They reminded me of Paper Boats, a game I reviewed for our Indie Spotlight articles a while back. The subtle but evocative music that plays softly throughout each scene is just as poignant and helps tie together a well written and acted narrative.Ĭomplementing the outstanding narrative is a visually stunning art style. This makes for some mind-blowingly powerful moments that the persistent bugs couldn’t even spoil. All of the voice performances nail the emotions required of each scene and make each character feel genuinely believable. “While I doubt I’ll ever revisit Before Your Eyes, the time I spent with it, as frustrating as it may have been, was incredible.”įortunately, this remarkable narrative is written and performed exquisitely.
At a later stage, you’re overcome with so much noise and sight that I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes and block it all out. And as much as the blinking mechanic feels gimmicky, there are points that add a lot to the narrative. There are even choices for you to dictate that have actual consequences on the overall plot. Whenever it dipped or the pace is faltered, it simply skipped to a point where it could pick up the pace again. The blinking mechanic might be nothing more than an infuriating gimmick that most of the time didn’t work for me the game might even be buggy and riddled with glitches, but, in all honesty, I loved it.īefore Your Eyes has an incredible narrative that takes you places you wouldn’t expect. However, despite all of this, I really like Before Your Eyes. While it was never catastrophic, as the game is only two hours long, it was frustrating. These would often occur during the most important moments and require me to restart from the beginning of a chapter. To add insult to injury, I experienced several crashes throughout. Either way, it completely ruined my experience. I wasn’t sure if it was a part of the game’s narrative or just an unfortunate bug. It got to the point that I had to close my eyes as it was painful to watch. On several occasions, the game would focus in and out spasmodically. These ranged from objects clipping into other objects to the game constantly attempting to refocus. There were several other bugs and glitches throughout. “However, despite all of this, I really like Before Your Eyes.” Alas, despite my numerous attempts, I never won that battle and was ultimately forced to play without the blinking mechanic. It felt like a never-ending struggle with the calibration system to let me play it how it was intended. It got to the point where it flat-out refused to move on despite the fact that I was blinking. Unfortunately, it isn’t just skipping segments that you have to calibrate the game for. In fact, I spent more time calibrating my blinking than I did actually playing the game. There is a way of calibrating the game to match your blinking more accurately, but this never worked. On multiple occasions, Before Your Eyes skipped segments even though I hadn’t blinked. The converse of this is when the game decides to blink for you.
What this ultimately means is that if you don’t blink very often, the game forces you. Unfortunately, when the additional story beats end, you’re stuck waiting for your eyes to blink if they haven’t already. While never particularly pertinent to the main story, these extra snippets of conversation help add a little character to those involved. If you don’t, however, then you’ll often be treated to additional dialogue. However, it turns out that it’s a curse.īefore Your Eyes’ central mechanic has it so that if you blink at specific points, you’ll skip ahead to another story beat. Because of my “talent”, I had no fear of missing out on important story details by blinking my way through them. It’s strange and, at times, extremely uncomfortable, but I’m pretty much guaranteed to win every blinking contest I enter. In-game Screenshot “I spent more time calibrating my blinking than I did actually playing the game.” Unfortunately, after having completed Before Your Eyes, it quickly dawned on me that while its narrative was engrossingly beautiful, the blinking mechanic did little more than hinder my enjoyment. Putting aside my scepticism, I jumped into Before Your Eyes with the wide-eyed wonder of a child. My greatest fear was that it would amount to little more than just a gimmick that would interfere with my overall experience. Upon hearing about this new mechanic, I was sceptical, to say the least. You quite literally blink your way through the narrative. It’s a game that offers an inventive way of playing video games. I sincerely wanted to enjoy Before Your Eyes.
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