So, today we’re going to talk about an ambitious and already criticized in many ways novelty, that is the mystical action game The Medium. I don’t want to paint any special preface, so let’s go straight to the pros and cons.
Pros:
- Atmosphere. Atmosphere and location design. Although most likely still the design. Because the atmosphere as a whole is created by many other things, which here like it is, but sometimes not the most ideal execution.
I should say that the perception of the game depends largely on how you will go locations. Because in my opinion the game has combined both classic mystical locations and post-ap. Yes, yes, there is a bleak forest, and reverence for Lovecraft, and the typical, abandoned buildings, and even a bunker, which only adds to the very sensations of postap.
But whether you’ll get the astral plane, walks in the mystical forest, whether you’ll get bored wandering through the corridors – that’s another question entirely! So, for example, the reviewer from the “Bit Pixel” channel was bored in an abandoned party sanatorium, because it has standard Soviet architecture.
- Original mechanics and combinations of mechanics. And no, I’m not just talking about the division of the screen into two parts, but also about additional features, thanks to which we can better feel, imagine and feel the existence of the protagonist between two worlds! So, for example, under certain circumstances you can move between reality and the afterlife through… a mirror. For those who are even slightly familiar with mysticism, they know how important mirrors are to different mediums and psychics. And here you can use such a door to influence spirits by some action in reality and change the reality by an action in the astral. And there’s even a simple, but search for traces of former emotions on various, scattered here and there things.
Do you want a weapon? Not just use your spiritual energy against an obstacle or a demon, you want a gun to shoot, to smash and expel the unclean with it? Yeah, to be honest, I didn’t even think about the number of such claims in the comments of The Medium reviews… o_Oh, well, if you can’t imagine the gameplay with the devils without more or less familiar combat, I sympathize…
- Story. It’s not perfect. Not at all, but it worked for me. Even with reservations, which I’ll break down below. On the plus side, it’s not a horror flick, but a mystery drama about people and demons who break, mutilate and desiccate souls in order to find someone else to break, mutilate and desiccate again. Even though the script makes no mention of heaven, hell, the devil, or God, the game still becomes in part a reference to the Bible quote about loving any sinner but hating sin.
Even though the protagonist herself doesn’t come to any such thing, events as such hint that the local villains are simply victims who once showed weakness, who wanted to get rid of some pain and worry, who wanted revenge and retribution on the tormentors who kept them alive. And the demon, mysterious and eternally insatiable, clung to their desires in order to push them to a choice, a decision and an action, after which they were already rolling downhill. That’s how one such unfortunate person became a psychopath, broke another, and then the other one mocked someone else, so that he would subsequently cause bloodshed and cruel, inhuman suffering. And so it goes on and on and on… An endless chain and a vicious circle that cannot be broken. Because the world is cruel and people are weak.
- Well, and the last plus will go to me personally sympathetic heroine 🙂 That’s it. What else can you say? There’s no arguing about tastes.
Cons:
- Unwarranted and, at times, inexcusably long. In fact, the game may bore you in the beginning. But here, of course, for taste and color, and the overall feeling is as if the screenwriters passed on the text, but the studio wanted more, that the game was with a swing at the AAA segment. So what to do here? Rewrite the story? Add drama and all sorts of angst? Add historical details? No, let the gameplay do the work. In the end, the exposition, the plot, the denouement and the finale are excellent, but the stage of events, that is, the equator of the action is almost unbearable. Yes, there’s also a lot depending on a particular player’s perception of the design, game mechanics and parsimonious details, which could have been more, but…
Basically, the equator of the two worlds is filled with maps and some gameplay for the player to wander to wander and do something to do something. Here’s a location and here’s a puzzle to open a passage to another location with another puzzle. What did you learn in that time? Nothing. And, if anything, it was just to fill the vacuum somehow.
- You can get confused by the gameplay here. Yes, there are games where everything is a hundred times more complicated, and here is an ordinary romp. As if. But it just so happens that there are essentially like three combinations of mechanics in the game. They’re similar in a lot of ways, but different in some ways. So you control the heroine when she’s in the real world, then the screen splits in two, and after that the protagonist moves completely into the astral. And then you’re stumped. And why is that? Oh yeah, I can do that… I totally forgot =.
- Stealth, which is necessary, but not necessary. Stealth in The Medium is, of course, primitive. And it’s really primitive. But whatever, because… There’s a demon loose in here! There’s a man hiding around the corner, not to mention a woman. That’s right, but there are problems. First, because of the typical genre of adventure camera here often simply can not see where I go! And there is no way to sneak a peek here, because The Medium is not Dishonored.
- Localization. On the whole, everything seems to be fine, but in a couple of places as the story progresses we are asked… to exile the souls. Ladies and gentlemen, either I don’t understand anything or… Those of you who aren’t familiar with the mystery genre, note that the concept of exorcism applies not to souls, but to dark entities. That is why it is not souls that are exorcised, but impurities, demons and the devil. In extreme cases it is possible to exorcise a soul which is so black and evil, that it can be considered a demon. The souls of the innocent are not expelled, but put to rest. What is there, a whole stratum of stories is about restless souls who need help, just help, not drive them away with a broom, prayer, holy water, censer, or any other good and light against evil.
- Polito. Stupid politeness. Comrades! No, it isn’t. Conscious citizens of the civilized world, do not believe the nonsense I wrote about the demon that dries up souls! Because it’s all the fault of the hebna! The bloody gibbons! And their fathers were all butchers! Literally, because there’s a character in the game who is just an agent of the State Security Committee of the Republic of Poland. And this character is negative, unequivocally and without any doubt.
And let him become a villain because of the fact that his life was not sugar. And, because in his childhood he was broken first by man, and then the demon did the job for man, but he’s still someone the game doesn’t really protect. He’s evil, that’s all. And he’s a butcher and a sadist and a complete maniac. So there you go.
So what’s the problem here? Well, the problem is that the authors of the game use the primitive against Soviet propaganda, which is exactly what they accuse it of. And it’s not the first or last time… It’s just stupid and dumb. If you think someone is primitive and you yourself are civilized, humane and intelligent, then you should not respond to the primitive with your own primitive.
I understand that the developers wanted to show how Poland suffered from the USSR and the Soviet regime. OK, so be it! Although, in fact, I personally would have preferred that there was not a bit of politics here. Well, since we are wandering around not anywhere, but on the ruins of the party spa, it is doctor’s orders to talk about politics. Let it be so! Try to introduce details, details and nuances into the plot, so that in addition to drama I would get a real excursion into history. Into history, not clichés! Because even a violent story gives details and sometimes some shades of gray, and clichés just form a primitive image that is easy to hammer into the crowd. Here’s the good ones, and here’s the bad ones.
Do you want the plot to do more than just show that there is good and evil against it? Do you want your language, manner of speech, and creativity to be different from what your ideological opponents did? Well, don’t follow in their footsteps! Let your story be truly awful, but the way you present it will show your essence as well! Where then is the good, and where is the evil, if both are trite, tired templates?
And yes, another example with a note that tells the story of the location of a bunker that once belonged to the Nazis. And again… Gentlemen, when you’re kicking an ideological opponent, use your head… After all, I’d understand if the game included some landowner or nobleman’s estate, which the Bolsheviks then confiscated to use for some of their own purposes. And here we are, wandering through the gloomy dungeons, only to eventually find a note about what people had built and lived on, and the Communists took it and stole it. And here it does not matter whether the player agrees with the author or whether the note caused a protest. The main thing here is that the logic is in place! Otherwise, the Nazi bunker and accusations of misappropriation of property is some nonsense.