A honest and well crafted foray into the terrors and shadows of Norse folklore. Antagonist’s debut may not dazzle with it’s execution but, much like the first album of a promising band, places them firmly on the gaming map.
I haven't played a good horror game for while, but now finally I did. The animations were a bit weird, and the main characters voice acting wasn't good, but I liked the gameplay, it did scare me a few times, and the story was interesting, so overall it's a good horror game. I don't understand why everyone is panning this game, there are way worse horror games out there, trust me.
The story is really interesting. It's difficult to call Through the Woods a real horror game, but the atmosphere permeates you and it will be quite easy to dive into the mysterious story. The game was completed by me for a couple of evenings and it was really good.
In its best moment Through the Woods is an atmospheric trip into the world of Norse mythology. But what this adventure desperately needs is depth. While the simplified story premise is very interesting, the actual storytelling is as shallow as the stealth mechanics.
An interesting idea combining Norse mythology with a very personal story of a mother searching for her son, unfortunately the game failed to bring any better than an average gameplay.
With 2.5 hours under the belt, I can say the ending was sudden, surprising , and not fulfilling by any means. It did not strike a chord that rang in success or failure. In fact, thanks to the stiff animation of the scene, I actually blurted out a laugh. The setting, the lore behind it, they’re ultimately squandered as far as horror goes, or even as adventure. What Through The Woods ultimately boils down to, is a couple hour walking simulator with an interesting narrative trying to be played out by the most unlikeable character I’ve ever seen in a game.
После прохождения эмоции и ощущения вполне положительные, но в целом я бы не стал склонять чашу весов в какую либо сторону. Данный обзор пусть будет нейтральным, т.к. уже и время прошло много с момента релиза,
так и прогресс студии нельзя оценить, потому что это их единственный проект. Увы!
В целом для любителей скандинавской тематики я бы посоветовал, для остальных - на свой страх и риск.
Through the Woods
The Room of Horror Games
Through the Woods is a Horror adventure game set in Norway.
You play as a woman named Karen. Your son Espen gets snatched up by a Viking man cause he doesn’t wanna listen to you about not going near the pier.. and you spend the rest of this 3hr game trying to rescue him.
This game is ridiculous.
This is the room of horror games in almost everyway.. from the voice acting to the delivery of the story..
It tries so hard to deliver something serious and I was laughing so hard during the moments in the beginning and towards the end where the majority of the story is delivered…
The middle sections of this game is a bit more mysterious.. I took it more serious as you’ll be finding your way through this woods full of Viking villages, dead bodies, old letters and passages to help you uncover the truth behind this mystery Viking man that stole your child from you.
By the way.. you’re a pretty neglectful mom… there’s a part of you that’s probably happy he was kidnapped…
and naturally the story telling tackles this as your mom instincts kick in..
gameplay wise and atmosphere wise this game is pretty all over the place.. there are a few creepy moments… there are giants and wolves you’ll be dealing with, but I never felt the game was spooky or scary aside from getting startled seeing an enemy through the trees knowing somethings about to go down…
leading to some thrilling chase sequences..
but the game is mostly just finding the right path to go down and explore cabins along your way for more story..
pe3rformance wise, no huge issues aside from getting stick in between a rock and a giants foot having to exit out of the game and come back in.. thankfully checkpoints are pretty frequent here.. and the audio in the final sequence was a bit staticky and choppy.. really hurting whats meant to be an impactful moment..
but again thanks to the delivery and ridiculousness of this story I was laughing through most of it anyway…
I enjoyed playing Through the Woods..
But like the room.. I enjoyed it for unintended reasons…
you can tell this game was made with a budget.. they tried..
And I appreciate it.
I give Through the Woods
a 6/10
As a horror game, it isn't great. Voice acting is incredibly wooden and with a very strange accent, there's a ridiculous amount of walking involved and the story makes little sense. It also tends to lie to you; once, upon reaching a danger, the character declared 'I'd better sneak around!'. The correct path is to sprint straight through, sneaking around just gets you caught and killed.
As an unintentional comedy game, it has its moments. When there's dialogue it's usually accidentally hysterical due to its poor quality, the sudden jump from modern-day Norway to Skyrim is amusing, and the strange story turns can be amusing. But again, there's just so much walking that it quickly kills any genuine humor.
Boring gameplay
terrible Voice acting
Bad writing
Not really scary for a horror game
I don't know what else to say here say game is simply just bad the idea was at first interesting but it gets boring pretty fast
Although the idea is interesting, this game has been definitely, implementation wise, out of reach for the softare house.
The graphics are **** engine is seriously underperforming, there are relatively few and very unusual graphic settings, and the game has a seriously small palette (which has 256 colors at most), which makes the look extremely flat.
You can see all of this in the "Let's play" playthough.
The voiceplay is amateurish.
I think that when a software house has limited budget and/or talent, they should try hard with a simple/innovative idea with manageable technology, rather than a complex idea with unreachable technological capacity.
SummaryThrough the Woods is a third-person Norse horror adventure set in a forest on the western shores of Norway that tells the story of a mother and her missing son.