Perception Reviews
Perception has some good ideas, but it is ultimately a disappointment thanks to an annoying art style, frustrating gameplay mechanics, and an underwhelming narrative.
Perception is as much a disappointment for the clever and inherently frightening idea it wastes as it is for the mistakes it makes. At its heart, there's the promise of playing something genuinely new, from a perspective that could help teach and thrill simultaneously. It's unfortunate that, like its echolocation mechanic, the more I saw of Perception, the more there was to worry about.
Perception offers a decent set of horror stories, but exploring this house gets dull pretty quickly.
Some very clever ideas are completely squandered by a game that is neither scary, enjoyable, or thought-provoking – although it does manage irritating and dull with great aplomb.
Although more unsettling than outright terrifying, Perception brings some novel ideas to the horror genre
A novel and inventive approach to first-person exploration falls short of its ambitions.
Perception features some strong moments but never fully commits to its big ideas
Maybe I was expecting too much from Perception, but it doesn't deliver on any of its promises.
There are some great ideas in Perception, but the execution is somewhat lacking. Wandering around a haunted house with no vision should be a tense, methodical, creepy experience, but this game has a sprint button. You are given a lot of help to navigate and solve puzzles because if you did not have your sight and were trapped in a mansion with moving walls and keys to find you would be utterly helpless. This means the whole premise to the game quickly becomes pointless, which is a real shame.
The premises (a blind character, a creepy house, an evil spirit) were good, but Perception falls short as survival horror and as an intriguing walking simulator.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Perception is an original game concept with its blind character, but it fails too much in core aspects of terror genre like the game mechanics or the history itself.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Perception isn't great, failing to clear every benchmark that it set out for itself by a healthy margin.
There're some great ideas in Perception, and with an interesting protagonist and some great voice acting, there's a lot to enjoy, even if it is a bit too easy.
Perception is a truly unique game, putting players into the shoes of a blind girl and using that as a means of storytelling and gameplay. It develops a world that you want to explore, but also keeps you on the edge of your seat with fear and trepidation.
Unless you're a big fan of horror adventure games, Perception is one you can easily skip. The plot isn't particularly engaging, and the horror elements are predictable with jump scares, characters and story dialogue that is typical of this genre. Even if it does fulfil all of the necessary criteria, it serves as a reminder that the horror genre is far too reliant on clichés to get by, and will only appeal to the thrill seekers happy to overlook its generic design.Ultimately, the biggest downfall is the core concept that drives Perception. The echolocation mechanic gets old quickly and seems like a better idea in theory than in actual gameplay; walking around in the dark in any game isn't normally enjoyable, and in this one it's no better – even with the added sense of meaning from the narrative. It's an aggravating concept that should not have really got past the early design stage, and detracts from the already average quality of this short-lived horror adventure game.
An imaginative horror game, Perception is coming at a well trodden genre from a new angle, but despite its good ideas, it doesn't quite live up to its own potential.
Perception is miles better than the myriad "me too" horror games saturating Steam, but it's certainly not exceptional. Underneath the visual style – and it's ultimately just an aesthetic choice – is regular ol' walk-and-talk horror game that manages a little panache but contains no material of substantial value, be it narratively or interactively.
Perception falls between two posts. It's premise is strong and the echolocation works well, but there simply isn't enough to do in that old house, other than knock on the walls and listen to tales of times gone by. It's a game that I wanted to like so much more than I do, partly because it's so visually appealing and partly because Cassie is such a likeable character. She deserves a better story for herself rather than to be an observer of other peoples' lives.
A disabled protagonist creates interesting opportunities but 'Perception' falls short
Almost all of Perception's issues could be fixed with slight tweaks to the game's systems and narrative moments. Instead, it's a false mirage of an excellent game that vanishes almost immediately, turning into more of what we've already seen in the horror genre.