LogFAQs > #932906801

I do want to say that this is the exact place on my list where I REALLY start feeling my pain points hit. Every game before this is a game that I really really liked - every game AFTER this point is a game that I loved to bits. Ranking every game before this was relatively painless, but every game here on out was super hard. This is the real creme of the crop stuff for me.

#31





Years of release: 2019 (PC)
Beaten?: Sort of, but only after 2020

Seeing this game on this list makes me regret that I don't have more obscure, oddball picks on my list. My tastes in indie games are pretty 'normie', all things considered, and I think even if you tried to guess the top 30 games on my list, you could probably guess about two-thirds of them right just through inference alone even if you didn't know me that well. I think that until 2015 or so I didn't really start picking up on more unusual, overlooked game picks, but I have friends and I'm deeper into communities that help me find these sorts of things now. Still, I can't help but feel a little bit self-conscious about the fact that I only have a few weird picks on this list that are unique to me. Anyway, here's Elsinore. I JUST played this one, so this will probably be a longer review than games that I played 8-9 years ago.

Elsinore is Shakespeare's Hamlet meets Majora's Mask. I really feel like I could just stop the writeup here, because I think that concept alone sells itself, but I suppose I'll continue. Elsinore is a retelling of Hamlet from the perspective of Ophelia, Hamlet's one-time lover who, spoilers, dies in act 4. The events of the story play out much in the same way as before, albeit with some liberties (characters are added, expanded upon greatly, have their genders changed, etc), but after Ophelia dies, she wakes up a couple days before, remembering all of the events that transpire, and realizes she's stuck in a Groundhog Day style time loop. Shenanigans ensue as Ophelia attempts to stop the coming tragedy.

I like stories about time travel, but I REALLY like stories about time loops. Groundhog Day is one of my favorite films for its deep exploration of the idea, imagining how someone stuck in a time loop could use their foreknowledge to change the course of events and their repeated attempts at the same sequence of events could open up new opportunities - and how all this would affect their state of mind in the end. And I enjoyed Majora's Mask's take on it, too, although it's more about world-building and game mechanics than it is character-driven. The idea of this world where all the characters are going about their lives even when you're not looking, where you can watch their comings and goings, learn from them, and try to engineer a perfect loop is very appealing.

Majora's Mask doesn't quite scratch the itch fully, though, I think because the Anju/Kafei quest is really the only one which requires extensive knowledge of different events happening. So now Elsinore tries its own take on it, and I like how it expands on the idea. As Ophelia, your only real weapon is that you can walk around, see what people do, learn information, and then you can, in later loops, reveal that information to people to change their actions in the future. This gives a sort of open-endedness to the idea that a game like MM lacks; the ability to dictate the course of actions through foreknowledge, and to see the many different ways the events can play out.

Elsinore's world is small and very character-driven, but the characters are quite deep, nuanced, and well-written, as they absolutely must be in a game that is ONLY about talking to people and nothing else. I was not familiar with the story of Hamlet prior to this, although I did read up on it after - my unfamiliarity did not matter too much, as the basic story beats of Hamlet are very well-explained in the game's dialog, and I never felt overwhelmed at all learning who all the different characters were. I was worried that being based on a Shakespeare work would make this game very dry, but that didn't end up being the case, as the dialog is all very sharply written, and the twists and turns of the story were quite surprising - needless to say, even without my familiarity with the work, I could tell that this story takes quite some large liberties, and finding out what those liberties were was a lot of fun, since this game goes in some really surprising directions. Despite the fact that it does some pretty crazy stuff with the characters, it all seems pretty well justified, and the dev's love of the original work shines through in all of the different ways they chose to play around with the cast of Hamlet.

I love how many ways you can get certain events to happen in this game - my only complaint is that, while this game does have quite a few possible ending paths, most of them seem to be gotten rather easily, and don't require you to set up any machinations that are too overly complex, and a lot of possible information you can use or events you can see end up being largely red herrings, which isn't too big a deal, but there were some interesting events I managed to set in motion that didn't end up leading anywhere which is a bit disappointing. The game is occasionally just a bit limiting in how it allows you to direct the characters; you can inform them of things but never tell them what to do, which I suppose would make the game a bit too easy, but it does make things confusing when you need to find very roundabout ways to keep characters from murdering each other.

Still, this game was one hell of an interesting experience, and delivered almost perfectly on its premise, helping me scratch my itch of playing a game about a really interesting time loop. I think the ideas presented in this game aren't done being refined, and someone could look at this and create something even more masterful. That said, I've spent a LOT of time over the last month thinking about Elsinore, and it's easily one of the most interesting story experiences I've had this decade. I'd strongly recommend it to anyone for whom the concept of the game appeals, even if you're not familiar with Hamlet - I have a feeling that I'll see the play and just be disappointed by the portrayal of all the characters now, especially Ophelia, who's now become one of my favorite leads.

(This is the first time I've had to take a screenshot of my own, by the way - I wasn't satisfied with how anything I googled displayed the game.)