White Night Reviews
Beautifully Noir, White Night offers some excellent experiences mixed with punishing frustration. A dark and compelling survival horror, it is certainly worthwhile as long as you can overcome the anxiety and irritations.
White Night's distinctive visual style make it immediately identifiable; artistically, this game's a success. Its few shortcomings aren't to be overlooked, however, as its sluggish, frequently directionless, and deliberately archaic in its design. Don't come in expecting jump scares and big gore; this is a slow-burning experience with an emphasis on style and atmosphere.
White Night does serve up some scares and a few twists along the way, however, there's nothing particularly different about what this title has to offer over only a handful of hours, even with consideration of the black and white film noir aesthetics including the special mechanics built around it. Despite its eagerness to run with clichés, it at least sticks with its style through to the end and does everything competently enough to make it a satisfactory experience for anyone looking for a colourless curio.
I love a well done noir film styled game. This one has perfect sound design, shocking and unique visuals, and integrates the gameplay with those visuals. Every aspect of the game fits the theme, from the mini tutorials in the beginning, to the sultry piano of the menu, to the way your character is always narrating what you do in true noir film form. The story is always one step ahead of you, with tons of additional information that enhances the insanity, if you are keen enough to find it. The length of the game is slightly shorter than what I expected, but I understand that a good mystery can be hard to draw out with gameplay if it isn't already written into the story. And honestly, when I was done, I was proud to have figured it all out and survived. The controls can be a nuisance, and the way the puzzles have to be solved can be trying, but I would urge you to play through this game if you like any aspect of what you see. I can see myself in the future fondly remembering White Night, that one scary game in only black and white.
The heroes in film noir aren't flawless—they stumble through the story, rarely win a fight, and often pay a heavy price in the end. At least they try, though, and the same can be said for White Night.
White Night is a valiant attempt at moving the adventure horror genre in a different direction, setting the mood with an atmospheric playground. Repeatedly replaying sections of the game due to ghost placement and a poor camera angle can grow tiresome. While a automated checkpoint system may have solved this issue, it could have produced it's own issues of players blazing through the game without the worry for consequence. The visuals and the tension are the key factors of the game, but I would like to see a more refined effort.
White Night is a beautiful mix of noir and old-school survival horror and adventure.
White Night is a gorgeous and intriguing game that deserves to be played for its engrossing story and beautiful art style. Its impact is unfortunately diminished by frustrating design choices and an overall vague approach to its gameplay, which may leave some of you in the dark.
White Night's biggest achievement though is clearly the terrifying atmosphere that pervades throughout its duration. Though certainly not absolving the game of its other flaws, the sense of dread and fear is palpable and in a genre which has largely neglected the finer aspects of its craft, White Night stands out as an exceptional, yet mechanically imperfect proposition.
The game brings something we haven't seen all that much, but it doesn't bring it in a way that makes you want to play the game hour after hour. When taken in small doses, White Night can actually bring a couple of scares and jumps but not enough of it to be among the best on the market.
This is not the game survival horror purists have been waiting for and not one I can recommend even with its positives. Developer Osome Studios does have the chance to clean up White Night's fundamental design structures and make it more accessible instead of down right annoying in a potential sequel I doubt we will see come to fruition.
White Night never reaches the possibility of there being a middle ground, in any respect. That's the issue with chiaroscuro, and it's why accusing someone of seeing in black and white is rarely a compliment.
It's more intriguing as a game mechanic than an actual game, and scarier and more atmospheric in the shadows than the light.
With a working adventure formula that utilizes light and shadow, White Night offers a haunted house full of atmosphere and ripe for exploration. Just don't run out of matches.
White Night stands as one of the best executed and most emotional games in the past few years, with outstanding game-character-player relation and a disturbing and frightening setting
While it sounds great on paper, the execution varies throughout and for every moment of triumph, there are many more instances of frustration and exasperation. You'll need extraordinary patience to see this one through to the end thanks to the sparse save points and insta-death attacks. There's an intriguing plot buried amongst all the rough edges though and the visuals are excellent throughout. Fingers crossed Osome take another whack at a noir survival horror adventure hybrid as it's bursting with potential.
Lack of control options and questionable direction in the visuals, compounded by the uninteresting story and low replayability, hold back White Night from being a recommendation. Only those who truly crave an old school survival horror might get some enjoyment from this title. Other than that, White Night is mostly forgettable.
White Night is a unique blend of noir horror, with a very bold visual style, offering an experience that is both familiar and unique to fans of the genre.
In horror, we confront monsters, and survival is the only operational term. The resolving state is trauma rather than malaise. Forgiveness is a non sequitur. For a game whose design dwells so deeply and strikingly in darkness, it is unhappily ironic that the story prefers at the end to turn toward an illusory light.
There's a lot to like about White Night, if for no other reason than it genuinely is different and these is real potential for this to spin out into a franchise if the development team can do a better job of rationalising the noir elements and figuring out the solution to a frustrating Easter egg hunt in the dark. The underlying vision alone makes it worth a look, but it's not going to be quite remembered as the same innovative experience as those pioneering horror games it references back to.