This game was an utter blast to play through, easily one of my favorite games I've played all year. This is a game that put a whole lot of love into the research of the era, with such a heavy emphasis on the materiality of the world around this 16th century Bavarian town of Tassing. Beyond the obvious work that's been put into the typography of this game to convey character (every character uses a different typeface to indicate their background and personality, which can shift based upon your protagonist, Andreas Maler's perceptions of that person), you are thrust into a world where so much of the focus is on the physical acts of creating, building, and uncovering the world around you in times of turmoil.
Yet, despite effusive praise for the game's story and its mechanical systems, I simultaneously have complicated thoughts about some of the ways more minor characters have been fleshed out and given roles in the overall structure of this game that I hope to see discussed elsewhere in critical circles. It's a weird feeling, and I hope you will read through and understand my thoughts on this game, both positive and no.
Some spoilers below the break for Pentiment.
As a story, Pentiment sells itself on being a murder mystery game with a heavy emphasis on personal discovery (marketing for this game emphasizes that you will not be told whether your accusations of who the murderer is are true or not), and yet I think the central mystery of "whodunnit" at the heart of this game is easily the weakest part. No, what makes Pentiment shine for me is that it is a game that is much more concerned with exploring how these events reverberate throughout history, how lives enter into the world, grow up in it, and are forever shaped by what they witness as they come to grips with this history. This is a game about people fighting to carve space for themselves under systems of power, piecing together their own histories, and searching for the meaning behind why they create, all while going deep on the central religious conflicts occurring within Christianity with the advent of Martin Luther's ascension as an iconoclastic figure for the church as well as countless other schisms in religious thought between people of different class and ethnic backgrounds and the tensions and conversations that arise between them. All of this is handled, for the most part, with such humanity and empathy that really does the work of getting the player, 500 years divorced from these conflicts, deeply invested in the changing world of Christian faith and the role of the church in people's lives.
Mechanically, I found myself enjoying Pentiment's approach to the classic RPG approach of character builds. Functionally, this game adheres closer to a typical adventure game where you are guiding your character across a bevy of screens, talking to people and solving the occasional puzzle. Where the RPG mechanics come in is the ability to pick your background for your character, traits that affect the languages he knows, the skills he's developed, and even aspects of his personality, all of which manifest in shifting the many, many conversations you will engage in across the game. The vast majority of what you do in this game is talk to people, and what really makes these RPG elements work is that your background isn't just a key that solves a particular lock the game throws at you. No, just as frequently your background can bite you in the ass, at least in the build I developed for Andreas.
Turning Andreas into a much more academic man, one who reads books constantly and studied Latin, many of my options available to me actually served to make conversations more awkward as Andreas couldn't help himself but be pedantic towards the language people used or their knowledge compared to his own. Andreas Maler as a character is such a funny little guy who sucks ass, I was so drawn to him in my time with this game as a guy who, while perhaps trying to do right by people, fundamentally has trouble connecting with their struggles and empathizing with their experiences that firmly places him as an outsider to their lives. This implementation of these mechanical systems fostered my experiences in the game as someone desperately trying to cling to any kind of information to help push me forward in learning about Tassing and its history while uncovering the central mystery at the heart of the game, and I hope to see the design philosophies in this game built upon in Obsidian's future endeavors.
If there's a major criticism I have of the game, it's one that I hope to see other critics expand upon in the coming months as well, because it's a rather sour note on a game I otherwise loved. While this game puts forth an effort to confront many of the white supremacist beliefs about Europe in this era by including dark-skinned characters (in particular, an Ethiopian monk, Sebhat, and the Romani traveler Vácslav), I felt that the depiction of these characters felt tokenized in a way that did a disservice to their characters. Both characters are extremely minor to the story, and much of the role they do have is to provide conflicting perspectives on faith to the white Europeans that comprise Tassing in ways that other them and, in the case of Vácslav, isolates them from the rest of the characters and plot of the game. I am unsure how much of this stems from my personal decisions and how much stems from the developers' decisions made for the game's structure, but both Sebhat and Vácslav also disappear for large stretches of the game which feels like a missed opportunity to give them more space to be people and not just a stand in for the idea of representation in depicting this history. I found myself wanting so much more from their role in the story, to give them moments to talk about their work in greater detail, their history and reactions to the events that happened around this town in the span of the game's story, but as far as I can tell the major beats of their characters remain as I have outlined above.
Perhaps a dour note to end on in what is otherwise a glowing review for this game, but it is precisely because Pentiment is a game that had so much wonderful things to show me regarding the story it chose to tell in this time period that I find that there is so much more it could also have tried to give the proper time for! So much of this game comes together in such an expertly cohesive manner, there is such a warmth to the people's lives that I could very easily say this is one of my favorite games. I love this game a lot! But putting these thoughts into words does feel like it's holding Pentiment back from taking that final step for me. But I hope I can read more thoughts from others to see if these sentiments I've been feeling are echoed elsewhere.
Regardless, I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on this game! As complicated as I can feel about it when focusing on specific aspects of it, I truly think it's something special and well worth your time in playing it. I'm going to be thinking about it for a long time.
Take care now!
