Occasionally you will see an advertisement that asks people to participate in a medical experiment. This involves, for example, the testing of new medicines and even though there are always risks involved, these are almost always kept within bounds. Participants also receive a nice amount for their participation. But what if something really goes wrong during these tests and this has major consequences? The Long Reach plays with this question and prepares a situation where you would rather not end up in it.
Failed experiment
In The Long Reach is an experiment that tries to share experiences of different people, that these are taken over. For example, if someone has learned to play piano, this can be transferred to someone else with this test, so that he or she can also use this instrument. You play as a guinea pig, which one day witnesses a catastrophe. The experiment fails and you become unconscious. On awakening everything around you looks different and the doctors behave suddenly very strange. You go to research to find out what exactly went wrong and how to get back home in one piece.
2D adventure
The Long Reach is an adventure game with great influences from the point-and-clik genre. You enter a 2D world where you can walk freely and objects that you can interact with are given a yellow glow. You can also speak to people you come across and occasionally choose from sentences that you can say. By winning information from the people you meet and using and / or moving objects, you can slowly but surely continue in the adventure. This is of course not very special and already done hundreds of times in other titles, but The Long Reach still distinguishes itself in a number of ways.
Stark atmosphere
Painted Black Games said that the game has a thriller / horror setting, but you can deal with it in different ways. For The Long Reach the developer has chosen to never put the player at ease, by creating a grim atmosphere. This is done through the graphics and sound, but the story itself also helps a hand. The script is strongly written and ensures that you never really feel at ease, but still you want to know what is going on. Also the fact that you are actually only a Jan Lul and if you are attacked the only thing you can do is run away, provides extra excitement. So you constantly have to pay your eyes and ears well.
The wrong leg
What makes this game so interesting is that as a player you are regularly misled. This is done not only with the story itself by means of plottwists, but also in very subtle and especially original other ways. At first sight these seem to be nothing comprehensive, but they are therefore very surprising. I would very much like to set an example, but that would ruin the experience for gamers who still have to play the game. You also sometimes do not know what you are now playing for a game. At one moment it makes you laugh, but a little later it becomes so lugubrious again that it causes 'what the fuck' moments. You never really know what you can expect while playing the game and that makes the attraction of The Long Reach even greater.
Perfect fit
The game also shows that a game does not always have realistic graphics to make a big impression. The title of Painted Black Games uses pretty rough pixel art and that looks a bit strange at first glance. You could say that the developer simply opted for an easy solution with the excuse that it feels like a game from the past, or simply tries to compete with the popularity of pixelart. Only this is not the case; the style fits in perfectly with what The Long Reach offers you: a bizarre and strange experience. A graphically different style fits well with that.
Up to now everything seems to be cake and egg, but unfortunately there are some things present that interfere with the fun of playing. For example, the vast majority of the puzzles are fun and good, but occasionally it does not want to make it clear what you have to do. The only thing that helps is checking everything in the area where you are. And if you only find what you need to do at the end of your search, that will lead to the total experience. There is even one moment where you have to find something that is so incredibly well hidden, that you might only discover it by accident. Walking around stupid for minutes can get annoying and that disturbs the flow of the game.
Reset
The fun is occasionally disturbed in a different way, and that is because the game has some technical defects. Occasionally, you may not be able to move your character for a few seconds after performing an action. In my play session it even happened twice that I could not move at all. It was not freeze, because the music just went on cheerfully. The only solution was to reset the game and restart. That is of course not something you want if you are full of excitement in a story. Fortunately, there are plenty of advantages over the two mentioned minuses, so the damage remains limited. Keep in mind that it is not a very big adventure, but that is also the price.
Conclusion
If you are going to judge The Long Reach purely on gameplay, then it falls under the 'thirteen in a dozen' category. The point-and-click-like gameplay does not do something you've never seen before and some puzzles let you search too much, because sometimes it's not clear what you have to do. The game also suffers from some technical defects, which The Long Reach sometimes let stand still. This can in some cases lead to the restart of the game. A strong story, bizarre atmosphere and original twists on different levels, however, ensure that the game is lifted to a much higher level. The game sucks you up completely and makes you constantly curious about what's coming. It makes you laugh, frighten, amaze and make you curious and that makes you want to continue playing.
➕ Strong story keeps player tied to his TV
➕ Surprising and original twists
➕ Graphic style fits perfectly with the story
➕ Stark whole works as an atmosphere
➖ Some technical defects
➖ Some puzzles are unclear
Thanks for reading.
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