Cibele
OpenCritic Rating
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Cibele
An interesting attempt at recapturing the thrill of first love, Cibele is ultimately too clumsy for its own good.
Cibele is an interesting look at dating and life in the Internet age, highlighting the complexities of relationships and communication
With the game giving such an importance on the audio of conversations and the inclusion of real-life video scenes, one wonders if Cibele would have been better off as a YouTube short, instead of forcing itself into an interactive medium. Nevertheless, the game still manages to be a somewhat enjoyable tale of first love, even if it feels like a 'you had to be there for it' story.
Cibele has some things going for it, such as a narrative structure based on interaction with the main character's computer. It's a fairly predictable story told in a new way. Some parts of it were intriguing, but overall it didn't really wow me.
Cibele, I don't think, was supposed to make me cry, I don't think it wants me to linger on how things ended. It's supposed to help me let go. I hope that I will.
Finding yourself is difficult. Finding someone else is complicated. Cibele bears both burdens in a candid and empathetic glimpse of burgeoning love in the 21st century. So many games either waste or misunderstand their medium as a storytelling device while Cibele thrives inside of its own technology. By no coincidence, it's one of the most human and relatable games, too.
The gameplay of Cibele, in the form of the levels of Voltameri we're forced to play through, is something of a letdown… I was left to wonder how on earth Nina could spend so much of her time playing such a dull and boring game
Cibele is a flawed game with a well-told story and certainly worth a playthrough. It didn't have any lasting impact on me, as the basis premise is well-worn territory, but that doesn't detract from the fact that this is both well-written and performed. I don't hesitate to recommend the game on a narrative level, but have some issues regarding the gameplay and presentation. Tightening up the controls, or tweaking how the game is presented, wouldn't have gone amiss.
