Recent reviews by aettic

This game is trying to do some interesting things, but it really just fails at most of them. The art style is interesting, and it's a throwback to classic games, but the interactivity of the menus and interfaces suffer because of that retro-style. In the modern day, creating an interface that lets you interact with the puzzles more intuitively should not be compromised because of art style. You can have both.

The story is weird. The characters are all basically unlikable, the relationships are needlessly complicated, and the plot itself is hanging on by a thread.

My biggest issue, though, regardless of interface or story, is the way that there appears to only be one right path most of the time, and choosing the other options will either get you killed (over and over again, especially with some of the unintuitive puzzles) or will just funnel you back into the "correct" path and basically call you stupid for trying something different.

I can tell this game was made with passion. The dev(s) definitely seem to be familiar with the Mothman mythology - at least in passing - but the story takes on insanely convoluted and downright silly turns, for seemingly no reason. It's a game that is simultaneously trying to present genuine drama and complex character interactions while also using some of the goofiest nonsense storytelling I've ever seen.

If you're in for a laugh and you don't mind replaying the same sections over and over (because of dying to things while you try to figure out the correct option to click), give it a shot. Don't expect it to be interesting or fun.

I'm only about 10 hours into the game, but I already love it. I feel like I'm about halfway done with the story. I've gone in completely blind, and I'm so glad I did, this game is a joy to discover and figure out. Soma is scary, it's unbelievably atmospheric, it's spooky (yes, scary and spooky are different things), and it keeps me coming back for more. Very excited to eventually finish this weeks from now.