Pentiment review | Xbox Series X|S

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The phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword” may never have been a more apt phrase than in the world of Pentiment. In this text, or rather written serif script-based adventure, you will be challenged to embody the mind of an artist through his life in the fictional German town of Tassing, as he takes it upon himself to help solve a mysterious murder.

by James Michael Parry

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​@james_parry

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Developer: Obsidian
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC
Players: 1

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The story takes you through years, following Andreas Maler’s life as it transpires based on your decisions – even his background and the languages and cultural references he understands are within your power to choose.

But choose wisely, hedging your bets and second-guessing yourself will be a sure way to miss a lot of the richness and intrigue this story has to offer.

Presented in a 2D, hand drawn style similar to a tapestry, you’ll get to know the sprawling town of Tassing and the complex series of passages in its Abbey, where Andreas works in the scriptorium, writing  type and creating elaborate illustrations for books.

As you begin it’s the early 1500s, around the time when the printing press was beginning to make a job like that obsolete. The threat of change and new ideas leads to many disagreements, something of a common theme throughout the story.

The crux of the experience is your interactions with the other characters, since there’s no fighting or platforming on show here, and you’ll find each have their own script shown on screen, which can denote their status, their level of education or even their relationship with Andreas himself. In fact you’ll occasionally see mistakes corrected or languages translated in real-time as you read.

Fortunately, if you do find the old-fashioned text hard to read, there is an option to simplify it, though it would be a shame to miss out on the characterisations you can feel through the way the lettering is presented alone.

It turns out finding a murder suspect isn’t so easy, and you can only really complete one investigative task at each point of the day before you’re moved on to a meal or off to bed. Sometimes a single dialogue choice can have major consequences later, sometimes years down the line as time marches on through the story.

Pentiment is both approachable and engaging, very much a narrative adventure rather than a complex, sprawling one, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s simple...

The biggest frustration we found was realising only in retrospect that we’d missed an opportunity when we are greeted with the text “this will be remembered” after making a, often quite difficult, choice.

What it does mean though is that in almost every interaction you feel as though you have to keep your wits about you, even though generally you can see the spectrum of opinion on an issue or the variety in harshness of a response by a consistent use of dialogue presentation.

Sometimes choices will be accompanied by a symbol, relating to an element of Andreas’ background or skills, which at times can prove to be a great way to take a conversation into a unique direction, at others it is a shortcut to aggravating other characters and even causing you to fail decision-based crucial moments, where you’ll see how your choices stack up on screen to have characters either help you or shut you out.

Quickly you learn to be careful with the passage of time, to avoid missing opportunities to press people further, but you’re well into the game before you really feel like you’re really getting the hang of it.

When you finally do reach the point where you’re making accusations, it’s hard to feel confident that you truly have all the facts, or that there aren’t still more suspects to be uncovered.

Still, the challenge keeps you invested all the way through, and through dream sequences you even get to examine the psyche of your heroic artist by speaking to different elements of his subconscious, as well as vague memories of his home life, which he tends not to talk too much about.

Pentiment is both approachable and engaging, very much a narrative adventure rather than a complex, sprawling one, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s simple. The layers of stories here are tightly woven, and it will take a fair few playthroughs to convince you you’ve explored every avenue of the tale.

There’s certainly not a game like it, and with it free on Game Pass from day one, it feels like an experience that every Xbox owner should at least give a try.

Pros

• Beautifully realised with intricate visual details filled with care
• A complex, layered story, thoughtfully woven, you can’t help but be drawn into
• A unique gaming experience which is patient and thoughtful, and rewards both

Cons

• Despite a journal and notes keeping track of characters is hard work
• The more information you gather the more difficult it is to keep your head around
• Speed of text appearing could be a bit snappier, even at its fastest setting

9/10