Claire Reviews

Claire is an okay horror side scrolling game and an okay Silent Hill like game too, now then what is the story. A young woman named Clara has it rough her dad leaving her at a young age, taking her brother Ethan with him and leaving her to care for her disabled mother, she even has a bit of trouble at school. It’s become pretty routine for the young lady but all that changes one day at the hospital, Claire is watching her mom and decides to grab a quick cup of coffee before heading back to her mom's room to finish some homework, but soon on her way back to her mom, Clara finds herself trapped in some nightmarish realm filled with twisted shadowy Horrors, how did she get here? She doesn't know, she also doesn't know how her dog Anubis has come to this land as well; all she really knows is that she must escape but doing so might unveil some hard truths the young woman may not be ready for. Okay what are the likes, the story is really good, like a lot of these Silent Hill like games it can be a bit confusing at first, but after getting to the end everything starts to click together, also itdid a good job of talking about a troubled home life and potentially living with a narcissistic and abusive parent while not outright telling you and leaving you to come up with your own conclusions. It also talks about things like suicide, losing one's identity, losing loved ones, feeling not like you're fitting in with Society, also about grief and disappointment, but it also talked about how things can get better and there are people that care about you it was well done. The gameplay is good and rather simple it's sort of like Clock Tower you go around picking up items in order to get further in the game or use them to heal yourself nothing too complicated, there's also a fear meter if it gets too low it can damage you, and certain things like jump scares or certain enemies can cause your fear meter to go up. But you can bring it down by going to a quiet room, use one of the health items like tea or just listening to some music to calm yourself down which can actually be attributed to real life ways to calm yourself. The puzzles were a mixed bag some were clever and had some well placed clues for those who are paying attention, others felt like you just had the brute force it. The graphics are good had a nice retro look to it with its uses of colors and designs, it kind of reminds me of another horror game that did this kind of style that’s called Lone Survivor, it also had this kind of look to it. The levels are good each area is quite distinct from a hospital to a school and an apartment complex, also each one is nicely detailed. But you can get a little lost sometimes, but there is a map so it wasn't too bad, and the designs and background makes you want to stop and stare at a little bit. The characters were good each one was nicely written, Clara being the best obviously because she's the main protagonist, you definitely feel for her and her struggles with a crappy childhood coupled with having to take care of a parent when she herself is still a kid. The NPCs were good too with some nice designed and some little stories that you can pick up and figure out what happened to them through dialogue and the background scenery. The soundtrack was pretty good, helped with the atmosphere and some of the songs were nice to listen to like the cartoon theme for that gummy/Care Bears kind of show.The atmosphere was good keeps you on the edge for the first time you're playing it, but after a while you get used to it. Now is this game scary, a little bit for first time players, but you can quickly get used to it. Okay what are the dislikes, like I said some of the puzzles could be a bit of a pain, some of them can be clever with well placed clues while others feel like it requires brute forcing it, so don't feel ashamed if you have to use a walkthrough. Also would have liked the ability to delete my saves when I finish the game. Some of the achievements can also be a bit frustrating to get, the worst being the Collector one where you have to collect 80 items, since there's no real counter to tell you how many items you get till the end it can be such a pain to just be so close to getting 80. So my personal advice is after beating the game play it on New Game Plus, gathers some lock picks and get the dog ending as it’s the shortest way to beat the game then play do another New Game Plus because any items you picked up in that previous playthrough transfers to this playthrough, also use a walkthrough. The enemies could be a bit frustrating with some of their placements and can be a bit cheap with their attacks particularly the bigger enemies. The enemy designs also weren't really the best some of them are just basically shadowy things, I don't know I feel like other games have used simplistic enemy designs a bit better than this. Also for the story there was a little problem with it, I wanted to know a little bit about Clara's brother Ethan, we don't really know much about him other than that one letter he wrote to Santa, it would be good to at least get to know him a bit. Lastly apparently there's a Extended Cut of this game on consoles, problem with it is that this game isn't the Extended Cut, it's the first version. I don't know why that this game wasn't turned into the Extended Cut when it came out or the Extended Cut being sold on Steam that feels kind of dumb. Now that I told you all this Claire is an okay horror side scrolling game and an okay Silent Hill like game too, really good story, good gameplay and good characters, so do I recommend this game? Yeah if you're looking for an okay side scrolling Silent Hill like game this could be for you, I do recommend waiting for this to be on sale.