Darkarta: A Broken Heart's Quest Collector's Edition Reviews

This is not a game. It's a cheap Indian B-movie filled with nonsense and unnecessary drama. The plot is non-existent. The characters can be used as an illustration on Wikipedia for the article about the uncanny valley effect. And why — WHY?! — make a great deal of cinematics if you suck both in writing and art? No idea. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3411947726 So, what the game is all about? A mother is trying to save her really ugly child which was kidnapped by some evil guy Darkarta who wants to use an innocent soul to bring his beloved (who sacrificed herself to grant him immortality) back from the dead. Although she's not dead. What? Yes. And while he can use any innocent soul, he waits for centuries to get this particular child because the protagonist is the reincarnation of the woman who betrayed him. He really needed to close that gestalt, I reckon. But once the child is kidnapped, the evil guy disappears. Instead, there's an evil woman trying to prevent your rescue mission. I guess she's mother of the evil guy but I am not sure as she looks completely different in cinematics. Also, she should be dead as a doornail as she committed suicide by falling from a cliff — again, centuries ago. Whatever. Anyways, she's a mage and can obviously zap you into oblivion but prefer to make stupid walls or destroy bridges on your way which can be surpassed within a minute because puzzles in the game are easy and not very challenging. Maybe she's just not a very competent villain but lets cut her some slack, she makes way more trouble than any regular dead woman. There are other characters, by the way. But since I have no idea who are they and what their purpose for the story, let's just say there are an old Hindu guy who disappears with your wounded husband, some kind of shaman dressed as a circus freak and a chained maid punished by her mistress, the ought-to-be-dead evil woman, for some role she played in the story which happened thousand years ago. And I wonder, o mighty Vishnu, how many more people were bestowed with immortality for no reason? More importantly, why? The gal is useless for the story and was needed just to give you a pendant which leads you to an awful but unique cinematic. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3411949002 A unique cinematic? Yes, because most of cinematics are basically the same. It's either an ugly crying Chucky-like girl saying 'Mommy, where are you?' or the protagonist falling from every cliff she finds, stupidly wavering with her hands. And all of these happens to distract you from really uninspiring puzzles with unclear goals and abysmal connection between them. Not to mention that sometimes you just get a whole new useless location with another er... character? A f★cking tree which attacks you for no reason and then let you go for no reason. I am pretty sure this is some kind of Harry Potter game because they got their own Whomping Willow and some writings on the wall are made with HARRY POTTER FONT, damn it! Tell me about immersion. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3411938463 And the ending... You find the 'dead' girl, the one Darkarta wants to resurrect, in some kind of a fish tank. To learn that the girl is pretty much alive and can even speak. Then the evil b★tch shows up and almost throw the protagonist off another cliff but she is saved by Darkarta himself. And his 'dead' beloved casts a spell which destroys the witch. So, the child is saved with no help from the protagonist but the evil guy all of a sudden turns out to be a schizophrenic, changing his mind completely within seconds from 'I'm gonna kill the girl' to 'No, I can't do that'. Why the hell did you lure them back to India and kidnapped the child, damn it? Why helped the mother? He cries, 'How can I save my beloved now?' Save from what? She's not dead! But the protagonist be like: 'There's only way to stop the curse, I have to die. Yes, I am abandoning my child, also she should watch my death'. And then you get the luxury to see another cinematic of that stupid b★tch falling from the cliff. The evil guy's beloved SOMEHOW is freed by that act of stupidity, and they tell the little girl that her mother is not dead as there's a bonus chapter. Which I refuse to play because I had enough. Honestly, I love these kind of puzzle games, I really do. But this game fails both as a game and a technical product because there's no way you can take these stupid facial animations and scary moving faces on trees made with twisted PNGs serious. Thus, if you want a quality, go play Artifex Mundi's games. And if you crave some Indian vibes, 'Seeta and Geeta' is available on YouTube.