Thursday 13 August 2015

Whispering Willows Xbox One Review


Whispering Willows
Xbox One
ID@Xbox
28/08/2015


Whispering Willows is a dark, horror-ish adventure game designed beautifully by Nightlife Interactive and published onto Xbox using the ID@Xbox program. This is another great indie game to add to the growing collection on Xbox one and I'm glad I had the opportunity to play this little gem.

In this dark story you are in control of a lost, scared but extremely determined young girl called Elena who is stranded in and around the Willows Mansion trying to find her Father while solving problems and discovering secrets of the mansions past along the way.
Elena is in possession of a family heirloom which grants her the ability to control her spirit which can be used to possess objects to help you pass  through rooms and speak to the other spirits that are trapped in time.


The game features a few chapters for you to puzzle your way through and discover the mystery of Willow mansion, However after I had finished these few chapters I was longing for more after only a few hours.

There are different objectives for you to do throughout the game and these range from finding items to help you get through rooms to ghosts mazes. There are plenty of items you can interact with and Elena will respond usually with a witty comment. Most of these lines are just for show, however some are very important and you need to pay attention to what other ghosts have to say in order to find your father. Key points in dialogue are highlighted in a different colour which I liked because I am usually a button masher when it comes to cut-scenes but this told me no Ryan you need to stop and read this its important.

There are quite a few collectibles for you to scavenge for in the form of a scroll. Finding of of these prompts you to open the menu and read its contents, usually telling you something about the area you are in. However these aren't key to finishing the game but I would recommend finding them as some of them are interesting and they make the game a while longer. Also there are few different logos for you to find that are related to the devs, some of these are tough to find but if you do them you are rewarded with a hefty amount of gamerscore.

The game was built very well and playing through the game twice I found no bugs and it ran smoothly at all times.


Some parts of the game did make me jump a little bit but generally it was quite a chill out while playing.


The games visuals are gorgeous. I am a bit of a sucker for hand drawn games because they just look so damn good and this game is no exception every scene has been beautifully drawn and I give the artist a thumbs up on drawing a dark and gloomy but beautiful piece of art.




Just like the visuals the audio cant be faulted. It helps set the scene perfectly with eerie piano playing scary notes to the clicking of spiders as they approach or the croaking of a lonely frog.



As I said earlier on I had no trouble with game and it all ran smoothly with no hiccups, shame there wasn't a few more mechanics to play around with.



The game comes with 4 chapters to puzzle through but this just isn't enough. From what I played I really enjoyed there just wasn't much content but what you do get is fun.


Summary

I did enjoy Whispering Willows and if you have some spare cash then get it on the download.
The game looks and sounds fantastic, the setting is spooky and the story is quite interesting its just shame there is only a small amount of it. I finished the game twice however the second time wasn't fun because I had remembered it step by step so there is very little replay value.
However if you are into this sort of genre then it is worth adding to your collection.

I spent approximately 3 hours playing the game getting 19/19 achievements.

- King Yatesy


A copy of the game was supplied by the developer. (Thank You!!)

Developer Website: http://nightlightinteractive.com/#whisperingwillows