Sylvio: Black Waters

I usually don't write reviews, but I just have to for this game Just finished my first playthrough and i loved every second of it! The atmosphere and sound design is as perfect as ever and the soundtrack is so good as well, also I loved the premise of the story and though I would recommend playing the first two games of the series to understand the story a bit better, I think it can also be played as a standalone Absolutely fantastic game <3

too dark to see anything don't know what the hell to do lame

Just finished playing this (link at end of the review for anyone who wants to see a gameplay sample). I was torn on whether to give this a thumbs up or a thumbs down. I’ve decided to give it a tentative thumbs up just because there were aspects of the game I liked. However, this is one of those games where I wish Steam had a neutral option. I liked Sylvio and enjoyed both previous games. Sylvio: Black Waters is the third instalment, but I felt it wasn't as good. It's... a'ight, I guess? It picks up where Sylvio 2 left off, with protagonist Juliette on another world - presumably having been taken there by the aliens. I say 'presumably', because the game doesn't make any reference to said beings or explain who or what they were, as far as I'm aware. What ensues is an exploration of this world, unravelling the story of what happened there. Story-wise, the game's... just okay. It was engaging enough for me to stick with it, but I was hoping for something more. The story of Sylvio: BW feels like its own thing, and as far as I could tell didn't seem to have any substantial connection to the lore established in the previous games. Maybe I'm missing something here... The sound design is good, and the graphics are fine. People have mentioned that they are very dark, which is true - but the path you need to take is typically lit, so there's little chance of you getting lost (except perhaps in the main hub area, where the game might benefit from giving you a waypoint just so you know which direction you're sometimes meant to be going). Now let's talk about gameplay. Something new in this game is the gravity mechanic. For instance, you enter a new level and everything looks normal; then you find a ladder at a peculiar angle, and as you climb it the world around you turns and shifts, gravity begins moving in a different direction, and now the walls have become the floor, etc. It's a clever gimmick that enables the dev to take what are quite compact levels and make them seem bigger than they actually are, as well as find unique places to hide ghosts to record, etc. The only downside is that the levels are all fairly linear, whereas this sort of mechanic would benefit from level designs that are much more open and less linear (i.e. giving you multiple paths, thus giving the player more of a challenge and incentivising them to explore every corner in order to find the path they need to get that one ghost recording that is positioned in an odd location, etc). Another thing I liked about Sylvio: BW’s gameplay was that the gun mechanic of the original Sylvio was brought back - and the dev has definitely improved on it. In fact, there are four guns in Sylvio: BW: a pistol-type; a shotgun-type; an SMG; and even a sniper. Like the gun in the original Sylvio, they take more than one type of ammo: fluid-filled cartridges for short range, or marbles for longer distances. Throughout the world of Sylvio: BW you'll find statues - the remnants of the planet's inhabitants. Many are inert, but some hide hostile spirits (which look like human shapes made of golden particles, contrasting with the smoky hostile spirits of the original Sylvio). Wander too close to a statue containing a hostile spirit, and they'll bust out to attack. Which is where the different types of ammo come into play. If a spirit busts out, then you need to use the fluid cartridges. But if you have marbles, you could alternatively try destroying a statue before you get close enough to trigger the spirit within, negating any danger. But of course, not all statues contain spirits! However, if you look hard enough, you'll never run out of marbles - search every piece of abandoned furniture you find in the ruins. Nonetheless, I did have some criticisms of the weapons. I'm not sure the game needed as many guns as it provides - the sniper feels redundant given that your other weapons still have considerable range when loaded with marbles. Furthermore, defeating hostile spirits doesn't yield anything. In the original Sylvio, eliminating a hostile spirit would give an EVP recording (which might reveal clues, waypoints, etc). But in Sylvio: BW, this isn't the case. It would have been good for there to be a bit more of a reward to fighting off the hostile spirits. Which brings me to the main gameplay mechanic of all Sylvio games: EVP (electronic voice phenomena). The original Sylvio had you use your ghost-recording equipment to unscramble the audio of the dead to yield clues. Sylvio 2 then brought in the video camera mechanic, where you'd also get a visual recording that you had to scan through. This enabled some great creepy moments where you would see ghostly grey figures in the footage, which helped give Sylvio 2 a horror atmosphere without any jumpscares. So how does Sylvio: BW compare? If I'm brutally honest, the EVP mechanics felt bland by comparison. I hate to say it, but I didn't think they were as good as the first two games. Partly it's because most of the levels are linear, and the locations of all ghostly voices are marked out by a particle effect that is easy to see. In contrast, the original Sylvio did things differently: whilst some voice locations would be marked with waypoints based on clues you found in recordings, some would not - instead, you'd have to use Juliette's microphone to zero in on them (prompting more careful exploration of surroundings). Even Sylvio 2, which went more overboard on the waypoints, still had certain points that would only appear once you found particular clues. But in Sylvio: BW, neither of these are a thing. The locations where you conduct recordings are just a bit too easy to find, I guess? What about visual recordings? Have they been brought back from Sylvio 2? Well, yes - throughout each level, you'll find cameras with footage on them, which you can unscramble to get song lyrics. But it felt like a downgrade from Sylvio 2. Firstly, the song lyrics are optional - you don't have to find them all, and they don't tell you anything you won't figure out from the standard ghost recordings. Secondly, the footage on these cameras is bland, usually just a dark close-up of something in your surroundings. Don't expect to see any ghostly figures appearing in them to creep you out. I don't recall ever seeing a single one, and I was kind of disappointed, because Sylvio 2 did it really well. What this meant was that Sylvio: BW just wasn't as creepy as its predecessors, in my eyes. Lastly, there were technical issues. In the hub areas, my frame rate would often stutter. Adjusting graphics settings didn't seem to help, but outside of the hub areas the frame rate stabilised. Whilst my PC is getting on in age, it's still beefy - so I'm of the opinion that the frame rate jitters indicate some optimisation issues in the hub areas? Another technical issue (and this one was frustrating) was in one of the Lungs levels. After being killed by a hostile spirit, the game had to reload from the last checkpoint. But it glitched, and the level didn't load properly - it didn't remember which way the 'world' was meant to be facing (going back to the gravity mechanic mentioned earlier), leaving me stuck on a ledge. Upon falling off, I ended up falling through the world indefinitely. I'll post this on the bugs thread and hopefully the dev can patch it, but it was annoying because I was quite far into the game, and no matter how many times I tried reloading, the glitch kept occurring (which forced me to restart the whole game). With all that said, I'm sure you can see why I had a bit of a struggle deciding whether to give Sylvio: BW a thumbs up or thumbs down. I'll go with the former just because there were certain aspects I liked, but I'll caveat that with my view that this is probably (in my opinion, at least) the weakest entry in the Sylvio franchise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfl24f2do0g&list=PL05Yc3_TEBpMq6X09oJC6RUNr1xO4c2zn&index=1

Sylvio Black Waters est donc le troisième opus d’une série commencée par l’excellent Sylvio et suivi quelques années après par Sylvio 2 autrement plus dispensable à cause de sa genèse complexe et suite à l’échec de sa campagne Kickstarter. On y incarne une nouvelle fois Juliette Waters directement après les événements du second opus. Le cadre de nos aventures fait une nouvelle fois dans l’originalité et on va devoir explorer un environnement très très sombre (justifié plus loin dans l’aventure) avec plus de combats qu’auparavant. Sylvio Black Waters prend donc la forme d’un jeu d’horreur d’exploration à la première personne. Il représente un retour aux origines de la saga avec de toutefois nouvelles mécaniques. Il sera désormais question d’une expérience défiant la physique et remplie d’énigmes originales et surtout un beau retour des enregistrements vidéo et sonores qu’il conviendra d’explorer dans un sens ou un un autre et à différentes vitesses. Dans Sylvio Black Waters, on va devoir explorer différentes zones de la planète que l’on appellera ici des poumons. Chacune représente des zones déjà connues sur notre terre mais qui semble plongée dans un noir absolu et peuplée de différentes menaces. Les poumons sont peuplés des résidus de tous les morts d’une expédition précédente sur cette terre. L’essence de ces morts est ensevelie dans les poumons de la planète. Quelque chose ne va vraiment pas avec cet endroit. Sylvio Black Waters propose ainsi une exploration des zones sur différentes dimensions ce qui lui permet de décontenancer le joueur et le perdre comme dans un tableau de M.C. Escher. On se promène sur différents plans d’un même niveau à la recherche des voix des morts mais également de télévisions à manivelle nous permettant de lire un enregistrement vidéo afin d’en déduire 2 ou 3 phrases. Pour trouver les vox des morts, il nous suffit d’activer la montre connectée que l’on a trouvé dès le début de notre aventure et laisser appuyer sur le bouton gauche de la souris pour capter le message du mort concerné. Le message prend la forme d’un jaillissement de particules assez facile à voir mais pas toujours évident à atteindre. La montre nous permet également de mettre en surbrillance tous les éléments qu’il sera possible d’interagir avec que ce soit des caches d’équipement ou des munitions. Sylvio Black Waters change de façon plutôt maligne son fusil d’épaule avec des indices reprenant des paroles de chansons obligatoires pour avancer et 18 textes composés par les voix es morts d’une thématique particulières retraçant ce qu’il s’est passé pour l’expédition. Les énigmes sont vraiment simples et il nous suffira de trouver toutes les phrases d’un texte pour les réordonner de façon logique afin de réciter un événement en particulier. Cependant, toutes les phrases d’un texte ne se trouveront pas forcément dans la même zone. Une fois que l’on a exploré une zone de fond en comble, on doit avoir trouver tous les enregistrements qui constituent une chanson, avoir regarder de 4 à 5 tableaux planqués dans les niveaux et réunit toutes les phrases possibles dudit niveau de Sylvio Black Waters. Sylvio Black Waters ne propose pas une checklist de choses à trouver dans les niveaux ce qui obligera parfois le joueur à explorer à nouveau les niveaux afin de mieux chercher les tableaux par exemple. Une fois arrivé à la toute fin d’une zone, on aura la possibilité d’assembler une chanson par le biais des indices trouvés dans les téléviseurs et en les mettant en relation avec les peintures planqués dans les niveaux. S’ensuit dès lors une mini scène que je ne spoilerais pas. On pourra également passer à la zone suivante en montant une immense échelle ce qui nous fera arriver dans un hub central interconnecté dans lequel se trouve pas mal de phrases cachées nécessaires pour compléter les 18 textes de Sylvio Black Waters. On aura même droit à certains moments à des phases de déplacement en vélo un peu comme ce que l’on avait vu dans le tout premier Sylvio mais où notre interaction se limitera à aller vers une lumière lointaine et à aller tout droit vers elle. Ces phases sont lunaires et on est parfaitement en droit de se demander ce que l’on fait dans ces zones vides où presque rien n’est trouvable ou utilisable. Sachant que l’action du jeu est dans une pénombre particulièrement dense, on doute fortement de leur utilité. Sylvio Black Waters ne se contente pas de nous proposer de l’exploration, il faudra également combattre certaines statues de morts qui se mettront à nous attaquer à l’instar, une nouvelle fois, de Sylvio premier du nom. Sylvio Black Waters propose un arsenal plutôt fourni avec 4 armes différentes qui utilisent de l’air comprimé qu’il sera possible de récolter dans les niveaux ainsi que des sortes de cailloux qui tueront une statue en 1 coup. On aura ainsi la possibilité de détruire les statues en les snipant de loin ou alors de les affronter sous leur forme agressive en utilisant les attaques à air comprimé directement sur les particules en mouvement. Il faut toutefois savoir que toutes les statues ne sont agressives et que les munitions et autres recharges ne sont pas en illimité dans les niveaux. Certains indices nous permettront de savoir si l’on risque de se faire attaquer ou non. En revanche, on peut refaire le plein de munitions lorsque l’on refait un niveau, les statues ne seront plus agressives et les ressources seront de nouveau là. Sachez également qu’il existe un mode d’accessibilité permettant de désactiver les ennemis ce qui permettra aux joueurs plus narratifs qu’action de pouvoir jouer à Sylvio Black Waters sans stress. Soyons toutefois clair, l’aspect action du jeu n’est très clairement pas son point fort, la grande majorité des affrontement se fera dans les dernières zones du jeu et il n’y a pas de boss à affronter à mon grand désarroi. Sylvio Black Waters est un jeu bien étrange, véritable ovni vidéoludique, il souffle le chaud et le froid que ce soit dans son gameplay et dans sa réalisation. S’il fait bien mieux que Sylvio 2, on reste tout de même très loin du statut d’Hidden Gem du premier. Au final, Sylvio Black Waters n’est pas la suite que j’espérais pour cette licence que j’aime tant. Limitée techniquement et dans son gameplay, j’ai pourtant passé 7 agréables heures à fouiller de fond en comble les niveaux pour tout trouver. Est-ce que je vous le conseille ? C’est difficile à dire car il ne fait pas peur et les énigmes ne sont pas difficiles, son public cible se limite donc aux amateurs du premier Sylvio et c’est déjà bien assez.

I was surprised they were making a 3rd Sylvio game. I really enjoyed this one. I highly recommend playing the first two before playing this one otherwise you will be confused. The game is DARK but I think I understand the developers intentions pretty easily. Just follow the lights it won't steer you wrong. The ambient music is great, the combat is an absolute dumpster fire. I may turn off enemy encounters on my next playthrough just because of how clunky and ridiculous it is. I definitely recommend playing this game if you've played the other ones. It's still not as good as the first game, maybe a little better than the 2nd. All in all worth a playthrough 8.1/10 will play again

[h1] Melancholic Creepy and Chill exploration [/h1] Great music and sound the environments are atmospheric I also thought the voice acting was good. The game is dark but uses points of light for navigation and i still found the environments to be interesting to take in. The mystery/story was compelling enough for me to finish it which is more then i can say for 80% of games in my library. I found the combat to be not great not terrible i found myself missing certain lines of phrases during combat encounters and i had to backtrack towards the end of the game which killed the pacing a bit. I think however that relative short length of the game was a good choice. Nothing overstays it's welcome and it does not become tedious. Night sky radio lives rent free in my head.

Loved the first two games and was excited for Black Waters- thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Highly recommend!

i waited for an approximately spooky time of year to enjoy this experience and yet i was not spooked. the most one can jump at is when an enemy bursts into existence but other than that it's just sad!!! everything about it is just sad, in every way!! even though it's the most hostile and unknown environment yet it does not create much tension or atmosphere like the first 2 games had. honestly i feel better considering this as "Black Waters" than i do as "Sylvio 3". i ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love stroboskop but despite that and my positive review i can't say most would stick around till the end, be it for the loose and perhaps hard-to-follow narrative style or the disappointing lack of more specific EVP (or video! (i REALLY liked sylvio 2)) gameplay. please never stop making videogames!! theyre all wonderful art and this one is too, the most beautiful spooky janky ghosty art that ive ever witnessed. even if its not sylvio, for the love of every good thing on the earth never stop.

Ну, это довольно неплохая визуальная новелла))) На шутер конечно не тянет от слова совсем. Хорошая история. Единственное, что конечно опечалило - отсутствие локализации. Кажется в наше время это не так уж и сложно сделать Но в целом хорошее погружение в мир и хороший сторителлинг

SBW is the first Sylvio game I got to play even though it’s the third one in the series. The start was a bit confusing, not knowing why or how the main character arrived at that planet. But it’s quickly forgotten about, the plot is intentionally mysterious and it will slowly make sense as a standalone game. It didn’t feel like I needed to know about 1 and 2 aside from what I already mentioned which is pretty impressive. Anyway, the game could be seen as a walking simulator with light first person shooter elements, it might be seen as too simple with its mechanics, some might find it boring even. I surprisingly enjoyed it a lot, its structure and simplicity gave me a cathartic experience. I’ve completed a level each evening until I completed all 5. Each level has you following a route while watching out for spirits, collecting text/art to create songs/pages and deciphering video recordings to get more text. All the songs and pages are related to the main story, the main story is delivered through conversations between the main character and Lee that come up once in a while. The mystery, story and voice actors are the stars of the show. Juliette has a charming and appealing voice but Lee’s voice actor did a phenomenal job. I got intrigued and wanted to find out more thanks to his delivery. The idea of 2 different bullet types, one for killing a spirit preemptively and the other when you fail to do so, is genuinely interesting. It changes the way to play the game by being careful not to get too close to statues. The levels are super atmospheric and they’re literally dark, but it works well with the lights guiding your way, adding to the chill experience. Trying to decipher what’s in the videos is really cool when you try to slow down or speed up what’s being said to make out a word, combining sentences is also fun and never frustrating. You can have each sentence auto-solved when you’re impatient. The game has a few memorable tracks and even the songs are catchy with haunting lyrics. The game has a couple of cute secrets, some which might not be easy to figure out on your own but you can find the solutions on steam forums. I also appreciate the completionist aspect that show you what you collected, what’s left and being able to replay levels quickly once you reach the end. There are other reviewers who didn’t like having guns in this game. I’m not one of them as I liked the change of pace they added to the game. I am however puzzled by the 4 different guns you can find and not being able to feel any difference between them in terms of power, there are no descriptions or stats that help out with this. The game might also be considered cheap in terms of graphical assets being similar, character models not being impressive, neither animations etc. I can say that it didn’t affect the experience for me, the developer used his budget wisely. So it all comes down to expectations and what you’re looking for. I bought this through a bundle and I was the most worried about this game not being good. But I actually really enjoyed it, it exceeded my expectations with certain elements and it made me buy the other 2 Sylvio games. The normal price of around €13 is sensible as the max price but it’s easier to recommend when it’s cheaper or as part of a bundle. It took me 9 hours to get all the achievements, a normal run is closer to 4-6 hours.