• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

A unique surreal rpg in 5 chapters. So no, not endless!

The Endless Empty is a game that immediately attracted me as soon as I was the bizarre landscaper and screens. I did not know what I could expect from this game, and I clearly was not prepared to this.

In the Endless Empty you play inside the man of a dying man. You are Static, an entity that is navigating the dying mind of their host, desperately attempting to find a way to continue living. In his adventures, like most other rpgs, Static will meet friend and foes and also party members that will join Static, like Trigger Finger (surely that neuron that pulled the trigger of the gun that used the host to suicide himself) and Anxiety. Each one has its own abilities hat will be useful during the adventure, but let's start from the beginning:


A test??? I love tests! Really!

The game is about travelling s bizarre land, the mind of the host, and from this point of view the game isn't so different from an typical Jrpg: there are random encounters, merchants that sells useful consumables (you pay with memories, but it's like spending gold coins!), restore-points where it's possible to heal the party, and so on. Combat is the usual amd simple Atb system against various monsters and beings, luckily our party members will prove useful and will also develop various abilities (that need energy to be used) as they learn levels (Trigger Finger is a great healer, for example!). The difficulty of the battles is medium, I did not find any difficulty with combat encounters, despite being this a very simple, almost bare bones system: do not expect lots of consumables or equipment available, all is really kept simple in order to leave the player focused on the story (oh and you can also save anytime, anywhere and restore the party for free in some special rooms.. so don't worry too much about the game difficulty).

But combat is just one of the obstacles that will be found during the travels, there are in fact also quizzes, puzzles and adventure segments in which you have to learn hos to solve a certain problem, for example most of the times this means finding a particular item or a way to overcome a roadblock.


This is combat against... well "weird things" and various entities, or monsters of the mind!

During the adventure our protagonist Static will also be presented with many choices and options... and these may shape him into new forma that will affect the ending. Punk? Artist?? Businessman??? Or something else entirely? If you make some particular choices you can even keep the first form (the Nothing), but this is really hard to do, in any case there are six different endings.

What about the graphics? Well these are really the best part or the game: I simply loved the surreal landscapes and locations of the game, populated by quirky characters. And, despite all this weirdness it's clearly possible to find a meaning and a critic to the society in all these bizarre places and events that are witnessed during the game (for example one of the first adventures sees Static searching for an employment agency that will help him to write a resume and ace a job interviene at a local company! The whole process is grotesque and hilarious!).

The use of colors, the style, the animations.. it's all really well done and inspired, locations are evocative and this game will surprise you at every corner, so that you will always swonder what will happen next! The game is divided into five chapters that are really different for music and graphic style.


Oh... uhm... ok, if you are so sure. Well.. Are you REALLY sure?


Verdict
This game is really a bit of everything: an adventure, an rpg, an experience and a work of art.
I just found two small issues: the first is that there are some typos (a pity), the second is that combat becomes annoying after a while since it feels like a sort of "time waster". I mean, there are no weapons to upgrade, or gear management, it is not bad at all but for me it was the weakest aspect of the game (I Also do not like random encounters, sigh)...since all the rest was SO good!

And since this is an almost perfect game, it deserve an almost perfect score! 4.5/5 is it!

Posts

Pages: 1
Frogge
I wanna marry ALL the boys!! And Donna is a meanc
18536
It's nice to see someone other than me giving this game some love too. I absolutely need to replay it one of these days haha
author=Frogge
It's nice to see someone other than me giving this game some love too. I absolutely need to replay it one of these days haha


Oh yeah, I agree and I should replay it someday too, to find csome other form and ending... I liked a lot setting and graphics..these are really inspired, pity that I wasn't fond of the random encounter thing. I would have have liked this even with combat removed entirely, since it is such a cool game!
Pages: 1