Witching Hour is solo developer Vincent Lade’s latest release, a story-driven horror about witchcraft and the occult. Unfortunately, this has to be my least favourite amongst the developer’s projects. It is riddled with bugs, odd camera angles, strange unrealistic dialogue, unbelievable characters and horrific character models and shading. I quite liked Vincent’s other titles such as Deathbloom chapter 1 & 2, but sadly, this was an immense letdown, and I cannot recommend it.
[b] [u]Pros[/u] [/b]
[list]
[*] Different endings
[*] Interesting premise for the story
[/list]
[b] [u]Cons[/u] [/b]
[list]
[*] Awful character models and shading
[*] Bizarre camera angles during cutscenes
[*] Dialogue is unrealistic and almost comical
[*] Performance issues, stuttering & frame rate drops
[/list]
[h1]Story[/h1]
A family of two young sisters and their father move out to Hollow Hills, a rural and abandoned township far from civilisation. Playing as the eldest sister, players learn about the town’s history of witchcraft and the occult by exploring the few locations nearby. The source of the town’s affliction, Lucilla, soon becomes clear. This horror story runs alongside interactions with the family. The father is burdened by sickness and the 8-year-old sister is careless, but begins acting strangely in the new house. Your interactions with your family all impact the final ending.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2836880049
I do not have any issues with the story itself. I liked how it is centred around the comfort of your own home and family members. It is nothing super complex, but had enough mystery involved to keep me curious. The characters themselves though, that is another story.
[h1]Gameplay[/h1]
Gameplay is the usual shtick with horror games. Explore different areas and complete puzzles. Although, the interactions with family members and different endings make it a little bit distinct. Yet, Witching Hour manages these concepts very poorly, creating an unpolished and almost laughable mess.
[b][u]The Bad [/u][/b]
Unfortunately, there is a lot wrong here that it deserves its own sub header. I understand this is an Indie project by a solo developer and do not expect AAA standards, but this is just too scuffed to be passable. During cutscenes, the camera angle is fixated at the worst possible angle, such as the characters feet or their back. Showing nothing of substance despite a normal conversation happening in the background. Graphics are of a unique style, but shading is horrific. Characters that are lying down appear to be levitating on objects, facial expressions are nonsensical and characters hand movements do not match up with the task they are doing. Not only this, but the lighting for the game is splotchy and areas right in front of my face, I cannot see unless I am almost touching it. I also became physically stuck many times, after exploring off-track. This forced me to restart from the last autosave (no manual save option). I also quit at the beginning of the basement level and when I restarted it, my lantern was nowhere to be found. Despite there being a dozen or so other lanterns lying around, I could not pick any of them up and therefore I had lost my light source for the remainder of the game. This halted my progress, unless I walked around in complete darkness. Continuing on, at one point, a character follows closely behind you and she mimics your every move. Turn around and she is standing right on your behind with the same dull expression that never changes. This was perhaps the scariest moment in the game, alongside the fathers extremely creepy expression and unmatched animations.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2837796904
The characters themselves cannot redeem their buggy exterior as they are just as bad. The family speaks to each other in such a bland way it does not seem realistic, certainly not for a family. Furthermore, their behaviour is just odd. They move into a house with a CHAIN LOCKED door with a CRUCIFIX on it and think nothing of it, even when the chains slowly start breaking off after they experience haunting events. There are no comments besides huh, that’s interesting. Or when the protagonist walks into a house with a creepy doll with a blood-soaked mask, it’s just… ignored?
[b][u]Puzzles[/u][/b]
Puzzles are generally simple, but feasible. Explore an area, read a clue, go back and use this clue to work out a combination and so forth. The trouble is actually using the mouse to complete the puzzles. Indeed, this was the most complex part. If you press escape, shift tab or alt tab during the middle of a puzzle, the cursor disappears, and the puzzle icon (the eye) lingers forever. If escape is pressed again, the game is not paused, as the character can still move around with the menu screen up. After this happened a few times, I figured out you can just repeatedly click escape, exit the puzzle, look away and then try again and the cursor is back. But…. There are more issues. The cursor does not always match up with the hotspot in the puzzle, such as in jigsaws puzzles. There were many times I knew a puzzle belonged in a certain spot, but it would not stick, not because I was wrong, but because I had to find the hotspot the game allowed me to place it. This made a 10-piece jigsaw puzzle somewhat excruciating.
[h1]Visuals & Sound[/h1]
As previously explained, the gothic style is distinct, but the shading issues are horrifically bad. The game suffers from immense lighting problems, awful character models and questionable camera angles.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2836880243
The sound is better, voice acting is average but the dialogue itself undermines any work the voice actors may have put in.
[h1]Technical & Stats [/h1]
[quote][b]This game was played using keyboard & mouse and with the following PC specs.:[/b]
Intel i5-9400 2.9 GHz
16GB RAM
GeForce RTX 2060 6GB
2560x1440 resolution
HDD
Windows 10[/quote]
[b]Playtime:[/b] 3.5-5 hours.
[b] Controller Recommended? [/b] No
[b]Replayability value:[/b] Supposedly, to retrieve all endings.
[b]Performance issues:[/b] Yes, constant stuttering and frame rate drops when entering a new area
[h1]Conclusion[/h1]
Putting my thoughts into written text, it has become apparent to me just how many problems there are in Witching Hour. Despite my review being heavily on the negative side, I know the developer can and has done better, as seen in his previous games. With an abundance of issues in the core foundations of gameplay, visual design, characters and performance, I simply cannot recommend it.
[quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote]
[quote] If you would like to see more reviews written by me, please follow my curator page and help support my reviews [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34936724/] Cookie Reviews[/url]. [/quote]
