It is difficult to innovate in the field of visual novels, but just when we thought we had seen everything, INTERIOR/NIGHT shows us that there is still a lot of room to experiment and innovate, and continue achieving surprising and wonderful results.
AS DUSK FALLS It is available for Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series and PC
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER
The story of the game puts us in the shoes of two totally different families who, due to different reasons of fate, are going to end their lives intertwined for 14 years.
On the one hand we have the Walkers. Vince and his wife Michelle are traveling on the road with Zoe, their little daughter, and Jim, Vince's father. The Walkers are in the process of moving to another state, and we soon learn that it is because Vince just lost his job. He worked as an airplane mechanic, and recently in the company where he was practicing his profession there was an accident that cost the lives of two employees. He knows that this accident occurred because the company has been making a huge budget cut for quite some time, but its lawyers are pressuring him to sign an agreement where he assumes all responsibility in exchange for a good sum of money. Of course, this would leave him unable to ever work in the field again and the company free of any blame and charges. Vince decides not to sign the agreement, and in the meantime try his luck in another state where his name and history are not known.
After suffering an accident on the road, the Walkers end up stopping at a hotel, and on the very first night there they end up being held hostage by three fugitives from the law. It's about the Holt brothers. The boys are seeking refuge after having stolen money from the sheriff's house, and, furthermore, they were the ones who earlier caused the accident where the Walkers ended up with their vehicle disabled. Through a series of flashbacks we are going to catch up with the other situation: the Holts were driven to the extreme need to commit that crime because of Bear, the father of the family, a drunk, beater who put his family in debt for gambling. and now they are being threatened by very dangerous people.
From that meeting between both families, a network of connections and secrets will open, which include many lies, infidelities, betrayals, extortions, scams, murders and many more things that will shape the future of all those involved in this situation.
IT LOOKS LIKE IT'S STARTING TO RAIN
“How far would you go, to save someone you love?” (How far would you go to save someone you love?) This was the phrase with which the magnificent HEAVY RAIN, back in February 2010. The legendary Quantic Dream game put us in the terrible situation of having to choose whether or not to do horrible things, in order to save the life of a loved one. And the similarities between that game and AS DUSK FALLS are evident at several points.
The game is basically a visual novel where we make different decisions every so often, in addition to having many QTE-type sequences along the way. Decisions are broadly divided between two clear and different groups: there are decisions light, that in general the personal relationships we have with the other characters change, and the decisions sensitive, which are the ones that completely change the development of the plot and what happens next.
Although once we make one of these decisions, the plot moves forward on its own, there is never too much time before we have to interact again, so we have a high degree of control over the plot twists that are presented.
Therefore, as our involvement in development is high and continuous, the variables that arise are very, very numerous. A first game playing calmly will take us about 6, 7 hours, but if we want to witness everything (or at least a lot of) what the game has to offer, we will have to do the tour at least 4 times.
One of the most interesting aspects is that the story is very strong (there is even a sign at the beginning of the game warning us of the content and we have to confirm that we are sure we can endure it), so we are not only going to suffer firsthand what the characters suffer, but the decisions we make are not, in any way, “do something good – do something bad”, but many times, if not almost always, all the possibilities are terrible and that is when we have to decide. what to do and who to benefit and who to harm. As if that were not enough, the title includes a trigger warning before some very graphic and sensitive scenes (such as a suicide) and even gives us the option to skip that particular scene.
The general premise is, and here comes one of the points of comparison with the Quantic title, what we would be able to do to safeguard our family. And yes, that's going to include gruesome things like having to murder other people. And one of the strong points of the plot is that our relatives are not precisely little angels, and practically everyone has some shady secret or sent something serious at some point, so the dilemma of whether it is worth prioritizing them over other people (especially when they are not going to do it with us on more than one occasion), It will always be present.
I KNOW YOU
One of the coolest aspects of the game is the art style used. The characters are hand-drawn in a style that imitates watercolor strokes, using images of real actors as a base, while all the rest of the elements on screen (buildings, vehicles, exteriors, etc.) are made completely in 3D.
Although the images of the characters are “static”, all movements, gestures and dialogues are animated (they transition from one image to another in rapid sequence, as if some frames were missing in the middle but the transitions from one point to another are complete), which gives everything an appearance that is extremely beautiful to see. In addition, the cast is full of familiar faces, such as Jane Perry in the role of Sharon Holt. Perry played Selene RETURN and also has multiple appearances in series and other video games such as the saga of HITMAN. Ruby Stokes, who plays Vanessa Rodland in the game, is known for being Francesca Bridgerton in, precisely, the series BRIDGERTON. And another one that we gamers are going to recognize right away (more than anything because we have his face etched in stone by the traumas he left us) is that of Sam Douglas. Sam plays the alcoholic gambler Bear Holt, and we have him marked in our memories as Scott Shelby/The Origami Killer in HEAVY RAIN, Precisely the game that I mentioned has so many points in common with this one, and precisely the same actor plays two despicable people in both. But in general the entire cast already has quite a resume in television and video games.
The sound is just as wonderful. All the noises, sounds, explosions, screams, everything sounds perfect. There is a lot of country music from the 90s (the era where the game's story is set) with vocals included, which puts us in the mood and is a pleasure to listen to. The voices are recorded in multiple language options, and, luckily, we can listen to them in Latin Spanish. Which I did, of course, and the professional work they did is incredible. All the voices that we are going to hear are very well known by people who watch movies and television in Latin, and we will immediately recognize the majority. The chosen cast is really impressive, but to give you just an idea of what we are going to hear, we have Emilio Treviño (Miles Morales in the films of the SPIDER-VERSEDenji in CHAINSAW MAN, Timothée Chalamet in all his films) as Jay Holt, Miguel Ángel Ruiz (Shaggy in SCOOBY DOO, Frankie in SPY FAMILY, Peter parker in the SPIDER-VERSE) as Tyler Holt, Humberto Solorzano (Gendo Ikari in EVANGELION, Omni Man in INVINCIBLE, Raditz in DRAGON BALL Z) like Bear Holt, or Rommy Mendoza (Xena in XENA, WARRIOR PRINCESS, Lieutenant Dureau in SLEDGE HAMMER, Adrian in the movies ROCKY BALBOA), like Sharon Holt, just to give you a minimal idea of the luxury of work we have.
Playably, the title strives to make us participate all the time. Although the genre is already mechanically limited, the people at INT./NIGHT worked hard to ensure that we are always part of the plot. The parts where we can “let go of the controller and observe the story” practically do not exist, since the game forces us to interact all the time. As I mentioned, there is a large amount of decision-making and ramifications in the story, and they all happen very often, and if we also take into account that all important actions are carried out through QTEs, our involvement in the story is very high. If we also add to this whole combo the fact that all the decisions we make have a very high moral component and it is really difficult to decide what to do, we can affirm that we, as players, are not only spectators but we are practically another character in the game. history.
LONG LIVE DEMOCRACY
To close, I am going to talk about how the multiplayer mode of the title works. Because yes, it is a visual novel with multiplayer mode, as crazy as that sounds. For a start, AS DUSK FALLS It has its own application for cell phones, which can be used both to play alone and in multiplayer, and also, for this type of game, it is quite comfortable. But since the game accepts up to 8 (yes, EIGHT) simultaneous players, both online and locally, it is most likely that we do not have 8 controllers at home, so the app comes in handy.
The decision system is based on the “democratic vote.” Every time the moment appears in which the story is going to branch into one of its multiple options, all participants present will be able to choose which continuity option they prefer. The story will be decided by the most voted option, and in case there is a tie in any of the options, the story will continue randomly. There are some items called “overrides”, of which the number that each of the players will have at the beginning of the game can be determined in options. These items are limited and their function is to allow the player who uses one of them to impose their own decision regardless of what the rest of the players have voted on. However, if another player does not agree with the decision that the previous player wants to impose, he can use one of his own. overrides to cancel it, and in case that happens the vote goes back to normal. A kind of Choose your own Adventure competitive.
AND WHAT HAPPENS AFTER? AND WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!!!!???
One of the features that I liked the most and that reminds me of my favorite series of all time, LOST, is that the plot of AS DUSK FALLS It jumps across the timeline all the time, allowing us to learn much more about the characters' past and future. Focusing on the hotel incident, the plot makes constant flashbacks and flashfordwards that greatly enrich the story. And what is better (or worse, depending on how each one sees it) is that, although this game is divided into two main main arcs (Collision and Expansion), the plot does not really have an end but rather the story closes in a terrible cliffhanger which changes absolutely everything, so I imagine that the idea is that this is the first of several titles. Now, let's wait for the sequel to find out how this continues.
THE BEST
- Without a doubt the story
- The visual section is beautiful
- A first-class cast, both for the faces of the characters and for the voices
WORST
- There is not much to criticize in this section, perhaps the only “ugly” thing is that the ending leaves you with all the blood in your eyes, but if it is an excuse to release a sequel (and soon, we hope) it can be forgiven .