BinaryMessiah Pentiment Review

1518 is the year of Pentiment's main plot. You play Andreas Maler. An art apprentice works for the church at Kiersau Abbey near Tassing. This is solely an adventure game with no spoken dialogue, so there is a lot of early plot development, and it's very slow to start. I put the game down several times due to how long it took for the game to actually start getting interesting. There really aren't any gameplay mechanics to learn, so you mostly just follow the objective marker on your map and talk to people. There is a rare puzzle thrown in, but it isn't challenging at all. This is a choice-based adventure game, so your dialogue choices can decide who lives or dies in this game. There is a lot of history to learn, not just about the town of Tassing and the Holy Roman Empire in general, but also about the characters. There are a lot of characters, and thankfully, the writers did a good job portraying their personalities throughout. Towards the end of the game, everyone feels like familiar old friends, and you can feel and watch these people grow and change over time. While there are a lot of characters, the game does eventually start moving at a steady pace. There are no RPG elements, but you do get to choose specialties and subjects you are experienced in, such as languages, trades, and visited areas. This can help unlock dialogue boxes that have icons next to them. The conversations feel very organic, and you can't tell whether there are big choices or not, which is kind of nice. It feels more realistic in the sense that when the consequences come up, you have no idea how it happened, but in a good way. There isn't a way to predict a major plot twist this way, and it can add to replayability. While the dialogue is well written and the characters are mostly interesting, the game feels very dry and dull at times. There is a lot of proper real history, and to help learn more about this without a ton of nauseating exposition by the characters, certain terms are underlined in red, and you can press the back button, and a little snippet will explain what that means. This makes all of this optional and helps keep the story moving along, which was a great choice. The game is still very dry, and I feel a lot of people will put this down due to the real history and less fantasy. Having no spoken dialogue might also put a lot of people off. There are a lot of ambient sound effects and some pretty good music here and there, though. Once I got past the first act, I was glued to my Steam deck. The plot was quickening, and this murder mystery story was becoming more and more enticing. Sadly, the third act starts out dry again and takes a while to pick up, but when it does, it's very engaging. There also aren't any side objectives, stories, or anything like that. The main plot takes over 10 hours on its own due to just how much dialogue there is. The visuals are wonderful and one of the best parts of the game. The paper-cut-out art style is beautiful and fits the setting very well. There are a lot of colors, and you get to see every season and various forms of art within the game, as well as architecture. It's a very engrossing game visually, and it never gets boring to look at. With that said, this is still a text adventure with visuals to help it along. There isn't any gameplay, side objectives, or mini-games, and the game takes too long to pick up and get interesting to keep the casual curious gamer interested. Investing 10+ hours into this game might also seem daunting for those who don't enjoy reading books or like history. I love both, and it's fine for the type of people it is trying to reach.