Three Pillar Reviews!
Test Review #7: Detroit: Become Human!
(Played on PS4)
Highly Recommended for Immersion and Story
Great game with highly varying semi-open-ended endings.
Immersion Excellent Graphics and Direction
The graphics are truly ahead of their time, and the direction is as good as the other David Cage games. The soundtracks are also very well placed to heighten the players’ feelings of achievement, sadness etc.
A small addition that I really liked about the game is their invisible walls, only in the beginning at least; it gets annoying later in the game. In the first few hours, invisible walls appear while reminding you of your current task and that it isn’t this way. Some where in the middle of the game it got a little annoying for me because the characters stop mid walk, and it’s not apparent that they are hitting an invisible wall. So you often wonder if it’s an invisible wall or you just have to walk in a little awkward manner to pass; it’s always an invisible wall.
In the next paragraph I will talk about a specific philosophy of the game, it is spoiler-free
Something that irked me a little here is the integration of feelings in the androids. I can understand some basic feelings like prioritizing the safety of a closer person over the other, or the need for freedom and equality. But I can’t agree that androids can have deep feelings of love or loss, since they oppose logic. If you agree or disagree, I would like to hear your comments on this.
Gameplay QTEs that could completely change the outcome of the game, silence is not an option though
I like how QTEs can affect the character, (at least as far as I can tell), if you miss one you could get hurt in ways that may or may not have an effect on the story. But at the same time it doesn’t completely kill you off like it does in the recent telltale games.
There are many cases where you can prioritize going in a room over the other, it is also possible that you can proceed with a story without getting all the information. And all of these affect the story, either in a good way or a bad way.
Something you should know here is that silence is not an option in this game, unlike the telltale games. If you wait long enough you’ll see that one of the options happen as if you chose it.
Story Excellent, at least mine was
Every story differs greatly, and you can see the differences at the end of each chapter. I definitely would like to go back and see what else can happen in that game. There are chapters that you can completely miss depending on what path you chose or how you play the game.
You’ll get a range of all feelings here. Loss, love, victory, fear etc.
Something you could consider doing is that you can control the feelings you get by choosing appropriately. For example, you can have a sad ending where everyone dies, and can probably choose where they die for an extra added effect. Another example is that you try to get a perfect happy ending. Or a mixture of both. There are many possibilities here that can be done to achieve the story as how you want it to proceed.
Verdict
I can’t find a good reason not to recommend this game. Unless you don’t care about story and you just want a strong gameplay. And I assume that’s not the case with most of you.
Clearly, a lot of work has been done here. You can’t go wrong with this one.
Have any of you guys played this game? What are your thoughts?
Any missing information I should have included or added?
What do you think of my review?
I’m thinking of making a more philosophical review (not three pillars standard) of this, but much preferable that you guys have played this first. Are any of you interested?
Let’s talk in the comments!
Coming next: you choose!
This comment was deleted almost 6 years ago.
Ah, I would so like to play Detroit: Become Human some day, but I don’t think it’ll ever be available on PC :( What a pitty.
It’s interesting to read how this game does QTEs, sounds like a pretty good idea (in theory, at least).
Voted for Yakuza as your next game by the way, it looks like that game is winning at the time of writing this comment, so we’ll probably hear about that next :)
That’s good! I wish to hype everyone up for Yakuza 0 coming up next week!
Looks like you’re doing a good job then! :D
I enjoyed watching it being played on Youtube. Sadly that means I couldn’t make any choice but it was still quite satisfying and enjoyable to watch. Too bad it’s a PS exclusive.
About your question, I’m not sure about the philosophical review, though it might be interesting. But I can’t say before actually reading it. A few aspect of the world annoyed me like you it seems like the part where androids have emotion, though the worst was actually the simplicity portrayed for when they broke through their programming/orders. The over dramatization of some stuff as well. But overall, I didn’t really have a chance to get immersed that much, I was only a spectator so my experience might be different from that of a player..
Anyway, I voted for Yakuza 0 on the poll. Because I’m curious about this game the most.
I can understand it in both Marcus and Kara’s since there were strong conflicting logic, but maybe not in Connor’s case (at least in my story)
You better get hyped up for Yakuza 0 because the Yakuza series is my all time favorite everything. I played 3 and 4 over 20 times each before I got into steam. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to keep replaying them because of the ever increasing backlog. But If I had to pick one franchise to play for the rest of my life it will definitely be Yakuza.
Yeah, Kara was the first that kinda bothered me, since we had no explanation as to why it happened. It just happened. But maybe it’s up to everyone to interpret it. Though later, when Markus achieve “ascension” and could just break everyone free by pointing a finger, it definitively triggered me. They kept telling how oppressed they were and whatnot and they could do nothing but then one day, one guy wakes up and can just point a finger to liberate everyone…
But as said I was simply watching (with one eye/ear I might add since I was doing other stuff as well) so maybe I missed some info here or there or simply failed to understand things. And it’s small stuff that one could easily brush off and just enjoy the bigger image.
As for Yakuza, I never got the chance to play it, being a PS game only I believe? But it’s on Steam (finally) now. Well the Zero one at least so I’m kinda looking forward to it. Despite my never ending backlog as well haha.
No you didn’t miss anything, they don’t really explain how Markus can do that I agree that it doesn’t make sense but I succeeded in trying to completely ignore it for directing purposes.