Blackwell Epiphany

I'll start by explaining what I do like about this game. First off, the artwork is a huge step up from the other games in the series. This is also a much longer game than previous entries to the series. Most of the puzzles were interesting and reasonable for someone to figure out on their own, too. The game makes doing research and finding crucial information very satisfying, as this series has always done particularly well. That being said, it is insane how hard the last 10% of the game invalidates everything you've been working towards. None of the leads that are foreshadowed to be important later are actually allowed to come to a meaningful conclusion. Some loose ends are left completely unanswered, and some are explained so directly and in such a forced way that it feels like they scrapped a quarter of the game while they were running out of time at the end of production. [spoiler]Not that those explanations matter at that point, because the mystery of the Grace Group turns out to be a complete joke and Madeline was the baddie the entire time. To an extent twists in stories are fine, but the way this one was handled reduced the entire investigation into a red herring.[/spoiler] The ending sequence tanked the quality of the dialogue and ripped apart the story I was bought into. It felt like a cheap way to end a series and was so contrived, over-the-top, and gave me so many "Oh, I guess [spoiler]Rosa can do that now for some reason, with no explanation of how any of this works[/spoiler]" that something as big as [spoiler]Rosa's death and Joey's revival[/spoiler] just made me feel like it was worked in to try to get some cheap emotional reaction for very little investment and a very sudden change in tone. Some elements of the ending might have even worked if literally any of it were alluded to earlier in the story. As much as I would like to recommend this game, it feels like a narrative rugpull and a very disappointing way to end a series that I liked quite a lot and a game that I had high hopes for.

This is a review of the entire [b]Blackwell[/b] series of games. I recently marathoned the entire saga, and I discovered this to be a series held entirely by its rich dialogue and excellent voice-acting combined with light, fun adventure-game puzzles set in a pulpy, noir-laden New York setting. The first game is understandably more modest in scope as it establishes the world and its leads, but from the second game onward the series quickly settles into the identity that makes it special. I became a fan of Wadjet Eye Games after trying out Unavowed as my first, and that introduction turned out to have a powerful impact on my enjoyment of this game. If the rougher look of these games deters you from checking them out, I recommend actually playing Unavowed, and then Blackwell, as you may enjoy unraveling these games more, after that great experience. The stars of the game are Rosangela Blackwell and her spirit guide, Joey Mallone, and they absolutely carry the series. Their banter is palpable in a way that kept me glued and curious to learn more about them from beginning to end. There is a lot of ‘show, don’t tell’ in how they are presented, in the sense that you can glean a lot of information about who they are as people based on their modes of speech, knowledge, vernacular, and moral stances. Their relationship is also consistently evolving, in the sense that in-between games, you can tell that they develop their own in-jokes and familiarity that only the closest of bonded companions can form. This does not just apply to our leads, either. The other characters our leads encounter between games tend to have a range of memorable personalities; some lean on larger-than-life and absurd while others can be easily sentimental and down-to-earth. I want to talk about two stand-outs. The first is Rosa’s Auntie, Lauren Blackwell, who is introduced in the first game as Joey's former host, a woman who eventually went utterly insane. The second game reveals her to have been a much more confident, albeit cynical investigator, serving as a great flashback experience. Her impression was strong enough that I found myself posing a curious question: What happened to her? Another example of a strong side-character is Sam Durkin, a reoccurring detective who surprised me when I recognized him as a character from Unavowed, which I played before the Blackwell games. We only encounter him briefly in Unavowed, but in Blackwell, there is a lot to learn about our rugged, no-nonsense detective, and it makes seeing this new side of him captivating. There is another more well-known Unavowed character, but I won’t spoil that surprise discovery. The general gameplay in the Blackwell games is what I will call contextually serviceable, which sounds almost like a flaw but I feel that the puzzles are just light and easy enough to never really get in the way of the total experience. This is clearly a game where you are meant to enjoy the story, characters, and setting more than the puzzles, so in that regard, its gameplay not breaking boundaries or adventure-game conventions is fine. Had the puzzles been much more complex, I think they actually would have gotten in the way. The more I played, the more I simply wanted to spend time with Rosa and Joey. One fun running tradition from the third game onward is that each game opens up almost like an adventure-serial like an Indiana Jones flick where you are dropped straight into the climax of whatever current ghost-case our leads got themselves roped into. It’s a fun way to keep the momentum for the player, because instead of feeling like you are going through the motions of gathering clues and solving a case, you are instead chucked directly into the post-gathering, leaving you in an anticipatory vibe the minute you start each subsequent game. In conclusion, these are really great games. What elevates them beyond being five enjoyable adventures is how each installment quietly recontextualizes the ones before it, rewarding players who stick with the entire journey. The short length of each makes them very easy to binge. If you have played Unavowed, I’d say the length of all five games is about the same length as Unavowed, itself, which is part of the reason I decided to simply review them all at once. I imagined some store-viewers will have discovered this fifth game as the most popular, and while it definitely is the exciting conclusion, I urge you that if you have any interest in this game, snag the first three, and if you find yourself hooked by that third game, then please: Enjoy the rest of the story. Highly recommended.

Well that was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ downer. I've put zero effort into avoiding spoilers below, sorry. Okay, to be fair, this is a really good game. I loved it, loved the twist, loved the gameplay. It was honestly the best-composed game in the series in basically every way. It was excellent. But man that conclusion was just so unsatisfying. [spoiler]Like what was even the point of Rosa as a character? Her ancestor's lives sucked, her life sucked, and then she dies and it's like "well sucks to be her." Like what was the conclusion here, "Sometimes your family gets cursed into oblivion and everyone dies, sucks to be you?" And it's hard to not point out what a typical fridging that was. It was some really, really basic "women's power to is sacrifice themselves" stuff that honestly felt incongruous with the rest of the game, and it basically cut Rosa's character arc off at the knees. She has no character arc now. What bothers me is there were so many better options. For one, having them both live free and happy would have felt completely earned, especially considering everyone else in the game basically dies, and it would have meant something to see the 'end' of the Blackwell Legacy and the freeing of the family. But I also would have liked to see, say, a Rosa who now will have to deal with periodic mental health episodes as a consequence for what she did; I think this would have been a very nuanced and interesting ending, her freeing Joey and her family but it affecting her permanently. And I think Joey giving up his soul to save Rosa would also have been a great bittersweet ending, or maybe him just moving on now that the crisis has been averted -- an epilogue scene about her trying to readjust to life without him would have been pretty moving, I think. I think Rosa never getting a character resolution is bad for her, but I also think Joey being like, "Well, okay. Guess I just have to go live my life or whatever," was also a really unsatisfying conclusion for him. His story has been about not being able to save people and trying to find his purpose-- to have to end with him saving Rosa would have brought things full circle. But now he just kind of... peters out. He doesn't gain any clarity or sense of purpose, or even the insight that 'purpose' isn't real or is besides the point -- he just meanders away from the screen. The ending also weirdly circumvents any resolution to the smaller plot of this game -- why don't we see Durkin again and find out how the case went? I wanted so badly to see Rosa tell him the truth, but barring that, why not see him putting some things together on his own? Or at least show us how he reacts and interprets everything. And because the rest of the cast is dead (lol) there's no one else to check in with, so the game kind of just... stops... after the climax. I get the sense that this was another "protag death = edgy, edgy = deep" writing decision. But those decisions are so cheesy and over-the-top, -- melodrama is the opposite of deep, it's the most trite and obvious choice, and also uninteresting. Seeing Rosa deal with the fallout of everything is way, way more interesting than there not being anything to wrap up. And again, making a character arc that spanned like 10 years and 5 games go nowhere just sucked.[/spoiler] Okay, I've said my piece about the ending. Let's talk about the good stuff. First, this isn't just me in 2025 talking, the implication is Joey was in love with Danny, right? And was jealous when Danny started seeing his girlfriend? And then literally sacrificed his life for him at their spiffy clothing shop because he loved him so much? I genuinely can't think of any other interpretation of Madeline saying, "Your whole aura lights up when you talk about Danny," along with everything else about their plotline and how the relationship is portrayed. I wish this had been made explicit at the end, since I think it adds so much to Joey's character and the way he interacts with the world. I did not see the twist coming and really enjoyed it. I think the trajectory of protag fails miserably and everyone dies > protag finds a way to save the world was really satisfying, and losing the two ghosts after all that was SUCH a gut punch, as was seeing Rosa lose her mind and realizing what happened to all the Blackwells... it all worked so well for me. It was such an emotional rollercoaster. I said above I was a little disappointed to see this turn toward a conspiracy plot last game but I ended up really liking how it worked out. Yeah there was a save-the-world conclusion but for the most part the game stayed focused on the kind of intrapersonal stuff that I liked most about it -- even the big stuff was based around people we knew so it felt personal and epic at the same time, and that was really nice. That said... the vampire society is still out there, right? And axing Rosa means now there's no one to investigate it? That was a weird hanging thread. Surely it should have ended them pursuing the vampires as a potential way in for a sequel or even a new generation of Blackwells and spirit guides to go after them? God killing Rosa was such a bad choice. I know I said I was done but UGH. I liked Heather's plotline a lot, it was really sweet. I also think the Fielding family's was a really nuanced look at how siblings can have completely different relationships with their own family. Emotional intelligence really continues to be WE's bread and butter. Oh, also, I liked the modern UI. The Android 1.0 version was indeed ugly but I think the modernized version in this game was nice looking and way smoother to interact with. On the whole, I'm glad I played this series. It was interesting and unique and thoughtful. Gilbert also was the lead on 2018's Unavowed and 2025's Old Skies, and I'm curious to see where his writing has gone in the intervening years, though neither are genres I'm particularly interested in (I hate time travel stories, they never make any sense...), and as far as I'm aware they're not detective stories, so it may be a while before I get to them. Anyway this was certainly an interesting experience and I'm glad I played through them all even after how much I disliked the first. Definitely worth making your way through if you're in the mood for something interesting and unique, though I don't know that'd I'd consider them general recs considering the series' unevenness. But they do fall into that 'if this is the type of game you like then it's a good thing to check out' bin. And tbh I suspect I'll remember the series more fondly once my irritation about the ending mellows with time. edit: Omg, I can't believe I forgot to bring up my favorite part of possibly any game ever: When Ben's like wow, we should get out of here and Joey goes, "What, are you going to go haunt Jersey?" And Ben just goes, "Yes," and just floats across the Hudson into the middle distance and Joey just stands there like what the actual ♥♥♥♥. I hope that was supposed to be hilarious because it absolutely killed me, I loved it. It had real "Not one livable apartment" energy.

A fantastic series that, in my opinion, is best experienced by playing all the games back2back, allowing the story to unfold as one cohesive and rewarding journey. I loved the characters, the central mystery, and the way each installment gradually reveals more of the bigger picture. The voice acting is excellent, the soundtrack is memorable, and the atmosphere is consistently immersive. Combined with topnotch storytelling, it makes for an unforgettable experience from beginning to end.

Ties things up nicely. Now TELL ME WHO TOMO IS!

I see Wadjet Eye game, I play.

A fine and intuitive point-and-click that shows pretty clearly the pieces of other even better games falling into place. You can even play it with a commentary track to find out what the devs were thinking at various points, which I think is a really nice touch. Fittingly, this is the best of the Blackwell games, all of which are good and all of which I can recommend. This story is much enriched by playing the earlier games, even though you don't have to. The Blackwell series also functions as a nifty companion piece to Unavowed, which clearly takes place in the same universe... as, I think, Old Skies does as well. If you liked those games and encountered them first, it's worth going back to this series to see where it all started.

Each episode is better than the last, and that holds true here. Great pixel art, music, and voice acting with emotional impact! All tied together in a touching story. A great ending to an amazing series!

I do think the finale of the series might also be its peak. I'm not 100% confident in that, but I also have a few reasons for thinking so. I'll get the cons out of the way first, however. Visually I had a couple qualms. Some of the backgrounds seemed disproportionately low resolution, even as the technology advanced for this fifth and final game. The UI changes also felt generally negative, moving towards the generic. Onto the positives, this game had far better puzzle design than the last- I never had to tab out to look for a guide- the in game guidance was always enough if I ever felt stuck. I do think the sprites recovered from their hitch in appeal from the last game- as evidenced by the sprite lineup from the credits. The voice acting was the best it's ever been, with some performances (especially a certain part of Abe Goldfarb's Joey Mallone) evoking a strong emotional reaction in me. Curiously, this game did follow the plot hook the end of game 4 set up, but I didn't mind, as I didn't much care for that hook. It definitely feels like more could be done in the Blackwell setting, but this series is certainly at a close. [spoiler]But onto what really fascinated me- Is Joey gay? I'd not particularly considered it before- he's always come off as a bit misogynistically lecherous, with a heavier emphasis on the former. However, there is a major moment during a flashback in this game, where Madeline and Jocelyn are trying to help Joey move on, when they discuss his business partner an emotion enters his voice that has not been heard before- as does a layer of implication about his... partner. Was this intentional? I'm not sure. It's just the one moment, and outside of it, I'm not convinced the developers display knowledge that gay people exist, which given the setting in NYC, is a bit silly. But I think it is an interesting read- Joey being in the closet, perhaps holding a flame or even having a relationship with a man he would give his life for, then burying that part of him as he moves to be trapped as a spirit for reasons he dares not name. He spends decades being the wisecracking, womanizing ghost we know- one who never has to confront the possibility of actual romance or sex with a woman. He is all fluff and bluster, being what a "man" should be without the responsibility of proving it, until he is one day restored by Rosa- And in his second chance, almost a century later, his life can be worth the living. He can be himself. Is this true and intentional? Doubtful. But the moments around the man he died for are the most emotional we ever see Joey, on par or (I'd argue) above his fear and grief over the Blackwells. And finding the meaning in that was my own personal Epiphany. [/spoiler]

Awesome ending to a great series. A must play.