Aaaah, I have been waiting for this! Daniel George is a dear friend of mine, an independent horror games developer of the sunny California I first knew when I played the predecessor of this game, i.e., the first Chester game. As I moved my first steps into the first version of that little title (that, FYI, has been updated multiple times), I clearly felt that it had been assembled with limited resources and experience by a person that, although outstandingly talented and passionate... let's say did not completely know what he was doing at the time! But that inexperienced person grew very fast. He listened to feedback with a completely open mind, he learned, he took the brave life decision to fully concentrate on game developing, and now here he is, publishing the successor of Chester. What I am seeing now goes far beyond my initial expectations. Really, let's forget Daniel is a friend of mine and look at this game objectively. Chester: Into The Light is no common indie title, it can easily aspire to greatness. I saw huge leaps forward in practically every single aspect of game developing. The graphics and the visuals are spectacular. The sound design is flawless. The level design is always on spot. And above all that, what truly made my mouth widely open up was the variety of the gameplay. Every single chapter, every single one of them, comes with new challenges that must be faced with new mechanics. I cannot stress enough the importance of this. There is no repetition here. No recycled mechanics. There is always something new that keeps the game fresh and interesting. You are kept glued to the screen until the very end, with no pauses. This particular feature, that was pretty normal back in the days when games were still good, is practically non-existent nowadays, when repetition seems to be mandatory. I repeat, this game is much more ambbitious than it may seem at a first glance, and could easily achieve a huge success. But be aware: this game is designed to be tough, and is heavily based on trial and error. If you are not ok with that, than you won't like it. It is a matter of taste, really, so think well before giving it a try. That said, I have just two major complaints, that I'll explain below:
- the volume of the voice over is really too low, at least in comparison with the volume of all other sound effects. I enourmously appreciated the inclusion of a proper plot, but... unfortunately, due to this issue, I couldn't hear a single word! Due to health issues I cannot wear headphones, so, really, all I could hear was a confused mess
- sometimes the difficulty is honestly artificial. Many deaths are honestly not deserved by the player due to unarguably unbalanced design choices. For example, [spoiler] in the mini-chesters section of chapter 4, why on Earth can't we get past the row of cups on the table???? The challenge is hard enough as it is without this unexplicable limitation! Another example: in many challenges Chester randomly teleports around, and we have absolutely no clue about where he is going to appear next, so if we are in the wrong place at the wrong time, simply by chance, well... instant death out of nowhere! [/spoiler]
These are the only flaws that come to my mind as of now. To conclude, I am extremely happy to see that my friend has grown so much, and, let me say, I am very proud that, in a very very very small percentage, I am responsible for this growth process ;)
Cheers guys!
