Written Review.
Well, hello there. Today I’m going to give some of my thoughts on a title that I recently finished. The game as you can tell by the title of the video is Night in the Woods.
This is again a game that I’ve had for a while and just not got around to playing. I decided to play something a little different to what I had been playing when I started this and heard that this is generally a good game, but other than that I knew very little about the game, well, pretty much nothing.
You start the game at a bus station, you are Mae Borowski a young woman who has just left college. You are on your own except for a janitor. This start is an indication of how the game will play, you can walk around the station and look at things on the wall when a symbol appears near it and talk to the janitor and soon after leaving the station. You’ve already got a little idea as to what the game will be from the station. with the talking to people and interacting with things means you can learn things about the area you are in or move and buy things and little things like that. A big part of the gameplay is seen heading home. You walk through some woods and you again can interact with things, but you also have various platforming elements and Mae like Mario has a triple jump. The platforming comes into it after you get home and it’s the next day. Basically, you can go around the own of Possum Springs and you can jump up tree branches to reach electrical wires or roofs of buildings. Getting about on the roofs is generally quicker to get about, but it’s not just that, climbing up tree branches, or windows to get to the roofs means you can meet people up there or along the way and a big part of this game is talkingto people, see what their lives are like. Getting to know or reconnect with people that Mae previously knew in the town. This is where the best part of the game is, it’s where it shines. The conversations with people in the game are brilliant and getting to know people is wonderful, and you learn very interesting things about the town and people through the conversations that are had. There’s a wide cast of characters here for you to talk to and they all feel unique and interesting,
There is a main cast of characters that you will speak to. First off are Mae’s mother and father. Every morning I would speak to Mae’s mother before heading out of the house and in the nights when returning home Mae’s father would be on the sofa watching TV and you can have a little chat and watch some with him. Again this leads to learning more about Mae’s past and how the Borowski’s lives now. You then have Beatrice Santello AKA Bea. Bea and Mae seemingly have history of being best friends but they stop talking. When Mae comes back from College they reconnect, but, they have a lot of ups and downs along the way. You can clearly see they care for each other, but Mae keeps putting her foot in her mouth. Next up there’s Angus Delaney. Angus is a person you know, but know very little about he was one of the kids in school who was a little off, and seemingly a loner. Getting to know Angus is relatively slow, you don’t talk about what you did together in the past as you didn’t do anything, but it’s very rewarding getting to know him and his past. Greggory Lee is another of Mae’s old friends. Gregg is kind of a wild guy, he’s not wild as in goes around punching random people, getting pissed or that kinda thing, he’s just a fun-loving guy who seems to want to have a lot of fun, but it seems he livens up a little more when Mae returns. Gregg is one of the best characters in the game, but then saying that they are all pretty great and have some really interesting backstories that you learn about, it’s quite saddening with some. Gregg is also the band leader. Oh, yes I didn’t mention the band. Gregg, Bea, Angus and Mae are all in a band. Mae plays Bass. Next up we have Germ. Germ is different to those mentioned above, no one really knows much about him, but he seems OK, and you can do things with him on occasion. Most of the time you see him he’s at Band practice, he isn’t in the band, but he watches as you play. When you see him on the street he is sometimes talking to other people who you never see again.
I thought I’d talk about the music, as I tend to do with these videos and I can’t say anything other than it being fantastic. When playing through it, people watching would regularly comment on how good the music was, and it was happening nearly every time a new track played. It really adds to the game, with music from band practice being rather different to most other places, it just, makes the world feel complete.
As you spend more time in the town you come across some odd happens as well, which leads to a mystery, but the mystery isn’t a whodunnit even though it goes down a more murder mystery route at one point, it isn’t about the who did this and why, well, to me anyway. I think it’s more about the darker side of town, and how little communities can be affected by people moving on, how some people will go to any lengths to protect the things that matter to them no matter the cost and hurt it may cause, and while that’s the case for the town, it’s also the same for the people, things change and it’s not always for the best.
The game really is all about stories, the stories of how the town came to be, the stories about how the town is in the place it’s in, stories of people and their lives, stories of friends, stories of families, stories of grief, mental health, abuse, about being an adult, there are even stories with the stars. There’s so much to this game that will make you think about what it’s like to be an adult about responsibilities about what really matters. It’s both funny and silly and yet can be heartbreaking at times.
This is one game that if you were on the fence on I would say to pull the trigger. It’s really a must-play. The gameplay, story, writing and music are something needing o to be experienced.