- Publisher: Night School Studio
- Release Date: Oct 29, 2019
- Also On: PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
- Unscored
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Dec 3, 2019As I played Afterparty, I kept thinking that I should be liking it more than I was. A character- and story-driven game sounds like it should be right up my alley, and I can picture people enjoying the conversations and appreciating a vision of Hell where it’s being run by devils with just as many problems as everybody else. But I didn’t like the game, and I didn’t really like that there isn’t much game in the game (there aren’t any puzzles, and the drinking mini-games are so inconsequential it doesn’t even matter if you win them). So I’m giving Afterparty a lukewarm score. It’s definitely a game where your mileage may vary.
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CD-ActionNov 25, 2019The game is loaded with small glitches and inconsistencies but next to Night in the Woods it’s the one game I could point to and say ‘that’s how you should write engaging, living dialogue’. [13/2019, p.54]
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Oct 27, 2019When it hits those strides, it's a novel look at what hell might look like for most of us, a vision that turns the concept of eternal damnation into something more palpable and threatening. It fumbles when it reaches outside its comfort zone, and the focus on small moments means it lacks the grandiose ones that make our lives feel more meaningful than they might otherwise be.
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Oct 27, 2019At the end of the day though, Afterparty will leave many with a bit of a hangover, wondering if there was more that could have been done with the drinking system and its branching narrative.
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Nov 11, 2019Afterparty begins as a very joyful festivity in which you encounter a lot of great and eloquent people in a very charming place. But it continues as a very passive, clumsy experience and ends as a forgettable game from which you retain mostly technical issues, lack of impactful and pleasant interactions, instead of its strong writing and amazing vocal performances. Too bad, this Hell was surely paved with good intentions.
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Oct 27, 2019Afterparty offers up a good laugh, and not just at the unfortunate glitches. Its art style is adorable, and the neon lights and bloody backgrounds truly make it feel like you've jumped down into hell. But while the story is intriguing, it feels too slow at times and its main protagonists fall flat against an otherwise fantastic cast of characters.
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Edge MagazineNov 10, 2019As for a return trip to hell to see how alternative choices might have played out? It would have to freeze over first. [Issue#139, p.116]
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This publication has not posted a final review score yet. | |
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Oct 28, 2019Night School Studios follows on its excellent work in Oxenfree with this touching look at the absurdity of life and video games. [Eurogamer Recommended]
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Oct 27, 2019Afterparty is an ambitious game that works hard to deliver funny dialog and outright laughs. And while it only partially succeeds in these laudable aims, it also delivers an enjoyable, unexpectedly worldly story about what it means to cease to be a child, and to begin to be an adult.
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Oct 30, 2019But while all of the principal cast do a smashing job, Dave Fennoy’s Satan is probably the (morning) star of the show.
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Oct 31, 2019The game continually tugs an interesting thread on perspective, and whose matters more.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 24 out of 49
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Mixed: 15 out of 49
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Negative: 10 out of 49
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Oct 29, 2019
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Oct 17, 2020
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Mar 1, 2020