Game review: The Devil in Me

I finished this game on stream yesterday, the season 1 finale of the company’s The Dark Pictures: Anthology. Did I like this game more than the previous one? Let’s find out together, shall we? Be aware: massive spoilers!

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A documentary film crew receives a mysterious invite to a replica of the ‘Murder Castle’ of H.H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer. They soon discover that they’re being watched, and there is much more at stake than their viewing figures.

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In this game, you play five characters. From left to right: Mark, Kate, Charlie, Jamie, and Erin. Jamie’s face has been used before in previous games, which we all know my thoughts on. The same goes for H. H. Holmes’ face and a cop’s face, both were used previously before too. I get it’s kind of a season idea in which characters are supposedly returning, but they’re always completely different characters in terms of names, background, and plot. It just annoys me a great deal that they keep reusing faces. Feels kinda lazy, you know? I’m sure they have a deliberate reason for it, it’s just how I feel about it. In the beginning, I had a lot of trouble getting into these characters’ personalities. But a huge chunk into the game, I started to like them more and more. By the end, I loved them. I was shipping hard on two couples and want to make sure you know, that love is love. And I made sure that I’m an ally by shipping a certain couple, and I’m glad I got them together in the end. In the beginning, hard to love the characters. Well, all but two, who are easily loveable right from the start, and then by the end, you’ve secretly come to love all.

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As with all of their games, you’ve got two choices each time you’re given a dialogue option or some sort of QTE/escape option. Nothing new in that aspect. What’s new in this game, however, is that heart or head choices don’t matter for any type of trophy. Just pick whatever your heart desires, preferably strengthening friendships/relationships, and not killing anyone. You’ve got QTE’s when in a fight, hitting either X, square, circle, or triangle, or aiming to shoot or stab, and the heart monitors QTE to avoid detection. Simple mechanics, nothing to complain about that. Right? Wrong. In this particular game, as reviewed by many players, there’s a huge bug that comes along with the heart monitor QTE, in which a lot of players fail while pressing the right button. The company updated these bugs to no avail, seeing as I too stumbled upon this issue as I was playing. Luckily, which was not an option in the previous games, you could easily replay a chapter and create a new save. I’m glad they at least did that to meet our standards when it comes to gameplay and being screwed by their bugs.

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Just like the other games, you’ve got your fair share of secrets and pictures to find. I gotta admit that they were pretty easy to find. Though one of them was so hard to find, I had to use a guide. Or rather, for two types of secrets. One was finding coins, or obols, of which you need 200 for a trophy. And you can’t even find 200 in one playthrough unless you restart chapters over and over again. Then there were also certain photos you had to make as Mark, photos for evidence. Just stumble upon them by accident, or use a guide made by a fellow gamer. I’d pick the latter because trust me, they ain’t easy to find, and you forget that Mark has a camera on him pretty easily. I loved the secrets in which they had recordings, showing you evidence and stories from H. H. Holmes and Hector Munday, an FBI agent. Really cleverly done, and pretty amusing to watch and listen to.

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All in all, I did like this game way more than House of Ashes, Man of Medan, and Little Hope. I think that this is by far my favourite game of season 1. I read so many bad reviews about this game, and I honestly disagree. I think the whole game was pretty well-made, and the constant feeling of being chased, and threatened, it’s so menacing and makes you play on the edge of your seat. And I love it when games manage that. The jumpscares were meh, very predictable. There were times in which certain characters, and even the killer himself, survived things that no normal human should ever survive, which made it slightly less believable, but I still enjoyed the plot and the continuous looking-over-your-shoulder vibes. I also loved that the walls kept moving around you and would lock you inside a true maze, and it was fun unravelling the killer, even though it’s also kinda predictable who he was. Then again, it also wasn’t that predictable. Does that even make sense? Probably not. I think for that to make sense, you ought to play the game yourself. Because yes, I highly recommend this game. It has its flaws, and it definitely does, but there are so many good things as well, that it definitely overpowers the flaws.

End conclusion: yes, I recommend this game! I shall give The Devil in Me, 4,5 out of 5 stars!

Love, Skye Lewis ❤

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