Pentiment Reviews
The adventures of Andreas Maler, a 16th century artist in a bavarian village and its murder mysteries are just captivating. Obsidian Entertainment goes off the beaten tracks with Pentiment and delivers a slow-paced, beautiful medieval visual novel with a lots of choices while playing. The attention to detail with displaying the game in the look of a medieval book is excellent and sets the mood perfectly. Though there were some smaller bugs present and the absence of voice acting is a real shame, the quality of the writing and the graphical presentation really compensates for that. If the setting and genre is to your liking this title absolutely deserves a closer look.
Review in German | Read full review
Pentiment is, for better or worse, a sort of big interactive comic book showing a huge love for European medieval history, with an intriguing plot but with a great deal of text to read and interactions limited mainly to map exploration and dialogues. A fascinating title, mainly thanks to its subject matter, but definitely not for everyone.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Pentiment presents a satisfying and captivating narrative exercise in one unexpected whodunit, and along the way it questions the role of art and religion in the history of our civilization.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Whilst Pentiment promises to give players a fascinating narrative that takes all choices and actions into account, whilst exploring the themes of Politics and Religion in Europe in the 1500s, the uninteresting introduction, as well as the countless meaningless interactions throughout the title, makes itfeel much too long for what it is trying to achieve. There is an interesting plot to uncover here, but you will have to sift through quite a few hours worth of tedious dialogue with the occasional unnecessary minigame thrown in for ‘good’ measure.
Obsidian's Pentiment is a multi-layered masterpiece full of endearing characters, compelling stories, and disturbing secrets that await you at every corner of this carefully crafted world. It's a charming video game that discusses difficult social themes and struggles of ordinary people, acting as a history lesson that will stay in your memory for a long long time, as every masterpiece does.
Pentiment isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you have patience for it and can appreciate what it’s trying to do (and I certainly did), it’s a rewarding and enlightening experience which I’m very glad I’ve had the ability to play and enjoy.
Pentiment is not going to be popular. I do think however that it will become a cult classic. I can’t think of another game from a 1st party publisher to tackle a subject like this. Nothing about it feels forced to try and earn the most money, instead, it is a labor of devotion to telling a brilliant story at a specific period and place in our past. Life may rarely go the way we want, but there is power in our choices and I’m glad that Xbox allowed this game to be made. It’s a unique, dazzling work of art that will stand the test of time for as long as we remember it.
From its humble development and gameplay characteristics to its excellent narrative and stunningly beautiful ending, Pentiment is a game we can all relate to in one way or another.