Beautiful Desolation Reviews
We were, as you can tell from the body of this review, consistently frustrated with Beautiful Desolation, another ambitious and lovely-looking game whose Switch incarnation just wasn't an acceptable way to experience it - shades of Genesis Noir's port (though that was better). It's especially unfortunate because this is exactly the sort of different that the Switch needs, but it needs to run better than what's on offer here. If you can muscle past the problematic controls, excessive loading and weak performance, you may be able to get into Beautiful Desolation. There is a lot to like in its worldbuilding, gorgeous backgrounds and interesting premise. But we felt like it just asked us to overlook way, way too many problems for the privilege.
Beautiful Desolation is an enjoyable point and click adventure in a unique world, but the slow pace and obtusiveness may put some people off.
I'm fairly sure that Beautiful Desolation is a decent game. This is a vast world clearly built with passion and with a keen attention to detail. Unfortunately, this console conversion is no way at all to experience The Brotherhood's latest. Awful pathfinding, so many invisible walls that if they were visible they could be seen from space, and clunky, unresponsive controls turn the fetch quest-heavy gameplay into a meandering slog.
Even with the game environment being so desolate, there is still something rather beautiful – and this isn’t about the visuals, but the overall charm of the game and its characters. When I first heard of Beautiful Desolation I had expected a guns-blazing adrenaline-pumping RPG that would involve a high level of stress, but instead, I was given struggling human characters trying to find a way home with actual useful dialogue and choices that made a difference. Sure there is a lot of exploring, backtracking, and crying about finding items (eventually leading to searching online for hints and walkthroughs), but through it all, it was a journey that was worth experiencing – especially on a television screen.
Though a clunky UI and collection of surplus mini-games detract from Beautiful Desolation's evocative setting and characters, this is nonetheless one of the more interesting point and click adventures to come along for a good while. Not least thanks to its superbly imaginative take on a post apocalyptic future where the lines between humanity, evolution and immortality are deeply blurred. Even for the most stalwart adventurer, Beautiful Desolation's narrative and fresh premise will find a way to delight and surprise in equal measure.
I really appreciate what Beautiful Desolation is trying to do with creative storytelling; well-developed characters; and a mind-bending and beautiful, albeit desolate, sci-fi world. I just ended up too frustrated by the limitations of the console medium and a lack of direction in many of the quests to ultimately recommend this game on this platform. It's a point-and-click adventure presented without a pointer or a clicker, better played on PC.
By recovering and expanding stasis's game formula, Beautiful Desolation confirms The Brotherhood's talent for making point-and-click adventures that are appealing both narratively and aesthetically.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Beautiful Desolation is an essential entry in the Adventure Game genre and should not be missed. Gorgeous visuals, and evocative sound design compliment an exceptional sci-fi story filled with mystery, pathos, and good old-fashioned adventuring with some modern flair.
Beautiful Desolation is a deep, intelligent, puzzle adventure presented with a unique isometric view. It's an easy recommendation to sci-fi fans who prefer narrative over action, but the Switch is not the best way to explore this apocalyptic world.
Beautiful Desolation is one of those games that has a lot of strong points, but has a few significant drawbacks that keep the experience in check, so to speak. Still, despite its few drawbacks, I found myself hooked on the game after the first half hour and I had to see it through, not unlike the captivating experience that a good page-turning book can do for you. Plus, at only $20, you really can’t go wrong here if you’re looking for a solid sci-fi adventure with gorgeous visuals.
Beautiful Desolation looks incredible and the world is unlike any other, but the gameplay and bugs can often spoil the fun.
Beautiful Desolation is a 2D isometric point and click adventure set in a post-apocalyptic future. Developed and published by The Brotherhood games, Beautiful Desolation provides a unique story and world design for the fans of the genre. Follow the adventures of Mike Leslie and his companions, to figure out what's going on with the future they have found themselves in, and discover a way to go back.
Beautiful Desolation is an old-school 2D isometric adventure, but like Stasis it's the story the true focus.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Beautiful Desolation is a very unique and different kind of adventure game. It has a tremendous amount of respect for the player to figure things out, but also has little respect for their time too. The writing is very engaging, and the acting is surprisingly exceptional. The South African flavour of the cast adds a ton of personality to the experience; Mark and Don's chemistry feels very real, and their slang and colloquialisms make them very unlikely video game characters. They're both schlubby guys in their '40s, and even POOCH manages to have a great deal of humanity to her character, despite being a robot dog.xploring a post apocalyptic cyber-nightmare South Africa, while solving puzzles and talking to religious robots and using diplomacy to diffuse warring factions without any combat sounds like a fun time, then Beautiful Desolation is that kind of game. The experience is held together with amazing looking backdrops, freakish cyborgs to converse with and movie quality CGI cutscenes. This is not an RPG, but it is a highly creative and imaginative adventure game that has some spotty controls and overly cryptic puzzles.
Beautiful Desolation is an exciting blend of point-and-click adventure and classic isometric RPG. The game features a well-written story that sets place in a bizarre world that is somehow familiar and strange at the same time. There are some problems with the game's RPG elements, and the control system is not well implemented in console versions. Anyways, it is an interesting game with a good story and beautiful audio-visual experience, which I can recommend to that point and click fans.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Beautiful Desolation raises a lot of questions but leaves the answers open for most of the time. It is an experience that makes you wonder about humanity and what the future will bring. It is fun only for those who are looking for deep-reaching experiences, that will stick with you long after you finished the game.
Regrettably, the Switch port just isn't up to par. Between long loading and controls that border on unusable, playing it is ultimately frustrating. While I appreciate the effort to adapt from PC to console, in this instance the change just doesn't work with the existing structure.
Beautiful Desolation is not a perfect game by all means. But damn, its atmospheric world and crazy, grotesque citizens are stealing the show, forcing you to beat the game just to see how many strange creatures you can meet along the way.
Review in Russian | Read full review
First glances at the pre-rendered backgrounds and plain look and feel of Beautiful Desolation brought a bit of a thrilling feeling to me as a classic PC gamer, making me hope for the likes of classic Fallout or Wasteland...