The Journey Down: Chapter One

This game is a real gem. At first I hestiated to get it, mainly cause the artstyle of the characters seemed curious to me, but as it was on sale for 12€ for all 3 chapters, I gave it a go. And what can I say, after playing it, I love the artstyle and I love the characters, especially Bwana & Kito. This game has such a charme and a really good vibe. The puzzles are all logical and not to hard, I never got frustrated. Just 1 times I got stuck a bit, I tried everything I could, just to find out that I've overseen an item, after checking a walkthrough. This game has no option for highlighting items, so that maybe the only con for me, but maybe I'm just spoiled from other games, and it's not really a problem. This first chapter is a bit short, but 2 & 3 are longer, and together they had the perfect lenght for a P&C adventure imo. Overall it's a really chraming game, and I had a really good time playing it. So can I recommend this game? Yes absolutely! And if you are hesitate about buying this game, just listen to Bwanas % Kitos wisdom... "Hey Bwana, you sure this is a good idea, man?" "No" "Let's do it!"

I still recall the original freeware game from 2010 or so, at the time it was a nice surprise to know it was getting a commercial remake. Of course the character design gets noticed first, with its inspiration from African wood sculptures and carvings, like puppets from a stop-motion production, on top of a lot of Afro-Caribbean elements, but after a while the noir atmosphere starts to get appreciated as well. The renewed graphics stay faithful to the original style while updating it in HD (some locations look like the same renders now in a higher resolution, which is not a bad thing). It's a bit inconsistent, as some backgrounds feel more tri-dimensional, while others more "painted" which causes the characters to stand out more, but in general it's pretty good to look at. The voice acting is especially great, with the biggest praise to the main characters. The only notable issue is the quality of the recording of some minor characters. I originally hoped the part remade from the original freeware release would be followed up by more within the same game but, even if it adds a few new locations and characters, this is by all means a remake of that, ending with the same cliffhanger. A short but good adventure, its potential would be fully expressed in the second chapter.