Earlier this year, Microsoft surprised gamers by announcing its intentions to begin releasing some of its formerly exclusive titles, on Nintendo and Playstation consoles. The first of these was the narrative adventure game, Pentiment. I had played Pentiment previously on PC Gamespass, but the PlayStation version that was released on February 22nd had something shiny and new to it, a Platinum Trophy. The allure of this addition coupled with the low price tag of only 16 English pounds was enough to make me want to pick it up again. So I did just that, eager to jump back into 16th Century Bavaria, paintbrush in hand, ready to investigate the mysterious town of Tassing. So how did the first Xbox Studios game fare on PS5, and what did it take to earn the first Xbox Platinum Trophy? Let’s find out.
Narrative Adventure games can sometimes be a hard sell. Their focus on story and characters or puzzles over moment-to-moment gameplay means that if any of those things are sub-par then the game can often be left feeling dull and uninspired since there is nothing to help elevate the narrative. So, wherever possible I am a lot more careful with what I choose to buy, looking at reviews and who wrote the narrative before I make a decision. If it’s something by Tim Schafer or Ron Gilbert, who both worked on some of the best adventure games of the 90’s like Monkey Island, then my interest is sky-high, but for new or lesser-known developers I need a bit more convincing. So when Obsidian Entertainment announced they were creating a narrative adventure game, I was very intrigued. Obsidians have made some incredible games in the past, like Fallout New Vegas and Neverwinter Nights 2, and their more recent titles like Pillars of Eternity 2 and Outer Worlds have not disappointed either. With these in mind, I thought it was worth giving this strange and unique-looking game Pentiment a chance.
Set in the 16th Century Bavarian town of Tassing, you play as Andreas Maler, a journeyman artist working to become a Master. As part of fulfilling his apprenticeship, Andreas works as an artist in the nearby Abbey, alongside Benedictine Monks. While Andreas works on his masterpiece, a visiting nobleman is murdered inside the Abbey, and the artist takes it upon himself to solve the murder, and clear the name of his mentor, a kindly old monk who found the body.
The thread the narrative begins to weave with is an interesting one, everyone loves a good murder mystery to be sure, but this tale is elevated by the game’s large cast of characters. Investigating this heinous crime means Andreas must talk to the people living in the area, learn about their personalities, their fears and hopes, their families and most importantly, what they know about the murder. Everyone in the town of Tassing, and the nearby Abbey feels so fully realised and unique. The sprawling tapestry of their lives is cleverly stitched together to give you a sense of what the town has been through, and how each person living there relates to each other, is done so well that it’s hard not to feel like Tassing is a real place full of real people.
The trick to this isn’t only the incredibly smart writing, but in the way the game structures the time you spend with it. There is only so much investigating and talking Andreas can do in one day before he has to sleep. You can have lots of small conversations around town, but most of the main investigative avenues, like tailing someone, take up time. Following one lead may close off another, and spending dinner with one family and town might let you hear some relevant information about one character’s past, but then what would you have learned if you had chosen to eat with another? Andreas only has 2 days to investigate before he must present his findings, so what leads do you follow up on, and what ones do you leave alone?
The game makes sure to dangle just a few more threads to follow than you actually have time for, and it makes future runs so much more enjoyable because you are still seeing new things, hearing new perspectives and asking yourself, if you had followed this trail before, would you have made the same choices on your first run? Because of this, getting the Platinum trophy does require some save file manipulation, to allow yourself to make certain choices for one trophy, and then make a different one, but even with this, you will still need to replay at least a partial second playthrough to see all the major plot points Pentiment has to offer and earn the trophies for seeing those through.
The game doesn’t end once you have completed your investigation into the Baron’s murder and offer evidence for your chosen suspect. The Second Act starts 7 years later, Andreas returning to Tassing as a Master Artist, his new apprentice in tow, and it’s here I began to see the true beauty of the story of this game. As you would expect the choices you made at the end of Act 1 have affected the town, but more than that seemingly innocuous choices and comments Andreas made 7 years ago are remembered by the people of the town, and they react to these, with some characters’ demeanour changing towards you drastically.
Tassing changes as the story continues, and just as the mysteries deepen over time, so do the relationships you see unfold in the town. Characters who were young when you first visited are older, or married with children now and characters who Andreas knew in his youth have passed.
Exploring the town and talking to its denizens is about as much gameplay as Pentiment gets. There are a few mini-games like solving a puzzle using a cipher, or bending horseshoes, but they are few and far between, although most of them have trophies attached to them. Most of what you are able to do is walking and talking, choosing dialogue options, or courses of action for Andreas to take. There is a small RPG aspect to the game though if only briefly. At the beginning of the game, you can choose a few options that relate to Andreas’ backstory, what he studied at university, where he has lived, and what was his youth like, and these will open up new dialogue options to relate to and influence people.
Many of these choices seem unimportant when you make them, but as I said these are all remembered. There are moments in the game where you will have to persuade someone to do something or give you some information, but these are not simple dialogue choices or rolls of the dice. Instead, the persuasion attempts are much more natural and realistic, taking into account your previous behaviours and things you have said, however unrelated to the current attempt they are. These persuasion attempts often have important consequences too, being able to drastically change the direction of your investigation.
Not all of these choices and dialogue are related to the overall mystery that pulls Pentiment’s narrative together. Many of them are just there to build the world around you as you play, teaching you about the time the game is set in, and how different classes of people view broad topics such as religion, or class structure within the context of the town.. The game has an incredibly useful glossary you can open up with the touchpad, when you see certain highlighted words. This will often give you a brief description of things, like what period of the day Matins is, or what the Church selling Indulgences means, which although are never necessary things to understand the story going on around you, add so much context and background to help you understand the characters.
Although much of Pentiment’s narrative is based on the struggles and conflicts of the 16th-century period it is set in, its artistic style is used to reflect this as well. Pentiment’s graphics look like medieval manuscript paintings, and the game is framed as if it is being read through an old book. The transitions between scenes flip like turning pages, and pressing the touchpad to bring up the game’s helpful glossary, zooms out to show the the game as just an illustration in a book, the edges filled with notes, or strange medieval drawings.
The way that characters move across the gorgeous and detailed backgrounds gives them a sense of puppetry as if you were watching a play made from paper.
The text boxes are filled with beautiful scripts that fill themselves in as the character speaks, with different characters having different styles depending on their personality. The Monks all speak in an intricate beautiful thick script, whereas upper and middle-class characters use a flowing intalicised script. As the words fill in you hear the scratching of quill on parchment or the tapping of a printing press. These change as you learn more about the characters too, for example when Andreas realises a character is more educated than he initially thought the font changes to reflect this.
There are other details too in the way dialogue is presented that I adore, as the words are being written out, words become punctuated in different ways, colours are used to imply changes in tone, and outbursts are often accompanied by splotches of ink, dotted around the word like it was written by someone shaking a pen. Mistakes are made as the words flow across the text boxes that look like scrolls, being corrected as the sentence finishes. For a game with no spoken dialogue, it’s an incredible way of getting the tone and emphasis that is inherent in spoken dialogue across. I never thought I would spend so long gushing about fonts, but here we are.
Naturally, in a game with so many avenues for investigation, there are a ton of missable trophies. If you want to get the trophies in one-and-a-half playthroughs the way I did, a guide is pretty much necessary. There are many specific dialogue options you will need to pick to complete the persuasion checks, which not only has a trophy for doing 5 of them but is necessary for parts of your investigation. In my opinion, though, I would recommend a blind playthrough first. Pentiment isn’t a long game, taking me 20 hours to get the platinum overall, so I would say a single playthrough is only 15 or so hours long, and I feel an extra 15 hours to get the full impact of the twists and turns of Pentiments excellent narrative is worth doing.
The trophy list isn’t difficult at all however, there are a couple of collectables to look out for, examine 10 different flowers, or pet 5 animals, but there are a lot of opportunities to get these so it’s not something you have to worry about. Then there are trophies related to the small mini-games that are hidden in the game, Spinning Wool, Cutting cookies or winning or losing all the money in a card game.
The remainder are related to specific choices you can make or characters you interact with for doing things like; headbutting one character, or seducing another. Most of these can be done in on your first playthrough if you do use a guide, so that my second playthrough of the first act, only had 4 trophies left to get. Once you have seen almost all their is to see, you will earn the Platinum trophy, which is disappointingly named Platinum Trophy. I hope this isn’t a recurring name for Xbox Studios releases.
Pentiment is a wonderful game. I know that narrative adventure games aren’t for everyone, but if you enjoy games like Oxenfree or Night in the Woods, then I think you will like this. The tale is a brilliantly layered mystery, that manages to be engaging throughout and has many twists and turns I didn’t see coming at all, a story full of emotion and wit. Its unique tale is just as interesting as its unique art style, and I think the way it does dialogue both visually and in content is something that other games could stand to learn from. If Obsidian ever makes another game in this genre, it’s safe to say I will be beyond excited.
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