Graceward - Complete Edition Reviews

Amazing game. I never post reviews but it's criminal how few people have played this game. If you like playing games to feel feelings, I highly recommend you play this one.

This game was a rollercoaster. I bought it expecting a simple zombie game, but got so much more. A cyberpunk, corpo-fascist city full of trigger-happy police and mass graves. A wasteland of dead wood and angry spirits. A dying world and a last chance to save those who come next. Party members I cared about, who would muse about the unfairness of the world, the nature of faith, and making stew. The story kept me guessing and captivated me. I would rant about it to friends, comparing it to Disco Elysium without a hint of irony. Mechanically, it's... kind of cruddy. Not bad, but it's effectively trying to be a shooter inside an adventure game engine. Movement is awkward and janky, there's not much feedback for being hit or hitting with melee, guns tend to be inaccurate at the best of times, especially the machine gun being nearly-impossible to control without an upgrade. There's a dodge roll that I don't even know what it does, and I was 3/4ths through the game when I even discovered I could do it. And yet it actually works. The combat is functional and engaging once you accept the jank, the weapons being difficult to aim accurately both makes them feel more distinct and helps suspend disbelief (enemies miss you just as often!), the shotgun is the best shotgun I've ever used in a game just for it being actually useful beyond 5 feet in front of you. Every weapon upgrade is meaningful even before you get the capstones that both unlock an extra feature and change the appearance of the weapon. You start out with a single pistol and thinking a single enemy is a threat, you'll end with an arsenal that rivals Doomguy and a kill count to match. Exploring, poking the wall for secret items, gunning down hordes of enemies... it's actually really fun both in spite of and because of its flaws once you get into the right mindset. All in all, I was not expecting to like Graceward as much as I did, but here I am at 1am vomiting multiple paragraphs of praise right after beating it. If you're at all interested in paranormal, cyberpunk, or apocalyptic fiction, give this a try.