Where the Heart Leads Reviews
Nevertheless, Where the Heart Leads is worth picking up and playing as soon as possible. The story it has to tell is carefully crafted, emotionally vulnerable, and will stick with players long after the final lines of dialogue fade from the screen.
Despite its shortcomings, Where The Heart Leads offers an amazing and emotional experience with many endings that would rival games with the best replay value. The game will surely satisfy and maybe even inspire players to reflect on their choices in real life and the consequences it entailed on their loved ones.
Where the Heart Leads does well for what it seemingly aims to do. It’s the surreal narrative journey of a family through years of happiness and sadness with the connective tissue of a disastrous event tying it down to the present. Putting the puzzle pieces of memory, decision, and consequence together as you go takes this game in a number of directions. Not every direction is riveting and there are some definite lulls, but there are also deeply difficult moments to choose between with consequences for the choices made and the paths untaken. If you’re looking for a chill and often lackadaisical journey you'll steer in meaningful ways, Where the Heart Leads is a narrative-heavy series of roads you may be inclined to explore again and again.
Where the Heart Leads doesn’t want you to play and after a while, I just stopped fighting it.
Where the Heart Leads is another narrative game representative, here capturing a 'slice of life', the story of a worldly person, with its decisions and consequences. A beautiful visual part, but limited means that take a direct toll on the narrative and execution, this being the great handicap of the game. But still, another interesting representative in this style of 'playing stories', with considerable variability and changes, being more active and branched than other games of this style, although these narrative limitations take their toll when it comes to exploiting these possibilities and replayability .
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Where the Heart Leads falls into a short, unique list of titles that lead you to ponder things long after the credits roll. The narrative holds a mirror to the player, cornering them against realistic in-game situations and forces them to investigate their values. It’s not preachy, by any means, but it uses realism in a way that made me want to get my own life in order. If such was the goal, Armature Games has succeeded through and through.
The game does land one or two emotional blows towards the end, but getting to those moments requires a lot of walking — sometimes with only a vague idea of where you’re supposed to be going — and watching dull conversations unfold. Where the Heart Leads is too long, with huge stretches that give you little to do, and in the end you might be questioning whether it was all worth it. That’s life.
Where the Heart Leads is a wonderfully crafted narrative adventure, where every choice is felt throughout the story of Whit and his family.
Sometimes things don’t work out the way we want them to. In all of its glorious indifference, the universe can seem to lie in wait for opportunities to twist our meandering paths forward in unexpected directions. Where the Heart Leads is gentle and empathetic in its lesson that adulthood isn’t a place where one arrives…While we all may strive not to live in the past, we all have moments we wish we could do-over. That’s what makes the gift of this game all the more special: it offers an invitation to try again, with the tender reminder that life will never be perfect.
Where the Heart Leads offers a supremely compelling and fascinating overall narrative, one that is filled with genuinely meaningful choices – surely a rarity in video games? Unfortunately, its tall tale is also bogged down with numerous presentation issues that result in dull characterisation. Overall an uneven experience that's both brilliant and boring – sometimes at the same time.
Where the Heart Leads is almost impossible to put down thanks to its strong characters, deep story and attention to detail. The game is brought down only by its minor inconveniences such as bugs and typos that detract only a little from the main experience. For fans of narrative games, this is a must-play, but even those who do not consider themselves fans of the genre might find something they relate to in this game.
Where the Heart Leads had a lot of potential, but was ruined by hollow dialogues, confusing navigation, shaky camera, and boring characters.
Review in Russian | Read full review
All in all Armature Studio has done a good job with Where the Heart Leads, offering a story-driven adventure based on choices that influence the story of the protagonist, but not very satisfying in terms of gameplay.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Where The Heart Leads is a unique game that chronicles a family's entire life together, spanning generations and decades. It's ambitious, albeit flawed, but certainly interesting.
There are definitely people who will sympathize with this story but I personally find it boring and the lack of voice acting made it really hard to get through all the unnecessarily long dialogues. Personal stories are always welcomed but they should have something new to say to actually connect with the audience
Review in Persian | Read full review
The power of decision-making is in your hands as you play through a man's life in Where the Heart Leads, a new surreal narrative game exclusive to PS4 (and also playable on PS5). What choices will you make, and where will they take you and Whit Anderson, as well as a host of other characters?
Where the Heart Leads is a narrative journey taking players through the often mundane, sometimes impactful choices made in life. Lacking truly worthwhile gameplay, a swath of players may avoid this meaningful, surrealist story and seek out something less ordinary.