My impressions, kinda long post.
If you start out playing Hotel Dusk and dislike it or you find the characters and the plot uninteresting (I don’t think this will happen with most people though), ultimately it’s all over as the gameplay isn’t going to change your mind. If you do like the story and the characters, you’ll find that the gameplay compliments it very much so. Just saying as a word of warning lyk.
Talking about the gameplay, many people describe this using the ‘Interactive Digital Novel’ and in some ways I agree, but don’t let this cloud your judgement too much as there is more to it than that description would lead you to believe. I’d say the two main types of gameplay found in this are the discussion elements and the searching/figuring puzzles out.
To add dynamics to the conversations, when talking to other characters on your search for information, you’re able to interrogate/question them for information (and likewise they attempt to do the same to you). This comes in two forms: When a character says something of interest, Kyle will note it in his head and after the initial main conversation; you’ll be aloud to interrogate them for questions. The second type is also when a character says something of interest but is sketchy on the details; this allows you at that time (indicated by a yellow like triangle) to push them for more information. When these events happen, you’re given the a list of questions/responses to choose from (could be describe as a good cop/bad cop or nice guy/asshole kind of choice of response to choose), saying the wrong things can aggravate the other character (which can be indicated by a ‘red flag’, a small wave of redness goes over the other character), stop them from talking or presents you with a game over screen. Get enough red flags and the character you’re interrogating will become aggressive and stop talking (game over), it is also thought that the amount of red flags you get along with some other things dictate the ending you get) Apart from some alternative responses, conversations are linear and end up going in the same direction. Some people may bitch about this as it makes immediate replays perhaps…predictable. We could of dreamed to see something amazing likw some kind of dialog tree set up especially with this quality of writing but its a missed Oppoturnity I’m afraid. In the end though, Hotel Dusk doesn’t have that though so you got to take what you see and with HD, you’re given a well written game with a conversation system which makes talking more interactive and interesting and also attempts to makes sure the player is paying attention instead of just clicking the next button.
Just to touch onto the script and dialog quickly, the writing in this game is really just Top Banana (or snappy, as some would say) the story itself is very strong and has a some real impacting twists at the end ( I’ll have to come back to this, first impressions’n’all but I’d say much stronger than MGS, and it doesn’t sound stupid to describe either). One thing I love about this is the characters, they actually have their own personalities and behaviours, and they’re pretty deep too! The game can be funny at times as well, and this isn’t done by just saying some stupid jokes or over abusing the user with internet gags (ala, Phoenix Wright 2) but rather it comes from character interaction and how Kyle starts to become familiar and progressively tire of some of the personalities found in the game.
The other main gameplay mechanic, searching and solving puzzles, is presented as a very user-friendly fashion. Walking around the hotel is done by moving your stylus around on the touch screen map (the other screen being the 3D rendition of the world), the moving controls at first seem perhaps abit too responsive but you soon adapt to it. Whenever you need to search in better detail, a small looking glass with a Question mark will appear in the bottom of the screen, and by pressing this you’re moved much closer to the items and given the ability to change the angle you’re looking at to a degree. Any item which you can look at, pick up or has a description glows whenever your stylus goes over it, this is good because you won’t spend hours of your time pissing about trying to find something that isn’t actually there unlike many of the older 90’s adventure games where you’d virtually cling to the wall looking at every single fricking thing. There are a few puzzles in each chapter, and all the puzzles require the touch screen (and some other features on the DS which don’t seem so obvious at first), the puzzle quality ranges from average to good and there are a few which are memorable. One thing I like about the puzzles is that they actually fit into the story and make sense; there won’t be a situation where you go into attic to find a bunch of mirrors and then for no apparent reason you have to redirect the sunlight into a panel to get a conveniently hidden cheese burger with a key card placed inside.
Graphically, the game has two sides to it. I don’t feel the need to describe the characters as the pictures speak well enough for themselves, what I will add on is that the characters have a kind of moving sketch feel to them (like that take on me video) this along with the style allows the character to seem real rather than just a portrait, and to add to this each characters has several animations to them (which are of a high quality) so when they interact it has a sense of movement to it, which helps a lot. The other side of it is the movement around the hotel and searching for items, best way to describe them is like something from a N64 game, there may be concerns that the graphics make it harder to find items, but the items are modelled decently and well placed (along with the glowly thing I mentioned above) means that searching and finding items is not a hard task. The only negative is when you’re in the hotel and you’re approaching a character (this is before you actually go into a proper conversation with the good art), they use some low quality shitty jpeg for the character (nowhere near the quality of when they’re talking) and even has a early 3D look to it, like in Doom, If you find like a enemy or a tree and you circle strife it instead of seeing its body in 3d the image constantly rotates to face you.
I feel that this feature should be mentioned as it’s the first time I’ve personally seen it used. At the each of chapter, you’re presented with a quiz asking you about the events of what’s happened in that chapter, it doesn’t concentrate much on the main story rather than things like what people said, names and locations (minor details, one could say). This is pretty fun on the first time, but on immediate replays its tedious.
