Yesterday Origins is a by-the-numbers adventure game that hits all of the marks with reliable accuracy. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, and the puzzles are standard and are occasionally veer difficult for the wrong reasons. The story is elevated by some distinct concepts and strong character writing. It's worth a try just to see how immortals deal with the problem of aging.
A well written adventure game that stays true to the format of the 90s. This also means that unless you can appreciate the old gears at work, you'll likely find the point and click formula boring.
Yesterday Origins is in its heart a wonderful point-and-click adventurer. With a story that grabs you with its both hands, it drags you down to a wonderful adventure. Unfortunately, an adventure that is manifested by technical problems.
Yesterday Origins is a great graphic adventure with influences from the old ones and with a very interesting story. However, it has some plot holes and a few technical issues.
It certainly offers a unique story in the realm of video games. Fans of the genre will certainly get a kick out of the game, others may just be intrigued enough by the story to try it out. But will it stand out as a classic in the genre when we're getting so many of them at the moment? Probably not.
I always loved the Broken Sword series when I was younger, and I was hoping for something at least close to that type of quality when I popped this into the PS4. Although not quite as amazing as Broken Sword 2, this was still a pretty interesting game that put up a challenge here and there.
The movement is a bit clunky and feels a bit 2002, and the prompts to interact with certain object are not always obvious (and then at times are almost too obvious), but it's the story and the dialogue between the characters that really pulls this game along. The voice acting is quite good for a game of this type.
For a PS4 game the graphics are pretty terrible; for some reason I just couldn't get over how ugly they made the main character's face, but in general you don't notice when you're trying to figure out the next puzzle that comes along.
Admittedly I had to look up the solutions to some of the puzzles online, but that was for time saving purposes only, I could have figured them out eventually, I swear.
The main letdown for me was the ending, as it felt a bit flat after going through the rest of the game. I'm an unapologetic "happily ever after" type of guy, and when the stories don't always go that way I tend to get a bit miffed. Not to say this is either a happy or sad ending (no spoilers) it just didn't go the way I predicted it to. I get that some would find that a positive.
Quite the unknown gem, Yesterday Origins is actually a sequel and a prequel simultaneously. It expands of the story of it's predecessor 'Yesterday' for the PC and creates the same classic point and click genre that the mid-90s crazed over.
It holds upfairly well, but not as good as the original. The graphics and sounds are sharpp, but simple. It doesn't really stretch the PS4, but the narrative is engaging and very well constructed, although a bit confusing at times. Another upside is the voice acting and pace. It's not over long and doesn't take itself too seriously, which brings me to the negatives.
Despite spates of humour, it has some very dark moments which almost shows that it should have been aimed at a different audience. The swearing in places also takes you by surprise. The controls are quite sound apart from the odd glitch and awkward angle. As I said, the story may confuse most people, especially if they haven't played the first game. Some of the puzzles are also not as clever as the previous. The most disappointing aspect for me as a fan was the ending. Far too abrupt and quite easy compared to the earlier sections.
As a whole it is worth a play, but no replay value is a marked downside for point and clicks. It holds one of the few candles that nods to the genre for sure, so we should be glad of that, but it's not quite in the same halls as Monkey Island, Gray Matter or Grim Fandango were.
Having finished the game I undestand why this genre, the point and click adventure game, died out.
The game is filled with tedious, cartoony and bizarre puzzles, that only made sense to the developers, when they conjured them.
The story isn't all that interesting and neither are the forgetable characters.
There's nothing compelling visually or sonically either.
I'm baffled by the positive reception of this game.
My review is: only play this, if you haven't played any video games for the last 25 years.
I played many adventure games and this is sadly among worst of them. I disliked it so much I considered not to complete the game but played it to the end (in second half quickly with walkthrough) out of curiosity just to see if the whole game is so bad and it indeed was.
So there is: a) a truly horrible controls with often tiny active spots so the game has lots of pixel hunting. You cannot just move cursor but need to move whole person in searching for active spots and forget about modern features of adventure games as possibility to show all active spots at once.
b) There are tons of close-ups with various details as in a hidden object game and you need to carefully inspect all of them as sometimes they are needed for progress but often these details are just useless. I remember similar feature worked quite well in Sherlock Holmes games as it was not overused but here it seemed to me just annoying.
c) You sometimes need to combine items in particular order without any reason. So A+B works but B+A not. Often combination of several items with observations icons (that you get after noticing something) is needed with little hints as why you should do it that makes the game combining nightmare. It is usually a exercise in: "How to do simple things in most excruciating way possible" just to prolong the gameplay time.
d) Story takes inspiration in Broken Sword games with some twists, but is just worse written. If you are interested in similar theme, I would recommend watching a movie The Ninth Gate instead.
On plus side there is decent graphics and music in the game but overall playing was so bad for me that I can give only 1/10 score.
In Chapter 1 game crushes or freezes indefinetly 4 times in a row. 2 years after the release nothing has changed. want an easy platinum and a great quest game? get a full throttle or even life is strange (not joking).
SummaryIn Yesterday Origins, the main protagonists John Yesterday and his partner Pauline, immortals who own an antiques store in Paris, travel across the globe through multiple periods. The story takes place across the current and medieval eras, through a series of flashbacks. At the beginning of the game, a young John is imprisoned by the Spa...