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Great Assets, Lacking Execution

  • Kylaila
  • 05/29/2015 10:39 PM
  • 1277 views
Vigiles Luces is a fairly mature-looking horror game with custom assets as well as great music - but fails at putting together a thoroughly engaging experience.

So far only the prologue and Act I are complete - already going for more than an hour playtime.
As such, the game will be changing.


...and this is why I don't go into town today.

The story plays on two timelines - you reliving your past childhood and your current self exploring the very same old place (and more).
So what is this game trying to achieve? It seems more story-based as a lot revolves around setting up ground for you to retrieve the conveniently lost memories, stumbling upon evil beings, weird creatures, the occult and more in the process.

So, you meet your old (good-looking) childhood-friend aka romantic interest and spontanously decide to pay your old home a visit to refresh memories and indulge into nostalgia. Convenient events occur trapping you in place for a while, forcing you to explore more and forcing you to get in contact with serious matters.


Little did I know I chose the perfect name.

It seems very story-focused, but so in a very slow manner and with a comedy-romantic influence. You can call your friend at many times to hear some sort of "get laid already" and "you totally are gonna do something. 'cause she's a girl" commentary. Annoying or not, I have that type of friend as well, so I could smile about that.
There are many playerchoices resulting in slightly different belief systems and narrations - like you being ambitious or not. And while they do not seem to influence the story progression, it does alter some dialogue as it is talked about in conversation. A pretty nifty feature.
As a whole, however, the story falls very flat - with very predictable and clichéd course of actions, drawn out into a long timespan. I believe the story as a whole would benefit from a faster pace early on. Especially once you arrived in your old home.

But there is also one problem coming up with the pacing. Now, I realize you can use some humorous break every now and then. You need to relax and break the tension before spiking it again - BUT - there is nothing to break.
You have the introduction full of silly references from favorite games to DerplePie playing games on Wetube, you get a random bathing scene, you can show some German girls the way to the station. There even is a silly early game over.
All right after another. It was amusing - but it clashes with the horror-esque, rundown city areas, the murder case near your flat, the dirty and foggy colorplate of your town.

If you are shooting to make a contrast to what is unfolding in the future - then the starting area should suit this and give way from "normal life as it should be" to .. something is off.
As it is, the city our protagonist lives in is horror-styled without any reason to be. There are no scares to be had, there is no danger, no nothing.


Yes, yes indeed. Just once.

The setting itself could very well be used to give us a general uneasiness following around - I found the store specifically atmospheric, but it does not do well together with the constant jokes.
Even in the "dark forgotten past" the library is already full of amusing books, sorted alphabetically. With books like "Zombies and My Dog", "Zombo: The Masked Zombie" and "Zoo of Zombies" stacked in one shelf, I cannot help but smile.
The apparant obsession with the occult of our protagonist is portrayed as a silly quirk, instead of something mysterious or dangerous that it can actually be in this game world.

The only really tense and engaging moment I had was right at the very beginning - starting out as a child, getting up late at night to check on what is happening. And the very moment this atmosphere built up, me hungry for more, it is interrupted and the scenery switches to the present city. It was a very jarring transition and quite a shame it could not keep the atmosphere.

Similar transitions problems do arise, and the constant lovey-dovey company does make for a great distraction.

What really brings the gaming experience down is the slow walking speed accompanied with lots of backtracking in your house. It feels as though I spent 80% of the playtime in one house with no danger whatsoever, walking between the rooms trying to find what I need to do next. There are few to no indications of where you need to go (go search for the scenes!), so you just keep checking everything.

To get one item to proceed you needed to hit a switch which only works for a limited time! Yet while you noticed "something" happened "somewhere", you had no way of knowing where exactly. And you have to backtrack 2-3 times simply because the switch ran out with you knowing nothing of the whereabouts! (+ the more "suspicious" rooms you paid more attention to beforehand are not where you need to go)

Chase scenes, too, are more of a chore rather than anything else. Simply because you have to either keep track of the exact movements (which you in the first case could not possibly observe without dying a couple of times), or you need to move perfectly (forest scene). Which you will not be able to do without repeating it a couple of times.
This not only takes out the tension, it is downright frustrating. A chase alone is not scary. A simple image flashing up is scary once or twice perhaps, but that is the limit.


Exactly. My. Thoughts.

It is such a shame that there really is nothing frightening, unsettling, or even uncomfortable in this setup. There is too much banter, too much distraction - and then there are clustered horror-scenes thrown in to put horror into the horror game.
Why are the environments not used better?
There are indicators of nightmares - why do we not get any details on them?
Why are we told our protagonist has seen some strange monsters?
Why have we not seen or noticed them ourselves?
Why does our characters have to spill out they are scared?

These bits all seem incredibly forced and clustered!
There could be so many ways to weave such elements into the general world with great detail.

The house could have so many more traces of the occult. It could show blood, gore, whatever really of demonic traces during the night and be fine at day. You could have eyes looking at you in the dark - even if harmless, they make you wary of who or what is there.

And that is the first I can think of.


Despite that, the general atmosphere created by the brilliant music and the muddy graphics give such a great base! The portraits and sprites, too, give off a more mature feeling and a break from animu-styled loli girls. In fact, I thought the child protagonist looked older than he actually was - but once I had the comparison to the older one, this impression quickly faded away.
Yet they cannot be used to the fullest simply because they are accompanied by happy or neutral banter most of the time.

I really feel that the components are of great quality, but they simply do not form an immersive experience.
It seems as though this could have easily been focusing on romantic comedic banter than on the actual horror, and that seems odd.

Posts

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Thank you, Kylaila for your feedback. :) We will keep your words in mind for the upcoming act and try for a more horroresque approach. :D It's good to hear the opinion from someone, who is so much into horror games.
Pages: 1