Masquerada: Songs and Shadows

I bought this on steam, I got a deal, usually I'd buy here.. DRM free and all that jazz. Ok the good points first, the music, the art design, the story and the voice work are all very engaging and enjoyable, on the face of it those alone are worth the price of admission, and I MEAN that... However, the rest is horribly bad news if it's an RPG you want. One must think of game play, because after all it is a game, but THERE ARE NO RPG TRAPPING. There's no inventory (I realize the devs have stated that they didn't want a 'loot fest', however that statement alone demonstrates that the devs don't understand the genre they are attempting work within as not all inventory items in rpg's are classed as loot, they've eschewed loot and in doing so eschewed every other item that could fall under the heading of inventory, e.g no puzzle items.. so that means no puzzles either), There is no exploration AT ALL just a series of circles you stand in that progress your game, searching for something then stand in a circle, speak to someone then stand in a circle, looking about then stand in a circle, moving areas then stand in a circle.. all these of these circles are broadcasted, you can't miss them the game litterally leads you by the hand.. there is an upgradable 'leveling' system used for the many (unfair in some cases) fights.. but that DOES NOT DEFINE 'RPG' At the end of the day, it is an utterly linear experience interspersed with the only real control you have, fighting and sadly even the fighting and it's system is anadequate to the task of carry such an otherwise dull PLAYING experience.. it doesn't matter how interesting the story is, how good the music is, how pretty the art is or how professional the voice work is, if there is nothing to the game except standing in circle to progress whatever action you have to take next in order to progress to the next circle, and fighting, then at the end of the day it cannot be described as a good (or even bad) 'RPG'. It is absolutely no more than a linear point to point adventure with a fighting system, this may be enough for some, but I find it to be an insult to anyone who actually expects rpg'ing in the 'RPG'. It's a great pity too, if it had some rpg'ish gameplay on top of the otherwise all round excellence then it would be a 4.5 stars no problem, but for the lack of any substantial gameplay it gets stripped back down to two and it only get's those because the other elements are above average.

This is a RPG set in a high fantasy Venetian city-state. The game revolves around the investigation of a missing scholar, Razitof, by Cicero Gavar, an exile whose brother's exploits have brought around much of the struggle which has enveloped the city. There is a decent base game here. It is a party RPG in the style of Baldur's gate, with some interesting skills and synergies to the combat. The story attempts to tackle some difficult and serious themes such as homosexuality in a lineage centered society. The world is fleshed out with lots of lore. That being said, the game never gets beyond that base, leaving the experience sour after a period of time. The only skills are combat skills, with no stealth or persuasion abilities. The experience is also entirely linear. You go to the next area. You fight several waves of minor enemies. You fight a boss. You proceed with the story slightly. You go to the next area. The combat never evolves beyond the basic synergies, such as grouping enemies together with one spell and then hitting them with several area of effect spells. The element system (connected to the world's magic) never really comes into effect. I played the entire game on hard, paid no attention to the element system after the 1st hour, and never lost a fight. Worse still, the story navigates its core mystery / save the city story decently enough, but all of the truly engrossing elements in terms of theme are handled with no subtlety. FIrst, the story occurs over a period of only a few days. In that time, you will become best friends with all of your companions and resolve all of their deepest issues. You are given no choice on how to react or respond to these characters, so the experience is somewhat frustrating as well as unbelievable. The other central themes, such as faith and class conflict, are handled with a similar lack of depth. Overall, Masquerada is a decent game, but a dissapointing one. Buy it only if you love party rpg's

Masquerada has a lot of brilliant ideas, many of it remains untapped unfortunately. The game takes place in a higy-fantasy setting, which is modeled after an italian city during the late renaissance. The lore is rich, original the world is unlike anything I've seen. It's compontents might be derivative of several other games when it comes to their function, but the developers still managed to make something extremely unique with them. All that's enhanced by the artwork, music, the writing, all amazingly well realised. The characters are intriguing, and the voice acting is top notch. The game mechanics are easy to understand, the combat, skills, controls are easy to understand and can be fun. All's set for a great RPG experience, which, sadly is not here. While the gameworld and lore is one of the most captivating I've come across in recent years, the world severly lacks interaction. You can't engage in conversations with almost any of the citizens - unless the plot practically forces you to do so. All background characters, stores, vehicles, items, etc are just for decoration. You can eavesdrop to hear a couple of conversations between some people, but that's all about it. The lack of interaction is further pushed by absolute linearity of the story. There aren't any sidequests, alternate routes, not even any dialogue options. You click on the next waypoint, and that's it. The only "truly interactive" part of the game is the combat, and while it's fine, it also lacks the many options of an Obsidian game, for example - even though the fighting's similar in approach. All in all, the whole game feels like a very bare-bones JRPG, mixed with a strictly linear adventure game - that somehow got put into one of the best looking and sounding, most imaginatively crafted setting. It really is a disappointment. Good thing is, the story, characters and writing really are stong enough to get you through most of it. Bad thing is, these elements deserved a better game.

As their first PC release, Masquerada: Songs and Shadows is a great start for Witching Hour Studios. Overlooked at release, I stumbled onto this game by chance, and I don't regret it one bit! With a title involving the word "songs" you'd hope that the music in this game was up to scratch, and fear not! By far, the standout features lies in its sounds. It's music is spectacular and it's strongest asset, whilst it's voice acting is superb from its cast of experienced voice actors. Art wise, it is very good. I'm not an art person, so I'm not the best to judge in that aspect, but it was...uh "very good?", as an isometric rpg, the camera is set, so it can help emphasis the art, though there is room for improvemnts as not much "pop's out" or makes you go "woah". Plot wise- It's solid, with some twists and turns, nothing too predicatble, but the ending does leave itself quite open to a sequel, with a fair few unresolved plot threads. The writing sometimes jumps around a bit though and can at times be a little inconsistent. Gameplay wise, it is an isometric rpg with both action bars and real time pausing. It's fine. Nothing spectacular. It does it's job with you controlling your main character with the option to switch to 2 others. Each character has up to 4 skills to choose from with a special. These are selected from a skill tree (there are no levels in this game, and skill points are doled out at certain points in the story, but don't stress, 1/3 through the game this becomes fairly easy to completly readjust and change your skill tree). Lore wise? There is ALOT. If you enjoy reading Lore, you'll have a blast. Exploration is very limited, often you cannot return to a previous area, which was be a bit annoying. Furthermore, there are still a few minor bugs in the game, but nothing gamebreaking, just a bit irritating. Overall, this is a very good first attempt at a PC games by Witching Hour and I look forward to the sequel