It's clear that there was a lot of potential here but the glue which holds everything together is full of jank. That's not to say the game is horrible by any stretch despite the significant marring of NPC AI, abysmal VO work (except for Robocop himself), repetitive missions, unconvincing animations, overuse of NPC models, poor writing and run of the mill gameplay. Given all of that, they nailed the Robocop theme throughout so there's that.

Sure, the first couple missions are interesting but everything following that is more or less the same over and over again. Levels start at the precinct and there are some boring optional things to do there before moving on to the same couple blocks of Detroit for the mission proper. From there, more optional quests to find minor crimes like blocking a fire hydrant or drinking in public. You can choose to issue tickets, upholding the law or just let it go and get some public trust or whatever. None of it is all that interesting.

From there, you will investigate a police lead which revolves around scanning the environment for clues and sometimes talking to a poorly written and voice acted NPC. This reveals a quest marker: Walk to the marker to advance to the next section where you will inevitably be prompted to breach the door, go into about 3-5 seconds of slow motion then shoot anyone that breaths in the head. However, if you hear talking on the other side of door you shoot everyone in the head except the hostage which happens more times that I care to remember. Later in the game you'll need to shoot them 2 to three times in the head. Yeah, whoopee.

Robocop is more or less impervious to damage making the game a breeze even at hard difficulty. Granted, that's how the movies are it makes for a snooze fest. Walking and "sprinting" is seemingly as slow as possible forcing you to spam the dash skill if you choose it. Speaking of skills, you will get so many skill points that you can unlock most of the skills in the game in a single play through although the skills aren't necessary since the game is so easy. I just wish there was a walk faster permanently skill. The ricochet mechanic was a nice addition, very Robocop, but it lets you stay behind cover while fragging everything with a head thus making an easy game already easier.

By about hour 8 of my 14 hour play through, the dialog and story became so tedious that I just couldn't bring myself to care and skipped every cut scene, every dialog exchange thereafter. Any dialog tree would be dealt with quickly by picking a dialog response that was either about upholding the law or backing up my status as a human just so I could get on with it.

Every level outside of the OCP building itself and the police station is designed to look like a rust belt dump. Movie accurate sure but designing settings that are so similar wears on the eyes. For a game that is trying to impart the feeling of the movies, it did that well but a game is far longer than a theatrical hour and a half and needs greater variety. Their success in duplicating the feel of the films setting so frequently almost drove me to a catatonic state.

Unless you have a hard on for Robocop and catatonia then skip this game.

6/10. It suffers from the worst thing that any game can suffer from: being totally average at best and mind numbingly boring at worst.

Less adventure game and more visual novel where your character will always be an artist but can choose some elements of their background. These elements change some dialog options and can influence characters. Choose the correct dialog for a character and your level of influence with them will help or hinder speech checks. Succeed in a check and the game usually gives you something interesting to see and read. I couldn't pass more then 4 speech checks throughout the whole game (lol) so I didn't get the achievement for passing 5 checks.

That being said, no decisions you make will alter the narrative so it's pretty linear when all is said and done. For instance, one thing that bothered me was that there is enough information to deduce the solution to the mystery the game presents however you are unable to actually solve it through the mechanics in the game. If you happen to realize what the solution is in the first or second act you can't reveal the solution to "beat the game" or change the plot in the 2nd and 3rd acts when you're given the opportunity.

While it's linear and the game does not change much depending on your actions or dialog, the mystery narrative, dialog, characters, medieval woodcut and manuscript art style and period music keep you interested in the game. Pentiment truly is a work of art. Give it a go if you like to read and are intrigued with whodunit style narratives. Don't expect this to be an adventure game with RPG elements like the marketing or others may suggest because it isn't.

8/10 wouldn't play again in the near future.