Masquerada: Songs and Shadows Reviews
While Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is a refreshingly good story, it suffers from its unbalanced gameplay and low replayability.
If you can fumble your way through the gameplay, you’ll find a unique and intriguing story buried beneath it. With everything you have to put up with to get to it, though, I’m not really sure it’s worth the effort.
Annoyingly linear, but the great story and voice acting make up for it.
So Masquerada is set in the Citte of Ombre, which has a clear Venetian feel too it's design and is divided by class. At the top are the Masquerada, with access to Mascherines, masks that grant their wearers magical powers.
A real labour of love, Masquerada is a highly enjoyable RPG effort that is absolutely drowning in audiovisual style and spectacle, even if the overly linear structure and sometimes convoluted world building detracts from the final result.
Excellent entry point for new ARPG players whilst veterans will tire of the hand holding.
If you're looking for a captivating story set in an immersive world then Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is sure to satisfy.
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is a fun PS4 release with great graphics, a solid story and a ton of lore to learn. The battles are top-notch, and the customization for each of your party members thanks to the skill tree and how you can pretty try new things by asking for you points back to take a different approach for their abilities and boosts is very rewarding. Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is one you have to play on PlayStation 4. Tell your friends!
Through a combination of a fleshed-out world and interesting characters, Masquerada is the rare role-playing game that really sticks with the player after the credits roll (and that's not just due to the game's cliffhanger ending). Rather than deal with trope-filled characters, every member of Songs and Shadows‘ cast feels like a real person, and this makes their actions seem much more believable when they're forced to deal with some truly terrible situations. The story is the star here, and Witching Hour Studios have crafted a narrative they should be proud of.
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows in an interesting game. On one hand, we have a title that could have made a beautiful point-and-click or even a visual novel. On the other, we have the amazing adventure RPG that sees an unlikely group follow through an investigation that leads ever further down the rabbit hole.
Masquerade: Songs and Shadows is worth the attention. Beautiful music with well-written text and nice combat system. Thanks to the neat combination of these elements, every RPG fan need to play it.
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There's a dissonance between this fantastic art style and dull or tame backing soundtrack.
Masquerada is a rare gem of a game in which everything about it comes together just perfectly to give plays a consistent and cohesive experience.
While there's nothing particularly poor about Songs and Shadows' story or battle system, the way they come together leaves an unwelcome void in between. When playing, it's hard not to compare it to bigger, better games like Baldur's Gate or more recent RPGs like Pillars of Eternity and Divinity. Masquerada just doesn't have the same level of rewarding complexity or seamlessness, bogged down by constant stopping and starting.
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows sacrifices depth to tell an intriguing story. Its incredibly linear design keeps things moving, but between unremarkable combat and an over-reliance on exposition through a bloated codex, it's never able to fully capture your imagination. Masquerada is a stunted RPG that's entertaining enough while it lasts, but you probably won't be coming back to Ombre once it's over.
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is a colourful, easy-to-play RPG with a unique setting and nifty characters.
I truly loved this game. As soon as the intro cutscene started, I was hooked – and that was even before the tutorial (that you should definitely play, as it contains some major story elements)!
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is a game with an interesting world and plenty of different viewpoints to consider. The game’s narrative and dialogue are strengths and weaknesses, and it has a codex for the player to keep it all straight. Not everyone will enjoy having to invest the time to get there, but, if you can move beyond that and the frequent loading screens, the game will deliver a story with plenty of twists and turns to keep you engaged.
While the gameplay fails to impress, the story at least manages to keep things interesting.
Masquerada declines as the plot slows down. The herky-jerky pace gets more grating, the mania for proper nouns more distracting. What looked like a scrappy little underdog RPG turns out to be a collection of worn-out ideas.