Pentiment Reviews

Great story, highly accurate depiction of life in the Holy Roman Empire at the time.

Excellently told story. I felt my choices really mattered, maybe even more than they actually did. They really make you feel and care about the characters.

Great art, great story, and characters to fall in love with!

Absolute art of storytelling. I did't read it word to word but the worldbuilding and design of this game are mesmerizing. This is some exquisite experience. If you're asking yourself if you should give it a try, the answer is YES

Pentiment is not what I expected. What it is is an engaging visual novel with lots of interesting choices to make, and some cool history to learn about. It's a bit slow at times. And I was occasionally frustrated by sections of the story which put me on rails, but overall a well-written story. The main focus of a lot of the hype was the font-system, which is a neat gimmick, but ultimately pretty inconsequential, and at times I forget it even existed until it exerted itself. I admit that it was double interesting since I'm a relatively recent transplant into Bavaria, so a lot of the places and history the game goes into is still that I'm just starting to become familiar with in my adopted home.

Beautiful game with a beautiful story. The depth of history and writing is unmatched in most games today.

can't really put into words how deeply this game touched me and how much i related to the main character (that's a cry for help), but i can say that you should not go without experiencing this outstanding work of art.

A game about people, the flow of time, God, and the relationships between the three; Pentiment is a beautiful game both in it's visual design and as a story to be told. It is not an experience everyone will enjoy, and someone who is disinterested by a game that some might describe as an interactive novel will likely not find this game holds their attention. In my opinion however, it stands tall among other contemporaries in it's genre like Disco Elysium as a testament to the fact that video-games can move us, shape our minds, and leave us changed for the better as much as any literary classic or renaissance painting. In short, it was a pleasure to play this game.

Visual and textbased storytelling of high quality. Beautiful to look at, well written and good sound design. The games story is also designed in a way that kept me engaged for the 20+ hours it took to complete. Glad to have experienced this.

"Pentiment" had an impact on me like very few other games have. It's deeply human and beautiful. The characters were obviously created with love and great care. I was completely immersed and invested. I laughed, I cried, I had an existential crisis or two. I also learned a ton about medieval history, all rendered in a glorious period-accurate style. The "detective" label is accurate but a bit misleading. You do investigate and solve crimes, using mechanics that are standard to the genre. However, the solutions matter less than the lives of the people involved and the ethical/moral moral dilemmas you face. Once the investigations are concluded, the accusation portions are much more like [spoiler]Choose Your Own Adventure(TM) branches that influence the rest of the story, NOT definitive answers that provide full closure in and of themselves[/spoiler]. It's been 2 years since I last played this game, and I still think about it often.