Dear Esther: Landmark Edition [Review By Uzzbuzz]Note: This is a remaster of the ‘game’ Dear Esther. I will be reviewing this not based on it being a remaster, but the review will be about the original version as well.
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition is a 3d first person adventure walking simulator: the first successful one of its kind. Taking place on a Scottish island, Dear Esther is an interactive story revolving around the character Esther, obviously. Very little of the story is directly fed to the player, as the developers wanted the players to use their imagination as to what could have possibly happened, and to always doubt their interpretations.
Mechanics/Gameplay – There is nothing you physically do in Dear Esther except walk. It is a nice story based experience, but if you’re looking for something with more standard gaming involvement, look elsewhere. The gameplay comes from just enjoying the beautiful environment and trying to understand what the game even means. 2/10
Fun Factor – I would not really say I had that much fun with this one. I enjoyed the experience, but I am not sure if I would call it fun. I played the original game years ago and had forgotten a lot of it, so coming back to this was nice. Since I had already played before, I decided to listen to all the developer commentary on my first run through the game. When I went back through without the dev commentary afterwards in order to hear the voiceovers, the story started to make a bit more sense in bits and pieces and it actually became more enjoyable as I started to feel like I was figuring something out. What Dear Esther does is explains some of the events and story through the voiceovers, but the developer commentary explains why certain things were chosen to appear in the experience. If you have the time to do three playthroughs (only need two for the achievements), I’d recommend playing through normally once, then with developer commentary, and finally playing normally again. That way you actually get some playtime out of it as well as a better understanding of what may have happened. 6.5/10
Graphics/Animation – For the time of the original release, the graphics were beautiful. While still beautiful, they are not as impressive as they once were. One thing I can say they did really well with the graphics was how they guided the player towards where they had to go, whether it be by the rock formations, or the faint glowing red light of the lighthouse in the distance.
Animation is pretty standard, though extra care was taken with the gusts of wind, grass blowing, and other ambient features. A lot of attention was put into the little details. The only odd thing I noticed was that many of the plants grew halfway inside some of the mountains and did not look natural at all, but if you’re just walking by, you tend not to notice. 8/10
Music/Sound – There is not much music in this game, and that is done for a very clear reason. Many games rely on music to tell the player what they should be feeling at every point; not here. Dear Esther has few points where music plays, but when it does, it describes what is going through the protagonist’s head and really sets the tone for the area you are in. The ambient sounds of footsteps and wind blowing, and steeping in water etc are all excellent for the immersion of the experience. There was even one point of the game where music plays but it is really saying Esther over and over again in morse code, and most people would not pick this up on the first playthrough unless they knew beforehand or were listening to the developer commentary. 9/10
Replayability – For myself, there was not too much replayability. I played it once listening to the developer commentary, and again without. I had previously played the original once before as well. In general, there is not much replayability, unless you get really invested with the story and keep playing over and over again to try and understand. There is a small element of randomness at play as well, so every playthrough is slightly different, but you will have to pay pretty close attention to notice. Looking over other people who have reviewed this, many have less than 3 hours of playtime, so it seems the average player does not get too heavily invested that they spend hours and hours in it. 2.5/10
Level Design – I really like this environment. You cannot help but feel alone on this island, and the different level elements really make you wonder what happened. What are these on the walls? What is this marking in the sand and what is its relevance? This game brings up a lot of questions, provides many answers, but the big picture is never quite there. The level design really makes this feel like a journey; a struggle. Once you get to the cave chapter, it gets even more beautifully and intricately designed. 7.5/10
Achievements – Now this is a game that is weird having achievements. Two of them (for dying in different ways) do not really suit the style of the game. The developers tried really hard to keep death out of the gameplay, and I believe they fixed it in a fairly clever way that makes you question the island even more. It just feels weird that those achievements are there. There are four achievements, one for each chapter, then there is one for taking 5000 steps which you can do in one longer playthrough.
Finally, for collectible achievements, there are 3: one for finding an urn in each chapter, another for listening to all the voiceovers, and another for listening to all of the developer commentary. The latter two are a bit annoying because it is recommended to stop walking whenever you hear a voiceover or commentary because if you trigger another one it will not play and you will have to redo the chapter to hear it. Also, a small note that you cannot do the voiceovers and developer commentary in one playthrough. If you could, it would probably be a bit confusing anyways.
The overall set does cover the game, but they are still quite stale. 4/10
Pros:
+ Beautiful art/sound
+ Doesn’t hand-hold the player for story
Cons:
- Very short
- Minimal gameplay
- Not much replay value for typical player
Overall Score: 5.6/10
3.0