White Night Reviews
A great looking game, but its beauty is only skin deep.
White Night is another game which has remained stubbornly devoted to its art style to the detriment of the actual game tucked away beneath it. It remains faithful to its influences and loyal to its theme, but when its misgivings contribute to make it such an irritating experience, it's impossible to overlook them.
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.
For as much as 'White Night' brings to the table on an innovative standpoint, it equally misses the mark by failing to ensure gameplay isn't hampered by wonky camera angles and de-evolved save mechanics. Still, the noir setting, visuals, and clever puzzles to solve, coupled with a generally creepy back-story, makes 'White Night' at least a minor point of interest to genre fans (both those of survival horror and the 1930s hardboiled detective).
White Night is a great concept with a really nice art style. The atmosphere it provides is incredibly convincing and genuinely unsettling, right up until the time that the perceived threat becomes a reality and things take a nosedive. A tad more polish would have seen this become a real benchmark for the genre, but a number of missed steps mean that it will likely just fade into the darkness.
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 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.
OSome enters the world of video games with a first title that knows how to assert itself with its great successes. Aware of their limits, they propose a simple but very showy visual style that serves as the main attraction. Even so, once inside, the narrative flows in an interesting and mysterious way, drawing attention to the big questions that appear as we progress through the plot.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Apart from the splendid graphics, there's nothing particularly outstanding about White Night, but it's a decent horror-mystery game. It'd fit beautifully under the Alone in the Dark banner and seems like a much more obvious successor than…well…
It's more intriguing as a game mechanic than an actual game, and scarier and more atmospheric in the shadows than the light.
Short game, good plot, horror ambient, cheap... if you love horror games, check this one.
Review in Spanish | Read full review