A New Take On The Whodunnit Genre.
ART IMITATES DEATH.
Step into a living illustrated world in a time when Europe is at a crossroads of great religious and political change. Walk in the footsteps of Andreas Maler, a master artist who finds himself in the middle of murders, scandals, and intrigue in the Bavarian Alps.
Story
Pentiment's events take place in the fictional Bavarian city of Tassing and its nearby Kiersau Abbey, where you, Andreas Maler, are a painter and is commissioned by the abbey to work on its manuscripts. While you're there, a noble baron visits the town and is murdered in said abbey and to make things worse, your old friend and mentor is taking the blame. Great! Naturally, you take it upon yourself to find the real killer and save your friend.
Side-scrolling your way through Act I and talking to different people, you gather clues about who you will eventually present as the suspect of this murder. There are no right or wrong answers here, as the true culprit is actually never revealed, nevertheless this is a decision that you and the people of Tassing ( and they will never let you forget it either) will have to live with for the rest of your life. This also means multiple playthroughs will give you different endings depending on the choice you make. Additionally, as you are looking for evidence you will have a limited window, some sleuthing will take more time of your day, meaning not all leads will be followed which adds even more angst about the decision you will need to make. What if you got the wrong person? You've made memories with these people, how will you come to terms with that?
Fast forward to Act II 7 years later, you come back with your apprentice as a successful but depressed artist. Capitalism has taken its toll on you, as you are commmisioned to paint portraits for the wealthy instead of focusing on your own passion; your son died of the plague and your marriage is practically non-existent; and finally, your old friend and mentor has passed away which is why you're back. To make things worse, another murder is committed and the people of Tassing once again look to you to solve it.
As you speak to the townspeople you discover that they are really unhappy, and for good reason. The church has raised taxes, forbidden them from going into the forest to forrage for food and chop down wood, all while Abbot Gernot is eating the finest foods. The town is on the brink of a political and religious precipice as the church is being accused of this murder, so whose side will you be on? You will again be forced to present a murder suspect, except this time the people will be taking justice into their own hands.
We come to the final Act, 18 years later. The effect of what happened in the previous Acts are visible on the town and its people. The children you've met earlier have all grown up, other characters have either passed away or moved, while some have stayed the same. I actually haven't finished this act yet - so I will update this section when I do.
EDIT
You play as Madga, the town printer's daughter who becomes tasked to draw a mural to memorialise the revolt. In order to do that, she has to speak with the townspeople who were there when it all happened. Understandably, each person will have their own point of view of what happened, and so you will need to decide the direction the mural takes.
Later on. we do finally find out who the String-Puller really is. In his mission to keep the city's pagan origins from its people, the priest has been the one manipulating unknowing suspects into doing his evil bidding. Eventually, his day of reckoning comes when he is confronted by Magda and Andreas (surprise!) in an underground ruin, where he says he'd rather die than have the truth come out - and so he does.
Art style
The first thing that stands out in the game is its stunning art style. The characters look like they are painted in water colors, and their speech bubbles are written in a variety of fonts that were being used at that time. There is no voiceover acting in this game, and so the developers have come up with a creative way to convey different emotions, social and literacy backgrounds of the people you interact with.
For example, peasants will have a basic cursive text, monks and nuns will have a blocky Gothic script, other 'learned' characters will have a 'Times New Roman- esque' type script and so on. As the speech bubble is forming, you can hear and see the stroke of the ink forming,and as it dries out. You might spot a typo or two before it is quickly erased and corrected, and you can see some words get darker as if the writer is writing slower on the manuscript to emphasize a point. If a character is angry, words that are exclamatory will shake, or if a character is scared, you will see spattered ink.
It doesn't end there, all these different fonts are a reflection of how Andreas percieves them. These fonts are not set in stone (pun intended, kinda?) , and they will change over the course of the 25 years this game takes place. Bearing in mind, this is the age where printing presses are putting church scriptoriums out of business, revolutionary ( and often heretical according to the church) ideas and books are becoming widely available, and a religious revolution is beginning to bubble underneath the surface. Not only is it a brilliant ( and original at least to me) way of showing change or progress outside of just showing people getting older, or time moving forward but it also gives you an idea of what the characters themselves have been going through outside of the interactions you have with them.
Also there's BIG HEAD MODE, which is self explanatory but also hilarious.
Gameplay Mechanics
As a narrative-driven game, you will be doing alot of talking to alot of people. The dialogue can be absolutely humorous at times, dark at others but it will all come back to the choices you make. As a middle-class artist who has dropped out of university ( to the disappointment of your father who had to pull strings to get you in in the first place), you can choose from a multiple of academic, social backgrounds, as well as skills and personality traits that will influence the dialogue options that show up and in turn the way you experience the game.
Your social background is influenced by where you've spent your Wanderjahre (your wonderyears), i.e. the languages you've learnt: Basel (Italian and French), Flanders (Dutch and French), and Italy (Italian and Greek). You will be able to make cultural references and read books in those languages. Additionally, you will also choose what exactly you've been up to while you were there. Were you a Hedonist, a Businessman, Craftsman, Rapscallion ( essentially a trouble-maker), or a Bookworm? All these options will result in different social interactions with the people you talk to.
So what exactly did you study during your time in university? Three choices pop up: Imperial Law, Theology, or Medicine. These choices will affect your answers to the debates, arguments, and persuasions you will be making throughout the game - whether or not you choose to win these arguments though is up to you so choose carefully.
Last choice you have to make is what were your 2 favorite subjects in university. You will be given 5 options: Latinist, Logician, Orator, Occultist, and Heavens and Earth.
The amount of mix and match decisions you can make with these options means there are multiple ways to finish a quest (not necessarily on a positive note) - in some cases these options will definetly help you, in others your answers will aggravate the situation and make things worse for you. If you've had enough negative outcomes during an interaction, you will inevitably fail the quest. For my playthrough, as a Theologist who can also speak French, Andreas was able to save a French book from being destroyed. Unfortunately, I was also told to 'Eat Shit' from a brat whom I might have related better to if I was a Rapscallion. Eh, you win some you lose some.
Aside from the talking, there are also mini-games. These can be either solving puzzles, or activities you do with the people of Tassing. They give you an insight of how these people actually lived, their day-to-day activites, as well as complement the narrative. You can sit and have dinner with them, get all the latest gossip about who is doing "adult activities" where and with whom, and find out what they really think about current events. Sometimes you also just need a break from all the sleuthing and you just want to hang out with people.
Verdict
The amount of historical detail this game presents alone makes this game absolutely fascinating. The game's pacing does drag on a bit, especially for a text-heavy game, but its rich narrative and beautiful art-style more than make up for it.
Game Details
Platform: PC (Available on Xbox Game Pass and Steam
Genre: RPG
Mode: Single Player
Release Date: November 15, 2022
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