE” each at a time. Do we really need that? At least have them say it all at once or something. The slow text speed also makes this worse. Eventually you get to a stealth mini game segment which is pretty cool, but there are some problems. First it is unclear as to how far soldiers can see, so if you get caught, it’s usually because you were unable to determine their viewing distance. Second, when you make noise by sprinting over a bridge you are already caught. Finally, I feel this mini game wasn’t included very well. Another puzzle in this stealth game confuses me though. There’s an instance where you have to step down on a hidden switch that opens a nearby chest that distracts the guards, yeah, someone put a random chest there and hooked up the opening mechanisms to a hidden switch in the ground. I’m trying to think of ways on how that could ever come about.


Makes as much sense as MGS4

Rebels n Shit

At this point the game goes into a huge story exposition revealing a hidden town and rebels. It completely throws away the adventure game in a scary mansion touch. The inconsistency takes another bite when out of nowhere: some of the cut scenes are shown through a Japanese visual novel approach. The bad dialogue starts to really show through these cut scenes. There are way too many pauses and useless lines. There are moments when the expressions don’t match the words at all. Basically, the game has shown me it is poorly written.


Surprise! Really bad dating sim!

It is eventually revealed (quite slowly) that the village the main character falls into happens to be the home of rebels who are fighting against an evil empire that controls everything. You are forced to join them through meeting the entire crew. You have the female lead who sleeps with EVERYONE in the village (including you and even the old mayor), I like immoral characters, but when the female lead is a slut without any personality, it really brings it down. Then you have some dignified samurai guy who was once part of some ancient japanese clan or something. At this point I really have to wonder what exactlthis game takes place in, there are guns and futuristic soldiers, but the village is very primitive as one of the characters uses a bow and arrow (while the main character uses a GUN). I can tolerate lol guns and swords sometimes, but a gun next to a bow? Honestly, I have no idea what technology the game’s world is capable of. Final Fantasy games tend to fuck that up sometimes, but at least you had a consistent idea. Well even so, a bad plot can be revived through good dialogue…. right? …………..right…..?


………..

If you haven’t noticed, the battles never actually happened until after several stupid scenes. By that I mean the battles didn’t start till 1 hours into the game. They are nothing special and become a really bad dungeon crawler. Only thing I liked about it was the ‘combo’ skill that was sort of like Sabin’s from ff6, but sadly it was not emphasized very much. That’s about it for battles. The last possible saving grace for this game failed. Thus I give up after this game decided it wanted to be a very average dungeon crawler.
On that note, I have to say the main problem with this game is that it doesn’t really know what it wants to be. Having a variety of activities is nice, but there has to be some form of consistency to tie it all together. It’s also not just the game mechanics/rules that are inconsistent, but the dialogue and story presentation, it just seems like this game wants to go in many directions but can’t figure out where it wants to be exactly. I thought the game will take entirely place underneath a mansion as some crazy puzzle/dungeon crawler with some horror elements for atmosphere, but it surprised me by turning into a rebel VS empire archetype. There’s nothing wrong with a rebel VS empire plot, but I don’t see how the story could have turned into that.


Welp, I think I'll just select the second option for this game.