Review: The Séance of Blake Manor
Investigate a disappearance at the mansion while supernatural things happen.
THE GAME
The Séance of Blake Manor is a supernatural mystery and investigation game developed by Spooky Doorway and published by Raw Fury. The story takes place in Ireland in 1897. Detective Declan Ward is hired to solve the disappearance of a young woman named Evelyn Deane. She was last seen at Blake Manor for a séance. Your objective is to find Evelyn Deane as quickly as possible by questioning other guests at the manor, uncovering clues and evidence, and confronting those whose motives you discover. Race against time and discover Evelyn Deane's whereabouts while witnessing supernatural events.
MY IMPRESSIONS
The first steps in The Séance of Blake Manor can be daunting, and not because of the supernatural events that sometimes occur. As soon as you are introduced to the game's controls and mechanics, you are immediately presented with the vast array of characters in the mansion, which can create a feeling of complexity that makes the player feel exhausted just thinking about investigating each of those characters. However, you soon realize that it's not quite like that and that everything will have a lighter and more contained pace. The central mechanic of The Séance of Blake Manor is time. Every action you take for the first time will cost you time. Talking to someone, interacting with an object, in short, you spend time. And time is important because events happen at specific times and people move to different rooms in the mansion, which makes the player plan well what they want to do, since if time passes and you are not in the right place at the right time for an event, you will miss it. The same goes for character movement, which allows you to explore rooms without being seen, for example. Missing an event doesn't mean the game is over, but it does mean you might have missed some information that could have helped you in some way, and now you'll have to take other paths in your investigation. The way you interrogate people is quite interesting, allowing you to choose topics already known to you based on the evidence you've discovered. When you have enough for a hypothesis, you can confront people to find out their objectives. This will be important for achieving secondary objectives that will help you in your main goal.
The art of The Séance of Blake Manor is almost an interactive comic book, with sober colors and lines. The sounds and soundtrack help create the tense and mysterious atmosphere that the game aims for. The story is intriguing and really makes you curious to investigate everything possible, but always remembering that your time is precious. Each person will have a different experience with the story of The Séance of Blake Manor, as not everyone will follow the same investigative path and may not even reach the same ending. It's impossible to go into too much detail about the story without giving spoilers, but The Séance of Blake Manor tells a great mystery story. Unfortunately, the game is not available in Brazilian Portuguese, which may deter some players, as the game requires a lot of reading and interpretation and can be tiring even for those who know English. Still, if you play in small doses, as if you were reading and experiencing a mystery and investigation novel, The Séance of Blake Manor becomes an intriguing story where you define the paths to follow. It's another great addition to the mystery game genre.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Discussing the achievements in The Séance of Blake Manor is difficult because most of them are linked to events and discoveries you experience as you investigate. Some are tied to specific actions you can take, but these are also connected to the story. Therefore, I will avoid explaining exactly what to do regarding the achievements. What I can say is that The Séance of Blake Manor is a game with various ways to reach different points and endings, which will require the player to play several times, taking different paths, since you won't get all the achievements in a single playthrough. The player will have to dedicate themselves to exploring a lot of what the game offers and pay attention to get 100% of the achievements.
CONCLUSION
The investigation genre is being very well represented lately, and The Séance of Blake Manor is a prime example. Developers of investigation games are getting better and better, always bringing intriguing and interesting games, both for those who already enjoy the genre and for new players. The only criticism, which is more general than specific to The Séance of Blake Manor, is that games with a lot of text rarely get translated into Brazilian Portuguese or take a long time to get one, which causes many people to miss out on good games because of this limitation. I know it's not a simple issue, and I don't want players to just play against an AI that ends up hindering more than helping in games like this, but it's inevitable that some players will complain about it, especially since it's a text-dense game and naturally becomes tiring, but it's even more tiring when read in a language that isn't your native tongue. Aside from that point, The Séance of Blake Manor is a great investigation game that blends the supernatural in a very organic way, providing a very cool experience for the player.
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