Past Cure Reviews
Past Cure is an aggressively meaningless story broken up by astonishingly pedestrian gameplay.
Past Cure is an odd mash of Max Payne, The Evil Within, Heavy Rain, and a bit of Inception, without ever fully realizing any of those influences—compartmentalizing each section instead of creating a unique blend. Ideas teased early on never come into play, with nightmares and the real world staying largely separate from one another until the script calls on them not to be. An intriguing narrative is interrupted by long bouts of boring wave-based shooting against generic enemies in dull locations. I can't help but think of the early moments in Ian's house, seeing ceramic horrors in reflections and being excited for a cinematic psychological-horror action game that would never come to be.
The only positive thing I can say about Past Cure is that I've taken this hit and played the game for you so that you don't have to. In a time where I believe games are better than ever, I implore you to spend your hard-earned free time cozying up to literally any other game — even Superman 64. Past Cure is not just the worst game I have played over the past few years; it's now on the shortlist of worst games I've ever played in my life.
Past Cure had some great ideas, they just weren't executed in the best of ways.
Past Cure is a broken and generic third-person shooter that lets its hints of originality drown in its cliché, unexplained story and its painfully glitchy gameplay.
So awful yet so boring that one can neither get too mad nor fall asleep, Past Cure is simply a Frankenstein of poorly implemented, cliched ideas and story beats.
_______________________ “From guns to cool abilities, to quick and bone-crushing combat you'll find out just how awesome Ian is.
As you progress through the game, there are so many twists and turns in Past Cure that you never really know what’s going to happen next. It’s also fair to say some of these twists and the settings they are based within, are a lot better than others. Past Cure has some fantastic ideas, although it’s almost as if developer Phantom 8 Studio is trying to settle on a genre it feels most comfortable with so has used Past Cure as a way to throw a whole load of them into one game and see which it likes best.
There's always a temptation to cut indie studios some slack. Clearly, Past Cure has a much lower budget than most action games, and it's refreshing that the team didn't use crowdfunding to get their project off the ground.
Past Cure is a title with tons of ambition that’s hobbled by sloppy execution. The game’s varied cocktail or horror, gunplay, stealth, and a strong, story-driven narrative could have made it something truly special. However, the lack of polish, repetitive design decisions, and some serious technical issues that extend right down to subtitles that don’t even match the onscreen dialog, make for a game that’s hard to recommend to all but the most starved shooter fans.
Past Cure is too busy trying to figure out what genre it is, failing to execute the simplest mechanics that would've made the game far more enjoyable.
Past Cure is a prime example of the adage “never judge a book by its cover”. The trailer had me interested enough to play it so that you don't have to.
Past Cure is a bizarre experience. It feels like a half-dozen different games crudely stapled together, most of which are bad. Yes, the game is ambitious, it reaches for the triple-A brass ring, but the end product is unfocused, unpolished, and, for long stretches, exceptionally boring. Past Cure? More like Past Bedtime.
Past Cure is fun with its mix of stealth and action. After the moderate entry, the mysterious story picks up speed.
Review in German | Read full review
Past Cure starts off as a promising and ambitious shooter/thriller combo whose ideas are brought undone by inexperience
Let's get to the point : Past Cure is an atrocious video game, bad at every level. That's all you need to know about it.
Review in French | Read full review
At best, Past Cure plays like a prototype for a better and more focused game.
Past Cure is a bad game. It's bad bad. But it's also the best kind of bad game, in that it's not for a lack of effort or that the team were bereft of ideas that the finished product doesn't come together. If anything, the game is too ambitious, with too many ideas, and it inevitably crumbles under the weight of numerous poorly implemented gameplay styles and a total lack of a cohesive identity. It's a bit like when your mum tries making Baked Alaska for the first time – sure, the end result is a sloppy mess, but you've got to applaud the audacity to try it in the first place.
There are many games that Past Cure draws from and it's a pale imitation of them all. Less Heavy Rain and more Light Drizzle. Less Evil Within and more Crap Within. The developers were ambitious, but overambitious, and they have delivered an absolute turkey. Completely unenjoyable and comes with very few redeeming features. It's an awful, awful game.
A psychological thriller with stealth seemed right up my alley, which made it all the more disappointing that it wound up primarily a mediocre cover-based shooter. But hey, my achievement progress for the game is at 69%, and it’s going to stay that way. Nice.