I have mixed feelings about this "game" and would have wished I could have given it an neutral answer here on Steam.
I had really high hopes (being a massive horror fan) and I do definitely like parts of the "game" and did in several chapters of it feel exited about the characters and their developments and wanting to know what happens next. The graphics are also really good most of the time, even to the point that you can clearly see who the actors of the characters are, since they have modeled the characters on the actors playing them. The actors and voice-lining is also really good, far better than in almost any other game I've seen. But the main problem is that this is not really a game. When it is best, it's more of a semi-interactive movie. The game parts are only a very small part of the "game" and they have severe problems. At times, especially in the prologue, the interactive elements really made me feel more a part of the story and made it a lot scarier, but at other times they feel more like an interruption of the story and quite lazy made. For example, a lot of the "choices" you have to make are not really choices at all, since the same thing will happen either way. That is one of the worst things about this "game". Also, most of the time, you lack the ability to make real choices when it really matters and could divert the story in genuine different directions.
While choices do at times have effects, even severe effects, it seems like that the creators only really bothered to make one plot line and are therefore forcing you to follow the same narrow road with small differences, no matter what you do. That is just lazy, bad storytelling and kinds of ruins the whole idea of the game. More real choices with more real different effects would have made it so much more exiting and drastically increased the replay value, if decisions would branch into entirely different plot lines. A lot of games not focusing as much on "choices" as this one officially do, actually ends up giving the player more possibilities of choosing different of the story that this "game". Also, there are some glaring plot holes and a lot of places where the characters acts really stupid and irrational, more than can possible be believable in any way. Even when all goes to hell, they often still makes some really illogical choices beyond anything people could reasonably be expected to make. Unfortunately, the story is dependent on these irrational stupid actions of the characters for the plot to hang together. This is a sign of bad writing. If your story is dependent on people acting like idiots, it's because the plot is idiotic. There are no excuses. Good horror plots are not dependent on constantly glaringly idiotic decisions by the characters. I don't mind that the story is set off by stupid decisions before they know something is wrong, but it gets annoying and breaks the engagement with the story when it continues to the degree it does here.
The walking scenes where you control the characters are on the one hand nice, in that it is there that you have actually gameplay control, but they do at the same time suffer a lot. In a way, this is saying a lot about how little of an actual game (in the traditional sense at least) this really is. The controls are clunky and reminds me of the worst controlled adventure games of the 90s and the camera angles are at times really bad. A lot of the time they are working fine, but at times (for example playing Emma at the campfire) they make the sections infuriating and almost unplayable. Also, the characters walks way to slow and these sections can at time take up a lot of time, not justified by what is actually going on, just dragging out the story.
A problem is also the darkness/brightness settings. Even if you follow the guide in the game helping with setting it right, or even if you don't, it ends up being very dark. And quit clearly darker than meant to as there are several instances where the camera is trying to show something that is not possible to see because it is to dark. At the same time the brightness shifts when scenes cuts, so it can become a lot brighter suddenly.
Despite the many drawbacks, I did find quite a lot to like, enough to finish and enjoy the game. But it could have been so much better and I can't help feeling disappointed and questioning why the reviews are not more critical of the many glaring problems. The main reason, for now, to recommend this game is that there aren't to many similar games, but I do hope that better similar games will be made in the future.
