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- Curve Digital
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- Curve Digital
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Released On: Sep 20, 2016
68
6.1
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 21 Critic Reviews
68
48% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
43% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
10% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 21 Critic Reviews
68
48% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
43% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
10% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
For those looking to spend a few melancholic hours drinking in the sights and sounds of a desolate island while churning over an old man’s heartbreak, this version of Dear Esther is as good as it gets.
I can only say this: give Dear Esther a chance; it could prove to connect with you on a deep and personal level while challenging your perception on gaming as an art form. Or, you’ll find it pointless and know to avoid these interactive experiences in the future.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 68 User Ratings
6.1
34% Positive
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
43% Mixed
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
24% Negative
16 Ratings
16 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 68 User Ratings
6.1
34% Positive
23 Ratings
23 Ratings
43% Mixed
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
24% Negative
16 Ratings
16 Ratings
Эта игра - точнее даже сказать не игра, а визуальная аудио книга, очень любопытное произведение. Литературная проза в сочетании с визуальным артхаусом, так как это воспринял я. Эмоции она вызывает не детские, так что готовьтесь к душевным страданиям. В сочетании с визуальной составляющей и музыкальным сопровождением вызывает мурашки по коже. А загадочность повествования, погружает вас в мысли самого автора данного произведения. Так что, это очень и очень игра на любителя. Но я доволен данным опытом и могу внести её в список искусно сделанных и запоминающихся работ нашего поколения.
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PlayStation 4
Uma agradável surpresa. O texto e a música são simplesmente fantásticos. "Dear Esther" não é um jogo. É uma experiência emocional. É arte no seu mais puro estado.
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PlayStation 4
Dear Esther helped spark a trend of narrative-focused indie games, and it's great to see it celebrated in such a nice package. The 'Landmark Edition' is the best way to experience The Chinese Room's gorgeous adventure, and the developer commentary is a fantastic addition. It's well worth the price of admission, whether one has played the original or are just experiencing it for the very first time.
Its combination of the English language, beautiful orchestral score from Curry, and picturesque environments create a perfectly moody and melancholy escape.
Dear Esther has grand ambitions. On one hand, these were achieved. On the other, Dear Esther never reaches it full potential and results in a game that’s good, not great.
As a fairly big defender of the "walking simulator" genre, I feel really let down by Dear Esther. It needed more of something, whether it be a better story, more gameplay than wandering, or more interaction with the island. Definitely needed more than a feeling of "huh" when it ended.
Dear Esther may have played a huge part in the growth of interactive drama, but it remains an acorn compared to the trees it helped grow. It’s an ultimately shallow game, one that rattles off a story directly without any finesse or attempt to integrate it with the gameplay. Its disparate elements are boldly segregated, and there are none more filtered from the production than the players themselves.
Yes, in this game you will only have the controls of walking. However, it is much more about the experience. Controls should not dictate whether a game has an amazing story or not. Dear Esther's poetic story had me in tears by the end, because it gave me a better story than any other game has ever produced for me, ever. I played Everybody's Gone to The Rapture, Gone Home, and you can even include more popular AAA games like The Last of Us, the Half-Life series, whatever you want to name: no game has produced the emotions this game did. And it's not all very clear, a lot of that emotion isn't necessarily about the game, but it's also just thinking about your life, and the people around you.
So yes, the input you have is where to walk. But the power you have is to look, see, hear, and experience what you do in this game. If you want something concise but powerful, only a few movies carry the emotional impact of Dear Esther.
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PlayStation 4
Quick background on me the reviewer, I tend to like single player games that is heavy on narrative the most. I also play a lot of racing games and use to play multiplayer games in my high school days but now that it's hard for me and my friends to find a good time to link up so now it’s rare for me to get into a multiplayer game. Up to try any genre of games and sometimes I find something new that I didn't think I'd like. I own a PC (built by me), Xbox One X, Xbox Series X, PS3, PS4, PS5, and a Switch. I prefer Playstation due to their focus on narrative games. For scoring, I’ll be using the Gameinformer review scale and of course influenced by my personal opinions.
(7) Average. The game’s feature may work, but are nothing that even causal players haven’t seen before.
This is just a walking simulator so if that isn't your thing then stay away. If you're all right with walking around a mysterious island with a good narrator telling you a story, good graphics, sound, and pretty good music then give it a try. You're only going to lose 1-4 hours of your time. if you like it, listen to the developer commentary too. I did.
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PlayStation 4
Красивая аудиокнига на час. Саундтрек забрал в плейлист.
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PlayStation 4
This 1-hour hiking-simulator was mostly visually-pretty. I actually enjoy walking simulators, but Dear Esther was utterly uneventful, boring, and meaningless. In terms of art, it kind of reminded me of the Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition, but the Kid A Mnesia: Exhibition is 100x more artistic and more interesting.
The worst part is the utter-nonsense narration. If you put a infinite number of monkeys with typewriters in a room and give them an infinite amount of time, they'll eventually write Shakespeare-quality material. Dear Esther's dialogue was written by 10 monkeys given 1 hour (and then auto-corrected by AI for grammar). It made zero sense at all.
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PlayStation 4
I only paid $2.50 for this on PSN. At that price, I'd say this game is worth it because the "story" and setting is pretty interesting. I say "story" but the directors commentary at points makes it clear at one point that there is no one correct interpretation of the game's story and they purposely obfuscate the story using conflicting voice over lines. At another point in the director's commentary, the writer said the main crux of the story DID actually happen. Any game like this relies VERY heavily on the story so to have it so up in the air and leave you wondering if there's a story at all definitely detracts from the narrative.
The visuals of the game are lacking. The setting is beautiful, to be sure, but looking up at the sky you can see pixilation of the clouds which is out of place in a PS4 game this short. To compare, when I played The Vanishing of Ethan Carter I took several screen shots because I found the setting and visuals so appealing but I only have one screen shot of this game I thought was worth keeping.
If I had stopped playing the game after my first playthrough, I probably would've given this game a 5 or 6. But I'm a completionist so I decided to try to get all the trophies and I thought the director's commentary would lend some clarity to the story. Unless you are extremely enamored by the main game to the point where you'd give it a 8-10 out of 10, don't bother with the director's commentary. To be fair, the gaming community tends to agree this was a pioneer that led to many games like "...Ethan Carter" and "...Edith Finch" so that's perhaps why they thought a commentary track was appropriate. But compared to the two aforementioned games, this is very bare bones and if the visuals weren't in HD, this easily could've been a point and click on PC in the 90's. I still would've liked the experience if the Director's Commentary reflected how meager this game is but the commentary lacks any humility (humbleness). Listening to the commentary, you get the impression that these developers think they could've written Silent Hill 2 on a napkin over breakfast. At one point, the writer literally says that this game redefined how caves were designed in video games.. Enough said- the directors commentary was absolutely miserable to sit through because the directors seem to have no concept of where their game stands. It was $2.50 on PSN and hearing them talk you'd expect they'd want it to be a full priced $60 game.
The only gameplay consists of choosing where to walk and walking up to environments and objects which trigger voice over. There is no "press x to examine:", there is no sprint button (the director says he thought it would be weird because you don't run around in everyday life-- as if being alone on an island is everyday life). In fact, R1, R2, L1, L2, Square, Triangle, Circle, and X all do the same thing-- zoom in. And you never have to zoom in to progress the game.
To be fair, there is one moment in the game at the end of the third chapter that I thought was very well done.
I can appreciate that this was the first of its kind and it was a risk to make it but because the story isn't great or clear and it has the least amount of gameplay of anything I've ever booted on my PS4 or PS2-- it is worth the price I paid for it-- $2.50. If you get it for $5 or less and don't try to 100% it, it's a solid 5.
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PlayStation 4
Summary Dear Esther is a first-person ghost story. Rather than traditional game-play the focus here is on exploration, uncovering the mystery of a lonely island, of who you are and why you are here. Fragments of story are randomly uncovered when exploring the various locations of the island, making every each journey a unique experience.
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- Xbox One
- PlayStation 4
- PC
Initial Release Date: Sep 20, 2016
Developer:
- The Chinese Room
Publisher: Curve Digital
Genres:
