True Fear: Forsaken Souls - Part 1

As a kid of the 1980s who was into ninjas and cartoony platformers, I have no idea how I ended up owning Shadowgate. I don't know if it was the multi-page spread in Nintendo Power or the horror-themed cover art, but something intrigued me enough to put down the action-packed games that I was used to and take a chance on what turned out to be a slow-paced adventure. I'm glad I took the chance, because I'm pretty sure Shadowgate was my first foray into the point and click world, a genre that I continue to love to this day. True Fear: Forsaken Souls - Part 1 is one of the few modern games to remind me of all the things I loved about Shadowgate all those years ago. Too bad the whole thing is nearly brought down by rampant technical problems and puzzles so easy that you'll end up sleepwalking your way through all the horror cliches.

True Fear: Forsaken Souls tells the story of a young woman who gets a mysterious (and rather cryptic) letter from her estranged sister. With the prospect of uncovering some long-hidden truths, this sends Holly on a trip to what turns out to be an old, abandoned house filled with just as many cobwebs as family secrets.

What we have here is a straight-forward point and click adventure game where we explore a bunch of single-screen rooms looking for clues. The idea is to pick up the various items and then find a place to use them. Usually this results in getting another item, which opens up a brand new puzzle, where you'll unlock another item, and so on so forth. Every object is connected to something and it's your job to search through every room until you find where it goes.

Even as a point and click veteran, there's a quickness to the puzzle solving that took me by surprise. This is one of those games where you'll use the item almost as quickly as you pick it up. Some of this is because the solutions actually make sense, unlike a lot of the puzzles in classic point and clickers like Shadowgate. That rake you pick up will be used to move leaves, the sponge will clean a dirty cabinet and that eyeball you've been carrying around probably goes into a skull. I don't know how many items there are in True Fear, but it feels like we're picking up and depositing hundreds of objects as we make a mad dash through this first chapter.

I have a hunch that this slightly quicker pace may actually go a long way to make True Fear a more accessible point and click adventure game for new players. It's also surprisingly easy. And it's not just because the solutions are mostly obvious, but also because the game does a fair amount of hand-holding. The puzzles and items will sparkle and draw your attention on all but the very hardest difficulty. And when you don't know where to go next, the quick travel guide will show you the rooms with puzzles left to do. It all seems designed to keep you from quitting the game in utter frustration.

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While I would have preferred harder puzzles, that is ultimately the least of True Fear's problems. From a horror perspective, this game just isn't very scary. This point and clicker relies a little too heavily on lame jump scare moments that you'll see coming a mile away. It got to the point where I started to predict when the creepy ghost girl would pop out in a cinema, and I was right all but one time. This is neither scary nor startling, it's just cheesy. It also works to remind you that there are no stakes here, so you never have to worry about dying or surviving. It's basically a casual stroll through a cool looking but ultimately toothless haunted house.

When it comes right down to it, the scariest thing about True Fear is that it is occasionally buggy. I ended up running into some major problems with a certain arts and craft challenge that had me painting a knight. This worked fine at first, but about halfway through it stopped letting me paint. It got to the point where every time I tried to fill in a section, I would put down the paintbrush instead. Even sections I previously had no problems with were suddenly impossible to paint. There was simply no way for me to complete this puzzle.

I'm not going to lie; this (along with the publisher's dubious response) soured my opinion of True Fear: Forsaken Souls. In fact, I started to wonder if I was even going to be able to review this game. Thankfully, I found a solution. There's a button you can press that will let you skip puzzles, in the off chance you get stuck. Well, I got stuck, but probably not in the way the developer intended. It's because of this button that I was able to enjoy the rest of the adventure.

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And that's the thing; I largely did enjoy my time with True Fear. I have my issues with its difficulty and scariness, but up until the point of that painting puzzle, I was really digging the story and atmosphere. It has a nice hand-drawn look and spooky feel, both of which kept me glued to the screen. I even liked the way they handled navigating the house with the gamepad, though using the analog stick to point and click can be a bit finicky at times. It's a bit of a mixed bag.

As the first part of a proposed trilogy, True Fear: Forsaken Souls does what it needs to do. It sets up a compelling mystery and gives us a likable character to root for. Unfortunately, it also fails to deliver any genuine scares. It has a spooky setting and creepy atmosphere, but the only thing scary here are the technical issues. If you're new to the genre and looking for a relatively easy adventure with a quick pace, then True Fear may actually be a good place to start. I was a little disappointed with this debut, but still hopeful that they'll pull it off with Parts 2 and 3.