Night in the Woods Review (IndieeBound)
The game leaves me conflicted. While I think i recommend the game because I can definitely see other people engage with various themes contained within the story, I also felt the main plot leaves a lot to be desired and does not gel well with the smaller chunks of the story about individual characters.
I think you should give this game a try and find out for yourself, as some to the themes might resonate with you, there are few issues here though that made the game a bit less enjoyable for me in the end.
The game tackles some very interesting topics, especially in the first 3/4 of the game. This is the stories that come from the main character and her interaction with her group of friends and her family, which are the primary focus for the most of the game. Those topics were very human in their nature, realistic and somewhat heavy. Unfortunately the last 1/4 of the game drops the ball for me, with the unnecessary somewhat grandiose conclusion to the story. The last part was for me simply uninteresting, and I felt had barely anything to do with the previously explored topics in the game.
The game can also slowly become tiresome on a longer sitting. The game play of the game is pretty basic, and going down the same town over and over again, and interacting with characters who are simply not that interesting repeatedly can be a bit tiresome.
I think the game would benefit from scaling the story down a little bit and maybe instead of having a small town you repeatably explore, it would be better if it was more linear/guided experience. There is a lot of useless fluff between the interesting bits that become tedious for me. I would remove the last section of the story and replace it with more of a conclusive ending for each character and maybe a possibility for the player to affect the outcome of their individual stories.
I would give this game a 6/10 in the end as far as my own enjoyment of it goes. I can definitely see how the themes and the story might resonate with other people, and as such I would still recommend giving it a go. I will be on a look out for future games by this studio. There is a lot of potential here.