As Dusk Falls Review (Reiyu)
This game absolutely did not deserve to win the "Games for Impact" award of the 2022 Game Awards, especially compared to Citizen Sleeper or I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. The Games for Impact category was meant for a "thought-provoking game with a pro-social meaning or message." This game feels like a game about people living in poverty written by people who have never been poor. The only social message it got correctly is to never talk to cops without a lawyer. I figured that the game published by XBOX would win the social impact category compared to the independently published games that got less promotion and traction, but it doesn't bite any less.
That's not the only reason I'm leaving a negative review, though. It was just the push I needed to put to words what I didn't like about As Dusk Falls. I phrased this as spoiler free as I could.
I've played many choices matter narrative games, including all the Telltale games series, Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, Detroit:Become Human, Until Dawn, Man of Medan series, The Quarry, etc. These are all games where the stories vary in quality, but I love them even if they are cheesy or poorly written. The best part of these games are they play out like a movie and has choices that leaves you with that sense of wonderment of, "Yo... what would have happened if I picked that other choice? What endings did I miss out on? I can't wait to see it all!" Basically, I resonate with homies that will play an entire 10 hour game all over again just to see the result of a different path.
I didn't want to do that with As Dusk Falls. The characters in this game make the absolute Worst decisions. You are often left between choosing between two horrible, illogical decisions that serve only to further the absolute crap shoot of a story. It is an absolute sh*tshow where characters continue to make worse and worse decisions until they die or get arrested/traumatized. I didn't care about the fate of any of the characters because they were all so unlovable and uninteresting. I played through the game just cringing over and over at the stupid stupid stupid decisions they force you to make, until it reaches an unsatisfying resolution.
It's fun, in a way, to watch insane characters make stupid decisions and end up suffering the consequences for it. I'd recommend the game for that experience. But who in their right mind can argue that watching people living in poverty make rash and illegal decisions that hurt people is "pro-social?" I genuinely seethe when I think about this game winning in the Games for Impact category over Citizen Sleeper, an absolute gem of a narrative game about living in the slums of a stunning sci-fi world.
As angry as I am that this story was an absolute mess and yet it somehow won the award for social impact, I think there are two very commendable things about this game:
1) You and your friends can play this game on your phone and it syncs up really well. I've only seen this in Jackbox Party games and another narrative game for Playstation called "Hidden Agenda." It's really nice, I hope more games will come out in the future with this accessibility.
2) The games makes it easy for you to go back and view other paths, which is a nice quality of life function that older narrative games lack.
TL;DR- A game that plays well but it has unlovable characters and a stupid story without any social commentary, yet somehow won the Game Awards for it. I think the game developers can make something great someday, but this wasn't it.