Resonance Review (PC)

My first impression of Resonance was negative and I was not even running it, generated by the fact that the options section of the game did not allow me to set the resolution for more than 640X480.

This is a ludicrously small resolution for a modern system, even if we’re talking about one mainly designed for office work.

That means that one can either play Resonance in a window, with tiny details and many missed mouse clicks or in full screen, having to deal with antiquated graphics (and I am the kind of guy who can still tolerate the original Colonization).

I am glad I stuck with Resonance and that I played it because this is the type of pure adventure game that’s been missing for so long from the games market and that can bring back to gaming a number of people who believed this genre to be extinct.

Mnemonic device	Clean graphics

The story of Resonance is at its core a mystery involving four characters and one scientific discovery that might or might not be linked to the end of the world.

But this is just the surface of the experience and Resonance is actually a game about humanity and the various ways that our past and our memories, warped or correct, are able to change our view of the present and influence our actions.

The four main characters, each slickly introduced in a sort of prologue, are Ed, a research assistant that knows his way around complex equations; Anna, a doctor with monsters on her mind; Ray, a truth-seeking journalist; and Bennet, the detective that’s always ready to get his man by ignoring orders and rules.

The player initially controls only one of them, but soon the whole gang meets up and switching allows gamers to move from one to another as he tries to explore the game areas and then solve the puzzles blocking the progress towards finding out the game’s mystery.

One impressive feature of Resonance that classic adventure games lack is the rewind mechanics, which deals with the player’s failure by simply dropping some VHS-like lines on the screen and then taking everything back to the beginning, maybe allowing a gamer to spot where he might try and do something different.

The unique mechanic of Resonance is that standard inventory items are joined by Short Term and Long Term Memory.



The second one refers to those interactions and events that one character will remember for the rest of the game and can talk about with other characters in order to get extra clues about their current situation.

Short Term Memory is linked to anything that’s in the current scene and can be manipulated, and again this creates talking.

Once you play a few hours of Resonance, the game even manages to impress with its visuals, because regardless of the low quality, there’s a certain charm to the style that was used. Moreover, the characters managed to be expressive most of the time despite their limited pixel count.

The game is not fully voiced over, but when the protagonists speak, they are believable and interesting. Yet, the other sounds can seem a little out of place, as if they arrive just a couple of moments after they are supposed to.

Adventure game lovers will also appreciate the fact that the game’s soundtrack changes subtly depending on the area, with the highlight for me being the muzak of the hospital.

Resonance is a good game overall, despite the clearly limited resources that were available to the team creating it, but I am not sure whether it will be able to find a large enough audience to keep its developers satisfied.

It has a strong story, although it might take a little too long to reach the best parts, and solid mechanics offers the kind of experience that is all but non-existent in today’s AAA gaming space.

Resonance can be downloaded from the official page of Wadjeteye Games, via Green Game Gaming or Steam and there’s also an option to get a physical Collector’s Boxed Edition 5 that includes a poster and other extras.