Recent reviews by greyscale

The reason I give this a negative review is that Hangar 13 should be capable of delivering a better product than this, especially after the disaster that was Mafia 3. By no means is Old Country a bad game, but it is kind of like that Homer Simpson meme of him tying his fat behind his back. While this game was a huge step forward it's still not what it should be. And although the game is a little cheaper than the usual full-price title these days, the story is a bit too short with almost no incentive to keep playing post credits (more on that later).

The good things:
Overall I liked the story albeit being predictable. The actors did a great job of portraying their roles and the setting was interesting. Having the option to go stealth or head-on combat was great. You always have a bit of freedom deciding how to approach areas. Driving those early 1900s cars felt as clunky as it should, horse riding good as well. It was generally fun to do the missions and see what happens next, even if you can always see things coming from a mile away. And if you got tired of going from place A to B you had the option to skip the travel. The soundtrack is amazing!

The bad things:
My biggest gripe besides technical issues is probably the decision to make free-roam available only after completing the story. I can see why it was decided to make it like this but this causes several issues for me. First of all, it automatically makes the story seem shorter as there isn't really breathing room in between that lets you look for collectibles to exchange for upgrades. You never even really go to the area that lets you get upgrades. And most of the world you never get to see in the first place. Secondly, you have absolutely no reason to really explore the free roam option you unlock after the credits. There is no point anymore to look for collectibles, no reason to purchase upgrades. Despite playing on Hard, it's never really too much of a challenge no matter if you choose stealth or combat.

Then there's the technical side of things. Thankfully it runs good for the most part. At the very start of the game I had one HARD crash. PC just turned off instantly and wouldn't turn back on before powercycling it. Disabled the Unreal frame generation and the game ran without issues.
I had some weird audio glitches as well. Especially when there's audio of someone coughing playing it's just super repitive and almost seems layered on top of itself. I also had bucket noises constantly repeating (I guess something was clipping somewhere) or random car crash sounds when entering a cutscene.
I encountered a few moments of enemies spotting me through walls, getting shot at (and hit) from places with literally no enemies (you could see nuzzle fire but nobody really in that place). The heads of horses like to clip through the butts of the horses riding in front of you. When using storage crates to hide knocked out NPCs there's foliage clipping through the boxes. If you decide to place more than one NPC in those boxes you'll be surprised to see the box you just placed someone in be empty. Sometimes you can even see the NPC you just placed in it vanishing from the box as it closes.
Looting enemies uses the same key as swapping weapons on the ground which could have been done better to avoid accentialy swapping weapons.
I also encountered issues during chase sequences. Blocking off their car to let your NPC buddy shoot them (obviously) doesn't do anything as they are scripted to survive. You can not exit your car at that point either to shoot them yourself, not that it would work anyways. My point here being, it should probably be scripted in a way you can't catch the NPCs you're chasing at that point.

Another big issue is the way combat encounters work. Most of the time you reach an area, you'll see two NPCs talk, then one walks away and both have them have their backs turned so you can take them out. Rinse and repeat. Distracting them is almost never needed.
Likewise, boss encounters are just the same pattern over and over too. You both decide to drop your guns and start knife combat. Once the enemy reached 75% health it's CUTSCENE TIME with maybe the occasional quick time event. Same thing AGAIN at 50% health till eventually you kill the enemy or OH WONDER they escape. What could be an interesting and fun concept gets so incredibly predictable and boring, it's really a shame.

There's probably more than this I forgot but it's already long enough as it is. The TLDR would be, that it's a fun seemingly polished game with lots of issues hiding underneath. Many things could have been done better, and Hangar 13 should know better at this point. It's a bit too expensive considering both the playtime of maybe 12h and the gameplay issues

I'm torn about this one but decided to leave a positive review.

The game looks very nice, gameplay is mostly fun, and the atmosphere is great. This is the first game from a small new team, but the experience the individual members brought in from working on AAA titles shows. The obvious issue here as mentioned by others is the price tag of 40 Euro.

I took my time, tried various things and failed many times. Gathered all colletibles and achievements. Despite all that I finished everything in less than 8 hours and there's no replay value to me. I'd agree with most people that this is overpriced.

In terms of gameplay, it's really fun (especially in later levels that introduce new mechanics) despite being way too linear and simple. The few times you'd have to think a bit more the game did unfortunately instantly narrate the solution...why would you do that? Let the player figure things out. Despite getting somewhat more complex as the game progresses it's never really too challenging or elaborate which is a huge missed opportunity.

The story was...okay? Nothing groundbreaking, your usual plot shenanigans here and there, just enough depth to understand the motivations of the characters. Considering the game is heavily inspired by Gothenburg it felt weird to me to have the voice acting done in British English instead of Swedish, or at least English with a more Swedish or "neutral" accent.

TLDR: If you have the money to spare, by all means buy the game. But if you want proper value, wait for a 50% sale.

This game is truly unique and amazing, especially at this price point. I hit credits at around the 20h mark but there's still soooo much left to do and it's super addicting. It's hard to talk about the game itself without spoiling. The game goes so much deeper than you first expect. As someone who loves puzzle games this really hits an itch and you just can't stop playing even if it's frustrating.

And that very frustrating part, which at times made me consider writing a negative review, is what I'll come to now: The (seemingly) luck based factor a.k.a. RNG

It is SO INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING when you figure out a puzzle but the game just decides to not give you certain items or rooms. Having a lot of digging spots? No shovel for you. Gained a lot of coins this time? Sorry, no stores today. Managed to get a special key for something? Yeah the room you need it for is unavailable today. Most of the time it feels like the game is actively trying to sabotage you so you don't progress too fast and pad your playtime or rage quit. It just feels totally wrong when you make sure to always place rooms in a way to leave you several "outs" to make sure you don't just rely on one path only for the game to make you end up in a dead end anyways. At least in my opinion, failure should always be a thing of "you played wrong" instead of "dice says no" so I feel like it wouldn't hurt the game if there was a bit less luck involved

Poncle the kind of dev to make you feel like you're stealing with how much content you get for free

Great experience. Considering this is a walking simulator it still has a lot of actual gameplay elements that are very fun. The atmosphere, design and soundtrack are amazing across the board. It's easy to tell which media inspired aspects of this game. I wasn't too much of a fan of the later developments in the story (a bit too supernatural for my taste, and too much at once I guess) but despite that I enjoyed discovering it all. Pricing is great considering the amazing quality and polish

A lot cheaper than cocaine

Relaxing but fun little game. While it might only be about 1h long it's definitely worth the money, especially to support indie developers. While I personally didn't enjoy the bottle collecting mechanic and was a bit "annoyed" by the slow menu navigation due to the animations, it by no means ruined the experience. I'd love to see the concept get expanded on in the future.

An amazing fun game that is one of the bests in its genre. Frustrating at times, it's still a fun challenge. The dev is very passionate and involved in the community which is a big plus too. It was fun to see how this game grew since the early access stages

What puts this game above other titles in the genre is the level of polish and QoL. If you naturally explore all choices you will have no issues getting to 100% in each chapter. There's also a clear indicator which choices have an effect on the different characters fondness of you and you can even filter for the character you want to change. For some people however this game might lack depth, due to the lack of fondness-checks throughout the story. It pretty much only matters at the end of the game.

Audio is ADR but (unfortunately) to be expected. The English subtitles seem to be machine translation just like in other games of this kind, but due to the simplicity of the dialogues nothing really seems to get lost in poor translation. At the point of writing this review there is only 1-2 scenes without a translation. But it's nothing you can't progress through simple trial and error and I'm sure it might get fixed at some point. The main market for these types of games is domestic anyways.

The stories itself aren't exactly unique or special. The character tropes are pretty standard too. But unlike other games, generally the roles are portrayed really well and luckily there aren't really problematic characters in this game (looking at you, Five Hearts Under One Roof). The only character that might be slightly problematic is the teacher but even that is quite tame

Outstanding game that manages to deliver a big experience with very simple game mechanics. The game concept is super intuitive and addicting in the best meaning of the word. Learning of the first two languages is straight forward enough for you to get hooked and get a feel for the different cultures in the game. Reaching the third language will really put your patience and deduction skills to the test. This game will reward you in the best ways for finding solutions and exploring the world, with the occasional easter egg here and there. Not to mention, the soundtrack and sound design are just as incredible as the visual style. Everyone should play this. You don't need to be super puzzle savy but rather willing to observe and try things