Gamedec - Definitive Edition

This game has a lot of interesting things going on, but I found the core lacking. The game progresses through deductions, but I never really felt like those deductions had much of an impact at all on the way things moved forward, particularly as we got into the endgame. I didn't really care about the wider plot, and the further in I got, the less I felt like the choices I made had any meaningful effect. There were also some smaller issues along the way, like clunky dialogue and grammatical issues, and a lack of subtitles despite some spoken dialogue that was at points hard to hear (the spoken dialogue was generally just background stuff, but I was annoyed that I couldn't figure out what it was saying).

Gamedec is a really interesting game, especially if you enjoy games where the story and investigation are more important than combat. I honestly liked the concept a lot. You're basically a detective in a futuristic world where people spend their time inside different virtual worlds, and your job is to investigate crimes that happen both inside and outside them. It's a pretty unique setting and gives the game a lot of opportunities to tell different kinds of stories. The best part for me is definitely the investigation and choices. There isn't really traditional combat, so instead you're solving cases by talking to people, finding clues, gathering information and figuring out how to approach different situations. Your decisions can actually change how things play out, which makes you pay more attention than you normally would in a game like this. I also really liked the idea of entering different virtual worlds. Each one has its own rules, atmosphere and problems, and you slowly start understanding how this futuristic society works through the cases you're investigating. The worldbuilding is probably stronger than I expected. There's a lot of interesting stuff about virtual reality, corporations, identity and how people interact with these digital worlds. That said, the game is definitely not perfect. The lack of combat might disappoint people expecting a more traditional RPG, and some investigations can feel a little too straightforward. The presentation and animations are also fairly limited compared to bigger narrative games. But I think Gamedec works precisely because it tries something different. It's not an action RPG where you solve everything with a gun or a sword. You're a detective, and your main weapons are your knowledge, your choices and your ability to figure people out. A very interesting and underrated narrative RPG. Not perfect, but if you enjoy detective games, cyberpunk and choice-driven stories, there's a lot to like here.