By venusUnavowedWadjetEye GamesUnavowed begins with thunder, lightning and an exorcism. A man in afedora and trench coat holds a shadowy figure by the neck, while a womanwith a sword stands poised to attack if necessary. The man speaks anincantation, blasts the shadowy figure with lightning for good measureand then asks the figure a question, “Are you man, woman or demon?”It’s here the player can begin creating their own protagonist. Theycan choose the gender (hint: demon doesn’t work but can produce someamusing results), name and former occupation. Among the backgrounds areactor, cop or bartender. For the purposes of this review, I completedtwo playthroughs, one as a female actor and another as a male cop.

Ialso played a little of the bartender route just to see the opening anda bit beyond that. In the two complete playthroughs, all paths for mycharacter’s personal journeys felt “correct” and inevitable.Once the character creation is complete, there will be a playableflashback with the chosen background story. No matter which of the threeunique scenarios is chosen, it will end shock and horror.

When the gameflashes back to the present, you learn that your character has beenpossessed by a demon for a year, leaving a trail of destruction anddeath in its wake. You can’t go back to your old life, as you’re nowa wanted criminal. Your only option is to join the Unavowed, a teamdedicated to taking on the forces of darkness.In the beginning, the team only consists of three members besidesyour character – fire mage Eli, who performed the exorcism, halfjinn/half pirate Mandana, who stood ready with the sword, and Mandana’sfather, Kalash, the leader of the group, a blue jinn who like hisdaughter, sleeps in a bottle every night. Overlord 2 mistresses. Eli and Mandana will accompanyyou on the various missions you will take part in.

Unavowed review - We swear, this superb dark urban fantasy possesses so many fine qualities that it may be Wadjet Eye's best adventure yet. Your salvation comes in the form of the Unavowed – an ancient society dedicated to stopping evil. You are free, but your world is in tatters. You have no home, no friends, and are wanted by the police. Your old life is gone, but perhaps you can start a new one. Join the ranks of the Unavowed, and fight against the oncoming darkness.

Later, two morecompanion characters will be added, Logan the bestower (along with hisspirit guide, KayKay), and Vicki, a former cop who was kicked off theforce for a truth only she could see. Each character has skills thatwill be helpful on the missions you will go on, and you can choose twofor each mission once the other characters join the team.These missions are essentially clean up projects for the havoc yourdemon has wreaked, as well as steps to lead you closer to finding thedemon, who seems to have a larger plan it still intends to complete.Each mission takes place in a different part of New York, and all areasare intriguing and provide nice contrast from one another. There arealso several fun references to other Wadjet Eye games fans of thecompany can discover throughout, particularly references to theBlackwell series. For example, during the Chinatown mission, Blackwellfans may recognize a familiar detective. Later in the same mission,there is a sequence with KayKay the ghost, a fantastically writtencharacter fans may also recognize.

Even if you have not played theBlackwell games, the KayKay section is a standout, providing a lot offun along with some of the best puzzles in the game.Speaking of puzzles, all are relatively easy to solve. They were fun,particularly the KayKay section, but never very difficult. The focus isprimarily on the terrific story, characters and choices. There aredifferent ways to solve the puzzles, depending on which companioncharacters are taken on each individual mission. Also, your protagonist’sbackground will play a role as well. The actor is good at deception, thecop at detective work, and the bartender at empathy and gettingcharacters to open up.

Those that desire more of a challenge may bedisappointed, but I felt that the puzzles were interesting, worked welland kept the story flowing nicely.The choice system in this game is handled very well. There is thechoice of companion characters, of course, as well as different dialogueoptions you can choose from. There is the occasional dialogue tree,often showing up in between missions when getting to know yourcompanions. However, most dialogue has you choosing between responsesyou feel would best suit your character or the situation. Then, thereare the larger moral choices you will have to make, generally at the endof each mission. None of them were easy to make, and I found myselfagonizing over several, weighing the repercussions of every outcome.This was a definite highlight, and I appreciated each decision feltwrong in some way. The decisions made along the way won’t be forgottenand will have consequences later in the story.The characters are all varied and interesting.

Eli was the most welldeveloped of the companions and had the best arc of the group. Mandanawas also very interesting, and I wish her backstory could have beenexplored more, as she has 400 years of history to draw from. Logan andVicki were less developed, but they were still well written and likable.In fact, I would gladly play an entire game focused on any one of thefour on their own individual adventures.Strangely enough, I found the player character the least interestingof the cast.

The fact that the character was unvoiced may have somethingto do with this. I understand the reasons for the voiceless protagonist,and it did help with a certain intriguing development later in the game.However, it prevented me from feeling the same “bond” with thecharacter that I experienced with Rosa and Joey in the Blackwell series,for example. On the other hand, there is the advantage of making thecharacter feel more like the player’s own due to the various choicesthat can be made, so it’s something of a trade off.The voice acting in the game is strong across the board. Severalactors are recognizable from previous Wadjet Eye games. The dialogue isterrific, and one feature I really enjoyed was the inclusion ofconversations among the companion characters that would spontaneouslyoccur when changing screens or on the subway. The jazzy soundtrackcompliments the mood of the game beautifully. The backgrounds andcharacter portraits are stunning.

This is the best looking Wadjet Eyegame yet. I especially enjoyed the different color themes in differentlocations, some with red skies, some orange, pink or purple. They gaveeach location a unique mood, ranging from noir to mystical toforeboding.Before playing the game, I wondered how the missions would serve thestory as a whole and whether or not they would feel too unrelated to oneanother. I’m happy to say that it all flowed together beautifully, andthe story worked well as a cohesive whole. They also stand well enoughon their own that an individual mission could be played in one sittingand the next could be picked up later. Both complete playthroughs tookaround 12 hours each, and there is a lot of replay value.

There aremultiple endings, and none will be closed to the player during the finalscene, so it’s easy enough to load that scene and check out thealternatives.Overall, Unavowed is Wadjet Eye’s most ambitious, well realized andbeautiful game yet. Highly recommended.August2018design copyright© 2018.

Ah, so this is what I look like when writing reviews!Unavowed stresses the sort of choice and consequence gameplay that has become so fashionable since the 90s days of yore! Right at the start you can choose a male or female protagonist. Interestingly enough, the protagonist is the only unvoiced character and you can even name him/her (due to what is surely some sort of ensorcelled curse, none of the voiced characters ever call the protagonist by name).

It definitely reminded by of roleplaying titles from back in the day as you’re given very much a blank slate to play as you will.Right from the beginning, Unavowed takes you by surprise and manages to develop its story and characters in excitingly unpredictable way. You’re given a chance to choose the protagonist’s origin story: either a cop, bartender or actor. I picked an actor, being something of a school play thespian! I was then thrust in the protagonist’s prologue of an upcoming play being derailed by the obsessive rewrites of an auteur director whose perfectionism has spun out of control.

Even in this first scene there’s a brilliant bit of surprising juxtaposition as at first you’re trying to help the director gently wind down from what seems like a particularly intense bout of word vomit, and then things turn horrifyingly violent in a plot twist that quite literally made my jaw drop. It turns out the protagonist has actually been possessed by a demon for an entire year, which has made him/her do unspeakable acts of manipulation and murder.And this is the protagonist’s motivation: to investigate the path of destruction wreaked by the demon who possessed them and track it down before it causes any more chaos. To do this, he joins the Unavowed: a secretive organization dedicated to fighting supernatural threats to the world.Genie (not) in a Bottle.

Mandana swordswoman skills and Eli’s pyromancy are not to be trifled with.It’s a very interesting and unique premise that isn’t wasted one iota by the game that’s formed around it. Every mission, you’ll experience flashbacks of the awful deeds committed by your demon possessed self, where you even get dialogue choices of what subtly wicked manipulations the demon tricked people with.

It was honestly pretty harrowing to choose which way the demon convinced a hapless woman to kill her landlord’s dog! The way the narrative gives you broad control over the direction of the story and then narrows it down to just iterations of the bleak past is a great way of exploring the protagonist’s feelings of loss of agency and violation.Speaking of choices, there are plenty of them to be made, and they’re not just straightforward choices between good and evil.

One difficult choice that comes early on is whether to mercy kill a being who has been betrayed and cursed to eternal suffering, or to send him to another dimension in the vain hopes he might find a better life. None of the choices I made, I did without heavily weighing the consequences, and I think that’s a sign of a well made choice and consequence system.Characterful Combinations. Luckily a magical veil protects the protagonist form being recognized by law enforcement.Assisting you in your paranormal investigations are the motley crew of trenchcoated fire mage Eli, scimitar wielding genie Mandana, ghost-talking spiritualist Logan and the thoroughly loose cannon detective Vicki. Each party member has different skills they bring to the table. Mandana’s supernatural strength and swordsmanship means she can defeat vast foes or throw bricks through windows!

Eli can either throw destructive fireballs, read burned books or merely set off sprinklers! It’s all dependent on how you use your party members (whose icons are helpfully kept with the rest of you inventory) to solve the various puzzles.What’s the most compelling choice of all is which party members to bring on each mission (you’re limited to two of the four available). Depending on who you bring, you can solve the same problems in a variety of different ways.

The different permutations of party members are also great fun because of the interesting flavour dialogue they’ll have with eachother while walking about (a la Bioware RPG games, which makes this a wonderfully unique aspect for a point n’ clicker). I found myself particularly favouring Logan, because you can see what all the various ghosts around the city have to say for themselves. Logan is a recovering alcoholic who, like all the characters, has his own chequered past that gradually unravels through the course of the game. The subtle hints at the backstories of the various characters is perfectly paced just like the backstory of the protagonist and gives tantalizing glimpses of their past rather than it being just a information dump.Certain combinations of characters can create some very fun situations such as bringing Eli and Mandana to Wall Street. Former accountant Eli remarks on how the financial district hasn’t changed since the seventies, only for the centuries old Mandana to agree it hasn’t changed since the 1770s! All the permutations of dialogue and interactions that can occur because of the well drawn characters (in a literal and development sense sense) not only make your playthrough feel incredibly special, but also adds a big replayability factor that point n’ clickers haven’t always had.A Friendly Ghost. Spirits can’t always communicate through conventional meansThe puzzles in Unavowed are very intuitive and heavily hinted at.

Simply holding down the right mouse button will show you all the interactible hotspots on screen, minimising any time you might be searching for something to click on. Not only this, but the number of potential hotspots you can interact with are usually very low. A short description appears at the button of the screen every time you mouse over something observable and not interactive, so you can enjoy examining everything without fruitlessly trying to use everything on everything. Any items you don’t need will generally be removed from your inventory at the completion of each “quest”, further decreasing guesswork of which items in your inventory are actually useful. When you’re at a loose end, talking to one of your allies will generally point you in the right direction and give you a hint.

On top of this, solutions to puzzles are usually pretty logical and straightforward, like using a screwdriver to remove a license plate.Some old school fans would call the puzzles in Unavowed outright easy because of how much the game helps you along. For me, I found the balance just right.

There’s enough mental legwork to do that there’s a light glow of satisfaction for working out various puzzles, but you never get so bogged down attempting fruitless permutations of inventory items on the scenery that it slows down the flow of the story. If anything, when you try to solve a puzzle in a way that seems logical but doesn’t quite work, there will often be an amusing, characterful quip from one of your party members explaining why it didn’t work and hinting at the right solution.Adventures in the VoidUnavowed is the perfect title for those who want to enjoy an old-school adventure game – with all its lushly colourful pre-rendered backgrounds and perfectly pixellated sprites – without the old-school headaches of unintuitive puzzles slowing down the story. With sharp writing, excellent voice acting and genuinely intriguing choices to be made, Unavowed should definitely be possessing your hard drive sometime soon!Final Verdict: 4/5Available on: PC (reviewed) Publisher: Wadjet Eye Games; Wadjet Eye Games; Players: 1; Released: August 8th, 2018Full disclosure: This review is based on a PC review copy provided to Hey Poor Player by the publisher.