[ECHOSTASIS] Reviews

[i] I played the entire [HER] trilogy in order. [b] This is my spoiler free review of [ECHOSTASIS] [/b] [/i] Oh ENIGMA STUDIO my beloved, what a wild ride you have taken me on. You've shown me so much over the time I've been playing the [HER] trilogy up until now. The sights you've shown me and the lessons I've learned I will never forget and sing your praises of to anyone who is willing to listen. When people talk about AI/simulation horror in a few years, I will be the first to say "ENIGMA STUDIO did it first". All that being said, this game was a miss for me. In THE ENIGMA MACHINE and MOTHERED, there was a delicate yet strong balance of puzzles and role playing elements. In [ECHOSTASIS], it feels as though the puzzles got much more priority than previous installments while leaving behind very little role playing. Maybe that was intended, but that definitely took a toll on the amount of immersion I could get in this game. One thing that I must give credit for is the overall aesthetic of the game. It takes the evil 80's - 90's computer corporate vibe, dials it up to 11, and throws it in a blender with vaporware aesthetics/music. The respawn mechanic is honestly the best I've ever experienced; when you die, not only is it quick but you immediately get shown a montage of old TV shots accompanied with insanely good tunes. It almost makes dying a treat tbh. Unfortunately, the aesthetic can only carry this game so far and isn't able to hide its slow pacing, repetitive writing, and overall lack of storytelling. While I can't in good faith recommend picking this game up, I HIGHLY encourage you to check out the previous two installments of the [HER] trilogy. I hope you, ENIGMA STUDIO, will return to this blossoming genre you have ignited of AI/simulation horror to give us more [CONTENT] like it, hopefully with a better balance of puzzles and role playing.

Absolutely loved the aesthetic. Fun gameplay, for such a basic yet unique concept. The story was a 9/10; very fleshed out, fantastic world-building, and also really liked the religious undertones. Maybe the narration was not the best, but the overall story was fantastic. I gotta say I actually really liked the Prologue and was happy with that ending. Still, it was a pleasant surprise to learn the game (and story!) was far from over. Just like DDLC. Still, there are lots of things that could be improved; mainly, as many have pointed out, to prevent players from getting lost/stuck. 1.- Reaching a core in the Prologue: I stared at a dark cloudy sky and I had no idea I had to move forward, or that I was moving at all. 2.- Reaching a construct in Severed: After reaching the first one, I spent an hour searching for the next one, optimizing my paths, farming time by killing enemies, exploring every possible route. Had to look up a guide to figure out I had to shoot the thing to progress the story. 3.- The random design choice that you now have to hold spacebar and click to interact at the very end was... odd. Not only the design of the last area was frustrating with the pitch black sections and wonky architecture. I had to look up a guide again just to trigger the credits. Why couldn't we just stick with left click to trigger things? 4.- My personal pet peeve was that Severed was a bit cringy in its writing. It repeats itself a lot, the narration is unnecessarily cryptic and slow ("i think... it's time... we address... that thing... we both know... and have been... ignoring... quite for some time..."). I swear I wanted to punch the screen more than once lol

[ECHOSTASIS] is simply a long and major quest for enlightenment and your [ROLE] in your [STORY]. It is about searching for higher existence and reaching for the [CLOUD], realizing how one should stay true to one's [SELF]. It is about defining the [CORE] of your humanity. It blurs the line of [MACHINE] and humanity. [WHO AM I?] is the ultimate question. [AM I IN CONTROL] or is the decisions I make not my own. 9.5/10 This game feels like a full feature game made by a solo developer. It is way underrated. I love this series. The series being: The Enigma Machine Mothered - A Role-Playing Horror Game [ECHOSTASIS] Play the series in that order. I will say Mothered was kind of annoying to play but it sets up a LOT of the knowledge for this game. You could play this game without that knowledge but you are more likely to get lost and need a guide to help I think. Also this game is built entirely off of the story of Mothered and The Enigma Machine. That being said this game has a great story, awesome aesthetics, and pretty cool music. This game being primarily a story game is awesome. When the game first launched there were a ton of bugs and issues. Now with updates to the game you can rest assured that you can focus on the story way more than before and your game wont crash nearly as often as it used to. Yes the game was unplayable for me half way through. That is why I had to replay it once the update released. I cannot wait for more from the creator(s) of this series!

Unbelieveable ... I know [LOVE] is real because games like this exist, the true [HUMAN] spirit to [CONNECT], to [CREATE], to [EXPRESS] and let [YOURSELF] be part of this [LIFE]. No matter [WHAT HAPPENS] in this world, you will always be [YOURSELF] and for that and thanks to [ENIGMA STUDIO] I will forever be [GREATFUL].

Dear god the visuals make this borderline unplayable at times, I wanted to keep going but there come points where the screen becomes a solid color and you literally can't do anything. Combine that with needing any degree of precision and its just not fun at all.

Truly one of the most unique gaming experiences I've ever had. The first half is a great bit of gameplay (Puzzle-y Mini Superhot) and neat but slightly tired exposition (metaphysical horror with a bit of the Analog trend of the last few years). However, the second half completely [recon]textualizes every single system the game and its priors have introduced, truly a type of story-telling you can only achieve in a Video Game. I played the first half of the game without having played anything else in the series. At the halfway point, the game explicitly recommends playing the other games in the series before continuing, and I would heavily agree. While the prior four games don't have anywhere the polish or even "fun" Echostasis has, there are pivotal moments in those games that Echostasis will force you to [recon]sider in such a wonderful way. If you choose to play the games out of order like me, back up your save! The Echostasis Demo Prologue will wipe your main Echostasis save unfortunately (the dev should fix this IMO). Look into how Unity engine games save their data into the Registry, and you'll be able to figure out how to save your data. That, or just play the games in the right order and don't worry about it. What a great game! Sad to see [her] go, but I've reached the [end].

TL;DR -Narrative: good -Visuals: very inspired, if you don't know you have epilepsy this game is the perfect test -Music: extremely good -Gameplay: boring and annoying to atrocious --- Before Echostasis I played: -The Enigma Machine -Mothered -watched "Mothered: Home" (the demo of Mothered). -Echostasis: Prologue (the demo) The narrative is cool and all the aforementioned games in order are required to understand everything, since they all tell bits of a bigger story of which Echostasis is the pinnacle and ending. Also the Evangelion and Metal Gear Solid 2 ispirations are clear as day. Unfortunately the game also has basically all the things I hate the most in games: -Mazes -Timers -Low visibility -Clunky combat -Trial and error (+ pure luck) sections I already hate mazes, but mazes on a timer while you look for permanent shortcuts with enemies chasing you while you can't see sh*t are on another level. The 1st part of the game can be very annoying, but the latter part just get atrocious and without a video guide I would have just dropped the game. It feels like they were added only to pad the game and if they weren't...maybe the dev should get his tastes checked, because they aren't hard in a good or immersive way, they're boring, annoying and lasts too long. Combat doesn't add anything to the game and I would have gladly preferred walking simulator sections instead of it (which wasn't a phrase I thought I would have said today) or even a "gameplay" analogous to the game Her Story. If the game lasted around 5 hours it would be a very good and visually inspired art piece, but for how it is it's a mess that only a very determined to enjoy it person can like it. And I don't think there are that many people like those, like me. I think that, despite everything, Echostasis left me something that was worth the journey, at worst I discovered some cool music tracks, so I'll give it a thumb up.

This game is somewhat held back by its gameplay loop. The story is absolutely fascinating and the visuals are one of a kind. But the gameplay can become tiresome and you will find yourself at an impasse on multiple occasions. I even had to resort to youtube once which i dont enjoy lol. I love everything else quite a bit tho. Overall I would recommend this just for style alone. Lastly BEWARE, I accidentally started the prologue up one day near the end of my playthrough thinking I had started the full games exe and it completely reset my game save. Dev if theres anyway you can fix my save i'd be very grateful.