[h1] Utterly Pointless[/h1]
[i]Gothic 1881[/i] is a very short (less than 2 hours) RPGMaker game that really fails to deliver anything meaningful. For less than $2, I did not expect much, but I have played games that are less than an hour long that have left more of an impact to me than this game does. The ideas are definitely there to be elaborated on, but the overall execution of the ideas is really lackluster and bland. If I had to be perfectly honest, this feels like someone's college project.
[b]From here on out I will go in depth criticism with spoilers.[/b]
[spoiler]
[h1]Pros[/h1]
+ The health items being period appropriate. The fact you use an opium-laced tonic and morphine to heal yourself is quite clever.
+ There are a lot of things to examine and some of the observations are intriguing. Generally they do a good job at showing you how backwater and depressing the town is while also adding in clever historical details to give the player an idea on what kind of town they've come to.
+ The use of a grayscale pallet is interesting aesthetic choice to give that feeling of being in a 1881 town.
+ The magic meter is now a bullet/ammo meter. Very good idea since you use a gun as a weapon.
+ Interesting ideas such a an epidemic that is fabricated, and the subtle Lovecraftian vibe of ascending via higher knowledge and seeking the unknown.
+ The philosophical gravekeeper. I like how he questions the idea of death because of his profession. It makes sense given how many dead people the guy sees. The fact that one of his kids died also adds to his cynical nature.
+ Immediately after setting foot into the town, you already know something feels "off." The people act strange, and everyone seems to be paranoid and manic about something.
+ The sprites and portrait art are well-done. I especially like the main character's battle sprite. Something about a chibi mustache man pleases me.
+ Prompted savepoints before areas where you can potentially Game Over is a nice little warning and feature. Given the fact the main character cannot level up or grow stronger, this small saving grace at least warns the player that they are entering a dangerous area.
[h1]Cons[/h1]
- Stupid and pointless RPG-style combat. The first enemy, a werewolf you encounter, is numerically impossible to kill. I tried multiple times and used up all my healing items to no avail. I figured that you're probably not meant to kill it, so I just ran around it. The only other enemies you fight are regular wolves, and they are ridiculously easy compared to the werewolf. There are no bells or whistles to the combat--just attack, guard, and use items.
The battling serves absolutely nothing to the plot and exist merely to waste your time.
- The grayscale, while interesting, makes it hard to see certain environmental items. Some chests and paths are hard to distinguish at times from the background.
- Inconsistent container looting. Some things that look capable of looting are not clickable whereas they are in other rooms/squares.
- Treasure chests respawn either empty or with only 1 bullet. Again, what's the point? This mechanic exists to waste your time.
- Totally and utterly nonsensical story. For a game that tags itself as being "Story Rich," there isn't a whole lot of actual story going on in it. In fact, it doesn't seem to know what the hell it wants to be. It advertises itself as being a Gothic horror story, but it really doesn't know what kind of horror it wants to focus on. For example, there is a werewolf but it serves absolutely nothing to the plot. The writing seems to hint at first that there is a werewolf curse potentially going around town, but this is not brought up in the least--only hinted at with the wolf sounds and said werewolf (which is impossible to kill). The entire plot is nothing more than a waste of time. It leads into making you believe that there's possibly some Lovecraftian craziness going on, only to pull perhaps the stupidest twist ever which is that you're actually just in a virtual reality world and that nothing you did actually mattered in the least. Even the antagonist you were investigating the entire friggin game just up and disappears at the end of it, and the game just [i]ends.[/i] No questions are answered.
- Absolutely no character development except for maybe the gravekeeper guy. Everyone else might as well be cardboard cutouts.
- Seriously the ending is just pathetic. Even the explanation of why you're in a VR world that resembles a depressing 1881 town in Germany makes no sense. For whatever reason, you are just some guy who wanted to escape into a VR world for the past 10 years only to wake up not remembering anything. The world, which is actually 2081, has been poisoned by some kind of failed attempt to stop global warming and now the nitrogen levels are too high, making it impossible for people to breath properly. The game never explains why the main character dreams all this in the VR world or if the VR world he inhabited was shared by anyone else that's a real person. After finding out this "big reveal," you click on a tablet and the game ends with no fanfair. In fact, it just says game over with the credits.
- Very unremarkable soundtrack and sound design. The soundtrack is just sad piano songs on loop and they don't have any memorable melodic structures to be worth listening to on their own. The sound effects are just typical stock ones you'd find in a game like this.
- The mice sprites being completely impassable and blocking your way. This goes for the sheep too. There is no fun in waiting for a sprite to move on his animation just so you can leave a corner of a room.
- I genuinely can't tell if this game is meant to just troll you or if it's meant to be taken seriously.
- Lack of achievements or in-game menu that tells you if there are more than one ending. At the time of writing this, I was only able to find two endings: the one where you die by the werewolf or when you just quit the game at the tablet.
[/spoiler]
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
Do I recommend this? No. It's boring and waste of time. I definitely do think the creator(s) have some good ideas, but a short game like this is not the kind of platform to explore such ideas.
