Finishing the game in 10 hours, Wadjet Eye’s Unavowed is a spectacular game. For someone
like me who’s never liked the point and click RPGs, I find it very exciting and engrossing. Now you may ask how a clicking game is exciting, here’s why:
Reviewed: PC
Platforms: PC
Developer: Wadjet Eye Games
Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games
Release Date: August 8, 2018
MSRP: $14.99
This review is based on a copy provided by Wadjet Eye Games.
The Story
Considered as the main attraction it starts off with a bang. The protagonist “you” find yourself on the roof of a building being held against your will by a woman in a hood while a guy who looks like a member of the mafia shoots lightning at you. After a few introductory chants the player is given the choice to choose their Name, Gender and Job which changes your origin story. The protagonist then starts to have flashbacks. Not long after you realize that these people are actually performing an exorcism on you. As the exorcism finishes, the demon inside you escapes. Allowing you to regain control of your body, the people introduce themselves as members of a society called the Unavowed. The Unavowed pressed to recruit you and having nowhere else to go due to your possessed-self, who has killed hundreds of lives with the police hot on your heels, you decided to join them. Now a member of the society, you start to uncover that the cases you’re on are actually your doing or your possessed-self’s doing. You and your society travel across different places to where your demon has been to track it down and to ultimately kill it. The story has a lot of twists and surprises that kept me wanting to play it more. Intriguing and fascinating from the start all the way to its gripping and enthralling end. For anyone who loves story-driven games about anything supernatural as well as crime scene investigations, this game has the best of both worlds. Being a fan of action RPGs such as Dark Souls and Monster Hunter I honestly wasn’t expecting to like this game let alone love it just for the story alone.
Now traveling around following a cunning and malevolent demon does not come without its challenges.
The Puzzles
Are very important since they’re the only obstacles and it dictates the pace of the game— the faster you solve them the faster you progress. The puzzles that Unavowed have are fun and relatively easy, but finding the pieces of these puzzles were very frustrating and stressful, for me at least. I found myself spending more time looking for the pieces to complete the puzzle than actually solving the puzzle. It was like almost completing a jigsaw puzzle but you can’t since you lost the final piece. I sometimes spent almost 20 minutes just clicking around for something I’ve missed and going around in circles so I could find one more piece, but it only took me 1 to 5 minutes to solve the actual puzzle. I found myself overjoyed more times in finding the pieces than solving the puzzles of which I really didn’t like. In some points of the game I actually had to open a walkthrough so I could find out what I was missing. Once found, I wouldn’t need the walkthrough to solve the puzzle anymore. These in my opinion were the worst parts for me.
Not being able to progress with the story was frustrating just because I missed a piece of the puzzle and having good music to listen to while looking really helps.
The Soundtrack
If there’s another thing that this game has going for, it’s definitely the soundtrack. There’d be times that I would just enter an area just to gather my bearings while listening to that specific area’s music. The euphoric and comforting jazz pieces were definitely my favorite. The soft and melodic tones of the sax makes my heart feel like it’s on a slow gondola ride on the clouds. The game’s soundtrack also has eerie synthesized pieces to give you that horror vibe just enough to make you feel uncertain of the unknown and of things to come, not to freak you out or anything. It also consists of melancholic ones during the sad moments in the game as well as dramatic classical themes that fit the game’s story, art style and characters perfectly.
I love games that are able to bring out the soul of their game and project it to the audience not just by the story or soundtrack but also the voice acting.
The Voice Acting
Although far from perfect, I was not expecting this game to have any voice acting but when I started the game I was shocked that it did. I love how the voice actors just bring more life and personality to the characters. They even went the extra mile by voice acting conversations that the other two characters in your squad would have. Sometimes they would joke around or talk about their past lives and it was not at all related to the main plot. It was just fun to see the other characters interact with each other making it feel like as if they were actually alive. All characters are voice acted even if they’re not main characters which was a treat for me. Albeit the voices range from bad to great, the great ones being Elliot, Kaykay and Logan–everyone else’s were good. The dragons’ voice on the other hand was so bad and in my opinion and it was very cringy that it sounded like someone talking while forcefully breathing heavily. That being said, the voice acting saved me so much time as well as adding more dramatic effects to the game.
The voice acting also gave me more opportunity to appreciate the game’s art style and design.
Art style and design
Graphics is one of the most important things when you’re trying to advertise a game and the art style with the sprites here or the environment isn’t unique or new. In fact it reminds me of beat ‘em up games from SEGA back in the day. That being said the developers actually did something smart with the design. The portraits of the characters that come up every time they talk were really well done coupled with the facial reactions and voice acting really makes them feel alive. Another smart move that they did was making it rain the entire game. I know it sounds weird but the rain actually makes the game look a lot better as you’re playing it. There wasn’t even any reason in the story for it raining the entire time it’s like the developers wanted us to notice that too.
Final Thoughts
My time with Unavowed isn’t over yet as there are multiple endings from the choices you make and I’m quite excited to see how all the other endings go. Being my first point and click game in years I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. For what this game seeks to accomplish it does. If you’re into point and click games or visual novels that have an amazing story then go buy this immediately. If you’re more into action games like me who love Dark souls, Monster hunter, Witcher and Tomb Raider I suggest you give this a try as I’m sure it will surprise you, and just like me, may get you hooked.
