White Shadows

“The game is rough around the edges and the lack of options, graphical fidelity, and short game length (2.5-3 hours) shows that.”

“The black and white graphics are a little grainy, even on high resolutions, making identifying your character a bit difficult in places.”

“It's just a shame since games that White Shadows clearly take a lot from are able to depict their themes in such a nuanced way that it feels like the developers took so much of the visuals from those games into account when making this game instead of all the other parts that made those games particularly spectacular.”

“Clearly a game that placed a high priority on its art direction, even for this subgenre, as there are lots of gameplay-minimal sections where you just walk forward, or have no real control over your character while the camera pans or flies through its environments; as for the actual gameplay, the puzzles and platforming are fairly simple, with a few somewhat frustrating timed platforming sections, and a few spots where the art direction makes it tough to distinguish between scenery and your path forward.”

“The gameplay is very similar to 'Little Nightmares', and it changes several times as you play (the story supports this).”

“The mechanics are fine, standard 'Limbo'/'Little Nightmares'-esque clumsy platforming, but all of the platforming is extremely basic; it's way too easy and linear to be anywhere near fun gameplay, and the 'puzzles' in this 'puzzle-platformer' exist almost solely of either moving boxes to climb ledges or pulling levers in the correct sequence, and the worst part of all is that most of the game isn't even the basic platforming or the boring puzzles; you just walk.”

“Having mentioned the use of classical music, this game uses it so often. It's not that I'm not a fan of the classics, because I am, but having almost every other scene feature either a classic song or repeat a song that played like 5 minutes ago that also just doesn't fit gets boring and repetitive, especially when I've heard 'Flight of the Bumblebee' for the third time. Aside from classical music, the sound design and use of audio is jarring at worst and repetitive at best. At several points in the game, there will be an area that constantly loops the same exact sound over and over, which isn't a bad thing; however, the sounds are looped about every 10 seconds and can get very annoying very quickly. I'm not asking for the devs to have several unique sounds for every small detail, but it'd be nice to have more than one sound for a train, and that same sound doesn't almost give me a heart attack most of the time I hear it. Also, at times the audio seems to dip in quality like it was screen recorded instead of an audio file.”

“My biggest issue was the soundtrack; I just personally felt like a lot of the music choices really didn't fit with the dark dystopian feel of the game.”

“Add to that a soundtrack of classical music that's in public domain instead of a proper soundtrack (I mean, I really love some of these compositions, but come on), long unskippable cutscenes that you have to watch again and again if you try to get some of the more difficult achievements, and a last chapter that was extremely underwhelming and boring, and you get a disappointing package.”

“The game is full of unsettling imagery and creepy sounds that together create an atmosphere that can really give you chills.”

“The atmosphere felt like Little Nightmares at first, but as soon as you realize that you are basically in absolutely no danger regardless of your choices, the intensity became non-existent.”

“The biggest reason I'm not recommending this game is because I read other reviews talking about 'Inside' and 'Limbo' and although it definitely looked like a similar game, everything in it is so heavy-handed and on the nose - I feel like if the game was a bit more subtle about its theme where the player discovers a bit more about what's going on slowly, the game/atmosphere would improve a lot.”

“Platforming is very basic, sluggish, and buggy.”

“A few glitches here and there, lots of clipping which was annoying at times to see, especially since it was right in your face.”

“It was occasionally buggy, including one checkpoint where I kept restoring mid-fall.”

“But player movement isn't polished, and the game is poorly optimized; I wasn't getting enough FPS, even with the simple noir graphics.”

“Poorly optimized graphics, and lacks an in-depth options menu.”

“There's a lot of performance issues, framerate creeping from 300 to 40, and then back up and back down. Clipping is extremely awkward in a lot of places, ledges not being possible to grab, and there's no yellow tape to guide players where to go, which led to me having to look up a walkthrough due to the poor readability.”

“You'll need a second life for grinding.”

“I may have received this product as a gift for free, but for how much it goes at full price, with how tedious it is and, despite how I wanted it to end as soon as possible, how short it is, I can absolutely not recommend this to anyone who values any kind of wise spending.”

“The game has very long puzzles that become boring, grinding, and tedious after a while.”

“But because you can complete this in a single evening, I'd say watch someone else play it than buy it, as it has zero replayability (unless you're an achievement hunter) and there simply isn't anything worth exploring in this linear sideways platformer.”

“It will take you between 1.5 and 2.5 hours to complete, and apart from replaying the exact experience again, there's really no replayability.”

“Finished the game in a few hours and the replayability factor is low... so was it worth $20?”

“The dialogue that is provided comes in the form of advertisements and videos.”

“The film noir aesthetic reminded me of 1930s black and white movies, with elements of Bioshock and Blade Runner thrown into the mix – particularly with the verticality of the city's towers that rise into the sky, and the ubiquitous advertisement hoardings.”