Videos
Reviews:
-
While its time-looping challenge to prevent disaster is interesting, the execution of its mechanics stymie easy enjoyment
Ever since the release of Majora’s Mask, Nintendo fans have been well aware of the challenge and powerful potential for storytelling in time-looped adventures. Faced with a clock essentially ticking in the background your goal is to explore, talk to people, and look to find anything you can to help prolong your run up until the point you’re able to turn everything around. That aspect of Orten Was The Case is at least interesting, and while not everyone you run into will always make a lot of sense, learning the ropes of what is going on and how to find success can be rewarding. The issue is simply that mechanically having to do some platforming in places or other more mildly action-oriented things tends to be a bit of a mess. I think the art style and how your character interacts with the pretty flat art and environment is part of the problem, as you are left to simply guess what you may be able to interact with more often than not, but then the controls for performing these actions can’t really be considered remotely crisp or clean, making for a frustrating obstacle when you’re wasting time on things that should be far simpler. To the game’s credit, an interesting checkpoint system does at least give you some relief from having to always do everything from the get-go over and over again, but just keep in mind that can be a calculated risk if you wasted too much time getting that far. It’s not that bad an experience, but it could certainly be a better one.
Justin Nation, Score:Fair [6.1]