Nachdem ich es zum ersten mal durch hatte habe ich eine Steam Review in die Tasten gehackt.
Diese ist relativ kurz weil ich an die Zeichengrenze für Reviews stieß ^^;
Weitere Playthroughs (neben einigen Turboläufen auf dem Handy) und ein ausführlicher Blog-Artikel sind noch geplant.
Mage: Refugee WritingThe game is a more straight forward gamebook than the vampire prelude.
The writing is good, yet I wouldn't say superb.
It still got me very immersed into the world, so far that I did exclaim at my PC once something along the lines of "No, you bastard" and at one point got so jumpscared I was happy I didn't play at my phone which might have been catapulted.
Thus, good, evocative writing.
MusicThe background music sets in immediatly and sets a good mood.
It's a bit simpler than the pieces from Vampire, but in my opinion does work even better.
Somehow I really enjoyed the music and how it raise and fell to build tension.
Graphics / IllustrationsUh,... it doesn't have a lot of graphic and so far close to no illustration.
The most graphic effects are blurring the text, having some kind of optical errant signal running over it, some more blurring and changing text colors. The latter did take me really of my experience. It was cool, and one of the text color switches, along with the story, worked as a jumped scared, yet at times it was really hard to read and hurting my eyes.
Thus a bit 4/10 for cool jumpscare in a gamebook and not full because, well my eyes hurt. ^^;
GameplayWhere the Vampire prelude offers the illusion of texting, the Mage one doesn't.
It is as straight forward as a computer gamebook can get I guess. You hit continue until prompted for a choice.
Something I did really like though was that my character could turn back time. Which I happily did and had some story effects.
Another challenge was that given the very text like nature, it wasn't as obvious as with Vampire that your choices do matter. I felt like having played the one true version with the one ending, when while talking to a friend I noticed that there were obviously some very relevant choices as our experiences differed vastly.
Some improvement would be to have a tap/confirmation when you die. So that you can read up what actually killed you. Before getting to the "Ya dead!" screen.
SettingWhile I do love Vampire I didn't really ever cared about Mage and thus am a kind of newbie in this regards.
The game offered a nice introduction and I really loved the part where the character went to the Shadowlands(?) maybe the Umbra. Well a cool and very different place.
The setting inherent conflict of technocracy versus tradition was interestingly handled and am curious to learn more.
The only thing I didn't like was the scene ...
Where I didn't knew that my choice would lead to my character having intercourse with another.
Though luckily that could be rewinded.
The game does intentionally weigh in heavy on politics, specially immigration. Though I didn't feel like being preached to, which would be singing to the choir, and various outcomes are possible.
ConclusionIt is a good & solid game which gave me a taste and interest for Mage.
I'd give it a 7/10. I guess it will entertain one 2 hours for one playthough, up to 5-7 for several,
Thema: Mage The Ascension: Refuge [M:tA] (Gelesen 882 mal)
